Read Online The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder - Free Book Online

to his party.
    I wanted to hug the acne-ridden freshman passing by; I wanted to dance with the football dude laughing at a dirty joke across the hall. I wanted to burst into a full musical number, complete with a choir of singing unicorns and my cat, Ford, tap-dancing across the hall with a top hat and a cane. I wanted to kiss a baby on the cheek, draw chalk tulips on the sidewalk, and buy grape Popsicles for everyone in the city of New York.
    Keats invited me to his party!
    My veins were filled with tiny carbonated bubbles, joyfully rising, making my throat tickle not unpleasantly. I wondered how he knew where my locker was. I wonder if he’d asked Audrey or Eph.
    Shoot.
    Eph.
    Saturday.
    Coney Island.
    But Eph would understand; he’d have to. We’d been to Coney Island a few times already during the summer. And when I told him how much this meant to me, how fate was finally giving me a chance, he’d get it. In fact—stroke of genius—why not bring him? The invitation called for a plus one. Problem solved! Everything was turning up roses. Acres of roses without thorns, the smell so heady it made me dizzy.
    I sprinted to Eph’s locker, hoping to catch him before he left for the day.
    When I rounded the corner, I skidded to a stop.
    A tiny girl with white-blond dreadlocks and clunky steel-toed combat boots was standing across from him, pointing aggressively at his chest. “You knew I wanted to go to that!” She stopped and saw me,folded her arms defensively in front of her. “Is this her?”
    â€œOh, sorry,” I said, backing up, raising my hands in front of me.
    Eph was leaning against his locker, his slouch a mix of irritated and resigned.
    â€œAutumn,” he said. “There is no her .”
    The girl was still shooting me a stink eye, but her eyes were also welling up. I remembered meeting her briefly in Central Park a few weeks ago, how she was sitting in Eph’s lap, her legs tangled in his, her laugh like bells. Now she looked both furious and broken, wiping her sleeve across her face.
    â€œI’ll leave,” I said quickly.
    â€œWe’re pretty much done here anyway,” Eph said wearily.
    She whirled back around, trying to stifle a sob. “You don’t know a good thing when you see it, Ephraim O’Connor. And one of these days, you’re going to end up”—and here she pointed at him with each word, like she was holding a sword—“totally fucking alone.”
    She picked up her backpack and hugged it to her chest.
    â€œAutumn,” Eph said, trying pull her back toward him.
    â€œDon’t fucking touch me!” she shrieked, and I cringed; people around us were stopping to watch. She pushed her way through them, and everyone started to move again like nothing had been going on.
    I waited for Eph to say something.
    â€œWell, that could have gone better,” he said dryly, resignation on his face, his jaw jutting out stubbornly.
    â€œI’m guessing Macbeth wasn’t a hit,” I said lightly.
    He shrugged, turning to his locker and starting to slide books in his bag.
    â€œDo you want to talk about—”
    â€œNo fucking way,” he said, shutting his locker and sliding his bag onto his shoulder. “What’s up with you?”
    To say that Eph is bad at showing his emotions is an understatement. His heart is pretty much a quadruple-locked vault encased in concrete dropped in the part of the ocean where all the blind bug-eyed monsters live. At that second he had this awful grimace on his face, like he was trying to forcefully pretend the entire moment out of ever existing.
    It reminded me of the expression on his face when I found his dinosaur notebook.
    I wanted to ask, Are you okay? and Why do you always break girls’ hearts?
    I wanted to say, You don’t know how lucky you are.
    I wanted to say, I don’t want you to end up alone.
    I wanted to say, Tell me about the