Page 65 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
Chloe scooped up the paper rose and sat down, the anticipation trilling through her veins. Who was it who kept writing to her? And how did the flowers keep finding their way back and forth? She wondered if there was something particular about this correspondence that made it happen, or if it was just because this person was the only one who thought to write back.
She remembered what the first rose—still safe at home on her desk—had said.
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.
Chloe unfolded the new flower gingerly in her lap. He had, indeed, responded:
I can’t promise that wishes always come true. But I believe they can, and I would be willing to bet my heart on that—because if there is anything worth wishing for, it’s a happily ever after.
That’s a wager I can’t match. My heart is too scarred for happily ever afters. I think a lot of people’s are.
Chloe bit her lip. After the roller coaster of emotions she’d been through in the last fifteen hours, she didn’t have it in her to be as chipper as normal. But she wanted to write back. Whoever this was, she didn’t want to lose their momentum.
She reached into her purse for a fresh square of yellow paper—another identical, gold-foil-striped one—and wrote the only truth she could think of:
Happiness and love can be confusing and terrifying things.
She signed it with her signature heart rosebud, then folded the origami. When Chloe reached her stop, she left the new, third paper flower on the seat and took the other one home, to keep on her desk with the first.
Oliver
Unsurprisingly, Oliver hadn’t slept much after the gala. Also unsurprising was that Julie had indeed uploaded the video of him and Zac’s brief rooftop fight onto the Hawthorne Drake Slack chat. He wasn’t tagged on the original thread, but that didn’t stop the video from going viral within the company, and Oliver had been tagged in plenty of comments after that. The real shocker was that Puja hadn’t emailed him yet to schedule a call about it. Maybe his boss did a better job of work-life balance on the weekends than he did; it was possible she hadn’t logged on and seen the video. Even if people had talked about it at the gala, that gossip might not have gotten as far up the chain as the executives at Puja’s level.
It would soon, though.
Thankfully, Oliver didn’t have to be in the office this week. The Neo Fintech Conference in Washington, D.C., started tomorrow, so he planned to fly down later today. And then after the conference was over, he’d spend a couple days in Virginia with his dad and Ben, Elsa, and the twins.
Oliver packed his suitcase, making sure to throw in a couple of casual outfits that could withstand Noah and Davy’s sticky syrup-covered fingers, an inevitability because Ben liked to whip up a huge breakfast for the family before he headed to his restaurant. Oliver’s stomach growled even thinking about it. Maybe Ben would make his famous cinnamon-peach pancakes; since it was peak peach season, the chances seemed pretty good.
Chloe would like those pancakes,Oliver thought as he tossed his bag of toiletries into the suitcase. During their summers in Kansas, she’d never been able to get enough peach cobbler and peach cake. And it was a given that the Ice Creamery would have Peachy Keen on their menu through all of July and August. Another flavor devised by Chloe and Oliver, it waspeach ice cream with a ribbon of peach jam and lots and lots of chunks of peach pie.
At the thought of her, he checked his phone again. Last night, she’d said she needed time to think, and while Oliver was more than willing to give whatever space she needed, he also kept hoping that she’d text or call him sooner rather than later. He had his ringer on and had triple-confirmed that his notifications were on, too, but so far this morning, the only chimes on his phone had been from the company Slack chat about that godforsaken video.
He looked at his phone again now, just to check for Chloe.
Nothing new.
Maybe she’s getting a late start?he tried to convince himself.
But deep down, he knew her hesitation could very well be that she had decided to break things off with him—or at the very least, back off to platonic friendship—and she was trying to figure out how to tell Oliver they were done.
A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he had to brace himself against the dresser for a minute before it subsided into a low but constant tide in the background. Not bad enough to keep him from functioning, but still ever present so he couldn’t forget.
His phone rang, and Oliver startled and dropped it on the floor. He scrambled to pick it up and instead knocked it under the bed, where it slid so far, it caromed off the wall.
“Dammit!”
Oliver plastered himself flat on the ground and stretched his arm as far as it could go, but it wasn’t enough. The phone was dead center beneath the king-size bed.
He ran to his closet for a hanger. But by the time he got back to the floor and had swept the phone toward him, it had stopped ringing.
Breathless, he checked the list of missed calls.
