Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkins

Author:Jacqueline Firkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books

Chapter Twenty

* * *

In the days that followed the commencement of Edie’s unlikely friendship with Henry, she started her job and caught up on her homework. She also wrote three more discardable essays: one about Catherine the Great, one about Catherine de’ Medici, and one about a woman named Catherine who busked by the Burger Barn back in Ithaca. Meanwhile, Julia was glum. Maria was aloof. Claire was polite but terse. She avoided Edie in the halls. She switched seats in any classes where she was previously only a desk away. She used the lunch hour to gloat about Sebastian: their amazing night last Saturday, the romantic getaway they planned after graduation, and the condo she was going to help him furnish in New York, where they’d be all cozy together on weekends. The girls cooed and sighed, goading her on, but Edie suspected Claire’s stories weren’t just an attempt to share her joy or entertain her friends. She was staking her claim.

Without kissing anyone, Edie had managed to upset three girls. This might’ve given her good reason to steer clear of both Sebastian and Henry for a while, but it had the opposite effect. Edie felt even more isolated and therefore even more desperate for a friend. At that particular juncture, only two people were volunteering for the position.

Thus Edie found herself on Friday afternoon in Sebastian’s bedroom, scanning his shelves for books to borrow while he sat cross-legged on his bed in a loose pair of linen shorts and a Yale T-shirt Tom had given him before getting expelled. The room was large but bland, with simple, modern furniture and an almost oppressive amount of navy blue. Neatly organized bookshelves lined one wall while a trio of sailboat photos hung above the bed on the other side of the room. When asked, Sebastian confessed that his mom hung the photos about five years ago. She thought he was into sailing because he had a toy boat as a kid. He didn’t want to disappoint her so he left the pictures up. Sensing a theme in his life, Edie dropped the subject there.

They continued to chat while Edie picked out a few books. Sebastian noted that he and his parents had been looking at condos near Washington Square. Edie talked about how much she enjoyed her new job. She pulled out an old hardback copy of Adam Bede and stared at the cover, wondering why the title was jarring her. Then she remembered it was the George Eliot novel she’d quoted on her first day back in Mansfield. As she removed it from the shelf, ready to ask Sebastian about it, a chunk of papers slipped out with the book, folded in half and stapled together. She unfolded it and read the front page: The Safety of Boxes, by Sebastian Summers. In the top corner was a handwritten note that said, Submit this, followed by a few lines of illegible scribbles and an A+.

“What’s this?” Edie returned the book and held up the paper.

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