Page 2 of Story Of My Heart

The public rejection is too sudden, too harsh.

“Look, he actually brought a gift! What a loser!” another voice chimes in from the back, the group erupting in cruel laughter. Then the boy steps forward and punts the present out into the front yard.

Jamie steps forward, jabbing a finger toward the street. “I said leave!” he barks, eyes flashing with anger.

Behind him, his mother appears, her expression stern. “You better go, young man. Don’t even try to ruin my son’s party,” she says, echoing Jamie’s disdain. Her words, meant to be the final shove, push me from paralyzed to retreat.

I turn, the laughter and taunting escorting me out, each step away from the door a heavy echo of my crushed hopes.

As I stumble away, the harsh laughter follows me like a shadow, each cackle a sharp jab to my already bruised ego. Picking up the unwanted gift, I press the colorful wrapping paper to my chest. Then I quicken my pace, eager to escape the piercing gaze of my tormentors. The cold air bites at my cheeks, the heat of humiliation burning within me. My vision blurs slightly—whether from tears or the speed of my retreat, I can’t tell. A part of me wants to hurl the gift into the bushes, to discard this symbol of rejection, but I can’t bring myself to let it go. It’s the only thing I have left of the hope I carried so carefully to that door.

The laughter and taunts finally fade as I put distance between myself and the party, but the echo lingers in my ears. With each step, the weight of loneliness and rejection settles deeper into my chest. When I reach the relative safety of an empty street, I allow myself a moment to lean against a tree, closing my eyes to steady my breathing. I can’t go through this again. Never again.

“You’re better off alone, Tate,” I whisper to myself, a vow to avoid such painful situations in the future. “There’s no such thing as friendship.”

As I continue my solitary walk home, the shadows lengthen and the evening chill deepens, mirroring the cold emptiness inside me. Heaving in a few lungfuls of air, I struggle to keep the burgeoning sobs at bay. The humiliation at Jamie’s doorstep replays in my mind, each sneer and shout a fresh wound to my spirit. By the time I reach my house, the dam breaks, and silent tears stream down my face, unchecked.

Ignoring my mom and my older brother, Ledger, I slip inside, hiding the unopened gift under my bed—a bitter treasure trove of broken dreams and a stark reminder of why I must always guard my heart.

That memory always seems to resurface at the worse times, allowing emotions long since buried to bubble up again. Pushing those pesky feelings to the back of my mind, I grope for the most familiar thing I can think of, the one thing in my life that never changes. The call rings three times before she answers. Odd. She usually gets to it in two. Four rings and I would consider calling the police and sending out a search party.

“Come here.”

“Do I look like a dog to you?” Piper grumbles from the other end of the line. “Scratch that, I think dogs get more pleasantries than I just did.”

“Piperrr,” I whine, dragging out the final consonant. “Did I not have a custom elevator built in, connecting my place to yours, so you could come right on up to the next floor without having to even leave the apartment, thus avoiding all potential stranger danger or—what was it? Mrs. Gundersen and her toy poodle?”

“His name is Johan, and he hates me. Seven pounds of pure snow-white spite.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” I insist, spinning idly in my seat. Her arguments are just a formality. She’s never not done what I asked. And for a man who doesn’t like being in a state of ‘not knowing’, I can appreciate the predictability of our relationship. “Come on.”

Sometimes, I wonder if the predictability is just a guise, a way for me to keep Piper close without admitting how much her presence actually means. There’s a comfort in her proximity, a sort of warmth that doesn’t fit the usual calculations of my day-to-day interactions. Maybe it’s always been there, this faint, stubborn line of thought that refuses to see Piper just as an assistant. After all, we met back when she was working on her thesis and she needed to interview someone under the guise of research. Something awakened inside of me the first time I looked into her eyes. Like she cracked me open and I became more than a nerdy middle child with more money than sense.

Before I can make a full rotation in my chair, the private elevator dings, and Piper traipses through the living area and over to my refrigerator. As she approaches, with that look that’s part skepticism and part amusement, it strikes me—maybe it’s not just convenience that I seek from her constancy, but something akin to connection, however undefined it may remain.

I need her. Even though I probably couldn’t articulate why if my life depended on it.

She grabs a Perrier and cracks it open, before sitting down on the sofa nearest the desk. “What do you need, boss?”

Standing with a stretch, I begin my usual pacing around the sofa and coffee table. Coffee table is an understatement. It was another one of the designer’s suggestions. The thing cost over ten grand and boasts a marble top so heavy it takes multiple grown men to move it. I’ve walked into it on two separate occasions, bumbling around with the intention of making coffee in the middle of the night, and both times I saw stars. At least it’s solid, I’ll give it that.

“I’m in need of a distraction. Let’s go do billionaire-y things,” I muse, trying to put an excitement in my voice that isn’t quite forthcoming. Picking up one of the stray magazines that Piper lays around the apartment to try and make me look cultured and like I have a “human personality”, I flip through the pages for some inkling of what to do.

“Finally.” Piper’s eyes light up behind her glasses, leaning forward to grab the magazine next to mine. “So… we’re going to catch a private plane to Paris for dinner? I do love freshly baked croissants.”

“No.” I hate French cuisine. Piper should know this. Maybe she’s just playing with me.

“You’re taking me to Fiji,” she offers with a smirk. “It’s the overwater bungalow pics I’ve been sending, right?”

I hate swimming in the ocean. Sharks. Stingrays. Jellyfish. She’s definitely playing with me now. “Wrong.”

She tosses the magazine back down onto the table with a frown and a long-suffering sigh, melting back into the couch cushions. “Then what?”

I turn a few more pages. There’s a spread on cycling (too sweaty), ice fishing (too cold), and one about the Mall of America (tacky and overdone.) Then, there’s this beautiful shoot of some men on horseback, calmly picking their way across a trail somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Perfect.

“Horseback riding. I should learn. Maybe buy a few.” I know a few people who own horses. It seems nice. True, they’re all race horses. And they pay other people to board them, train them, feed them, ride them, and they maybe touch them once a year with their bare hands. But it still seems nice. More importantly, it seems like a rich man’s game.

And I wanna play.

---