Free The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder

in my hands. “You know, this whole evening is a mistake. I don’t know what to wear; I hate parties; I nearly killed Eph. We should have gone to Coney Island.”
    â€œToo late,” Eph said. “Besides, I only saw stars for like four seconds. It’s probably only a minor concussion.”
    â€œWait, what’d you say?” Audrey asked him.
    â€œOnly a minor concussion?”
    â€œNo, before that.”
    â€œIt was an accident, I only saw stars—”
    â€œThat’s it!” Audrey yelled.
    Eph and I flinched.
    â€œPen, does your mom still put those little gold stickers on the papers she grades?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œGet them!” Audrey said. She checked her watch and frowned. “I have to leave in like five minutes. I’ll meet you in the bathroom.” She started digging through my dresser, held a navy tank up, frowned, and discarded it on the floor.
    I checked Eph to make sure we were okay, and he spun his finger, making a cuckoo motion in Audrey’s direction.
    â€œGo, go, go, Pen!” she shouted over her shoulder.
    I burst out into the hall and halfway down the steps, yelling over the banister, “Mom, can I borrow some of your teaching supplies?”
    Once I had a packet of stickers, Audrey met me at the bathroom door. She shoved my black boatneck pocket tee, short pleated black skirt, black tights, and maroon-but-so-beat-up-they-were-practically-black Docs into my arms, while somehow pulling her jacket on at the same time.
    â€œHere’s what you’re going to do,” she said, grabbing the stickers and starting to put them over the skirt.
    â€œCan’t you stay a little longer?”
    â€œI wish I could! I told Cherisse I’d head over with her. But you can do this.”
    She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
    â€œYou’re the best ever, Vivien,” I said to her.
    â€œYou’re the best Everest, Delphine,” she replied.
    We hooked pinkies before she ran out the door, yelling, “See you at the party, Eph!”
    Fifteen minutes later I emerged. Eph was sitting up on my bed, drawing, and from where I was standing in the doorway, I could tell he was working on one of his dinosaur cityscapes.
    â€œEph?” I asked.
    He looked up from his drawing, his eyes going wide.
    Picking up where Audrey left off, I had stuck gold and silver star stickers all over me. Stars on my boots, a few stars on my cheek, stars over my heart. I was covered in constellations, like Eph’s and my ceilings. I had three stars in a row on my sleeve, like the frecklesacross his nose, like backup. My hair was twisted up into crazy knots with sparkly bobby pins.
    â€œThe planetarium?”
    â€œOr the Milky Way. Or Van Gogh’s Starry Night . It’s an infinite number of costumes,” I said.
    He nodded appreciatively, shutting his notebook and offering me his arm.

New York City subway token
    New York City subway tessera
    New York, New York
    Cat. No. 201X-8
    Gift of Ephraim O’Connor
    I SHOULD HAVE ENJOYED THE journey to Keats’s West Village brownstone. I was going to a party, a party thrown by the potential love of my life. Several people, not counting the man on the corner muttering to himself about pork rinds, had already stopped to compliment me on my costume. Eph was in a good mood, chattering most of the way there about comic books and skateboard decks, and when we got out at West Fourth Street—“Holy crap, check out the moon!” And the moon was luminous: big and oddly, precisely circular, like it was a space hole-punched out of the sky. People in sweaters and boots were smiling pleasantly around us, all the frustration of the summer humidity suddenly forgotten.
    Like I said, I should have enjoyed it.
    The climate inside my head, though, was distinctly terrible.
    My lip gloss was tingling unpleasantly, and I was pretty sure I was having an allergic reaction and would end up