Paper Hearts

THEN: Chapter 1

Eight Years Earlier

"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere; I want it more than I can tell...but for once it might be grand, to have someone understand...I want so much more than they've got planned" - Beauty and the Beast

Eden:

When I told my school advisor that I wanted to study Psychology for A-Level if I pass my exams, I didn't quite expect her to give me Summer homework. Nor did I expect that this Summer homework would be a questionnaire so in-depth that it would probably give my new teachers ammunition to psychoanalyse me every day for the next two years of my life. 

I looked at the question in disdain. I was slightly offended, if I'm honest. 

What is your heart's desire?

I wondered if it might be acceptable to just lie and say I didn't know. But of course I knew; of course I'd known for some time by then what my heart's desire was, but at that point I'd resigned myself to never getting it. 

Resigning myself also to the fact that whoever my new teacher was would probably consider me a soppy romantic for the rest of my school life, I picked up my pen and wrote;

My heart's desire has always been to have an adventure - possibly because I read so many books! To have an adventure, preferably one that involves love, would, I think, make me happy.

I rolled my eyes and pushed the sheet to one side. If I'd have been my teacher, upon reading that I would probably have puked.

Ollie:

"Don't be a stranger!" Kieran gripped me in a brief hug that I hoped, for the benefit of the people on the station platform, looked at least vaguely manly, "You can always come and visit, me Mam loves having you around"

I grinned. The thing I always missed most about Kieran during our times of separation was the chirpy nature of his Irish accent - that, and the fact that he was always trying to include me in his family because he knew I had none of my own. 

"I might take you up on that" I warned, but he looked pleased at the thought.

"Do, Home always feels a little but boring after everything we get into normally"

I laughed, and the last call came for the train that would, thank God, take me from Surrey back to my London home. As I walked towards the doors, I was treated to one more farewell from my best friend of four years;

"And get yourself a girl, for God's sake! You need a good sh-"

I pressed the button to shut the doors before he could finish the sentence but, unfortunately, everyone else on the train seemed to have caught his drift. I could feel my face warming as they looked at me, some curiously, some even slightly pityingly, which was embarrassing in itself. 

I shuffled down the aisle quickly, head down, but when I reached my seat I was treated to a sight that made me laugh all over again. Kieran, clearly determined to get his message across, was making gestures that meant no-one on the train could fail to grasp the fact that I hadn't had sex in a while. And suddenly I was laughing, laughing like I hadn't done in a long time, and I didn't care who saw me.

I waved at Kieran until the train turned a corner and he disappeared out of sight.