Page 40 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
And now, in that long, suspended moment between breaths, he saw that something more in Chloe’s gaze.
He leaned across her bed, across the field of candy grams, and reached out to cup her face.
“Oliver,” she breathed. But she didn’t move away, only met his eyes with a reflection of the same hope and fear that rattled inside him, that they might be going down a path from which they could never recover.
He brushed her bangs from the freckles on her cheek and held them to her temple with his thumb.
“I really do love you,” he said softly.
And then he brushed his lips against hers, a whisper they could melt into, because even though he’d never kissed anyone before, he knew this first one mattered, that they were remaking themselves—still Clover, but also a sum greater than their two parts.
“Tell me we can be like this forever,” Chloe said, her mouth so close, he could feel her words against his skin.
“We can be like this forever,” he said.
But it was the only kiss they would ever get.
Chloe
Chloe had one of those alarms that slowly brightened the room ten minutes before you were supposed to wake up. She had read that it mimicked the sunrise and therefore allowed your body to rouse more naturally, rather than all at once to a blaring siren blast. It usually worked well.
Unless she happened to be face-to-face with the alarm clock when the light flicked on. Then it might as well be an industrial floodlight beaming straight at her eyes.
“Ah! I’m awake, I’m awake!” Chloe said, because today was one of those mornings where she’d unfortunately ended up in the exact wrong position. She scrunched her eyes closed and fumbled for the button to dim the alarm’s light, knocking off the stack of books on her nightstand in the process.
Still, Chloe groaned when dimness had been restored to her room, and she flopped back into bed, rolling over so she could curl up away from the offendingly bright clock.
Her face smooshed against a piece of paper.
“Mrph…” Chloe plucked it from the pillow. It was a yellow paper rose, but not a crisp new one. This one was soft from wear, its surface a little fuzzy from being touched a lot, almost like a piece of paper that had gone through the wash. Maybe it had, tucked away in someone’s pocket and then air-dried.
No, wait… Is that a ketchup stain?
“Ew!” Chloe threw the origami flower onto the carpet.
But a few seconds later, she crawled to the edge of her bed and looked over the side. This wasn’t just any paper rose; it was the one with gold foil stripes that had come back to her before.
“How…?”
She was fully awake now, and she swooped her arm down to pick theflower back up. Chloe avoided touching the ketchup stain as she unfolded it. Indeed, it contained the previous messages.
Sometimes wishing can make a dream come true.
I guarantee it ABSOLUTELY does not.
I respectfully disagree, and I’m willing to bet you on it.
Name your wager. Because the odds are against you.
“It’s the same person who wrote the first message,” she said in awe. The ink was different, but the handwriting was the same. It was like having a cynical pen pal, but with origami flowers instead of regular stationery and pen.
But how was this happening? All the other roses behaved as you would expect paper to behave. They got passed hand to hand; they didn’t just up and travel on their own.
Oh god. Unless this person had gotten into the apartment.
Chloe dropped the paper rose again and rolled across the mattress, away from it. The first time this flower had come back to her, it was on the kitchen table. And this time, it had been in her bed.
She hugged her knees to her chest, shaking. What kind of awful, depraved person would do this? And was it someone she knew, someone who had been by the tables in Central Park and seen her, and then what? Followed her home?
