Paper Hearts

THEN: Chapter 16

“If I knew words enough, I could write the longest love letter in the world and never get tired” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Eden:

The days dragged.

Each day lingered, the sun never seemed to want to set; it clung to the daytime like a child clings to its mother’s hand. And even when it did finally leave and the night did come, missing him didn’t just stop. Maybe it even got worse. At least during the day I could run to check the post in the morning, I could laugh with my friends, I had work to concentrate on – homework to do, essays to plan, books to read. But at night, if I couldn’t sleep – which I often couldn’t – there was nothing to do but think about him and how much I missed him. I’d read his latest letter over and over; if I was having a really bad night, I’d maybe read all the old letters too. Sometimes I just used to turn my wrist so that each of the charms on my bracelet caught the light in its turn, and I’d watch them gleam and think not of the stories they represented, but the man who had bought them for me.

So yes, you might say it was hard.

The letters didn’t come often enough. We wrote as soon as we received a letter from the other but it was just never enough, and neither were the phone calls, which came once a week if we were lucky. The Skype calls had to be scheduled but Ollie often had to cancel and I’d just sit there, looking at the screen, hoping he’d pop up even though I knew he wouldn’t.

My seventeenth birthday fell in mid-February, and this was a day when a Skype call, or at the very least a phone call, had been promised to me. I spent the whole day dreading that he’d let me down, but he didn’t – at six in the evening, GMT, his image was there on my laptop screen, grinning at me, making me almost tearful with joy.

“Ollie, I – “

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR EDEN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”

I screeched with delighted laughter as Ollie was suddenly surrounded by Kieran, Dan, Ralph, Josh and Will, all wearing paper hats that they’d gotten from God knows where, and all singing raucously at me from halfway across the world. I wondered if they might be a little drunk, but they seemed perfectly sober, and were all beaming.

“Guys! Thank you so much, that was so...oh, thank you!” I really did feel tearful then, and had to blink rapidly. Ollie’s grin grew.

“Good surprise?”

“The best” I smiled back, “Well, almost the best. You’re all so sweet!”

“Sweet?” Kieran grimaced, screwed up his nose, “I’ve never been called sweet in my life”

“Neither have I” frowned Josh.

“Can’t say I like it much” Will grumbled.

“Even I’m not keen” Dan agreed warily.

“GUYS!” Ollie yelped, elbowing Will in the chest, “Come on, you’ve done your bit. Leave me alone to wish my girlfriend a happy birthday”

Kieran’s face lit up, “Are you going to have Skype sex?”

“No! How does that even w – no, I don’t want to know. Scoot” Ollie made flapping motions at them and, with much grumbling, they all withdrew. Ollie waited for a moment before speaking again, until a door clicked in the background.

“Happy birthday, Ede”

I smiled at him, “Thank you. And that was a really nice surprise”

“I thought you’d like it. Did you get my gift? I’ll get you something else when I’m back on leave, I needed to be able to post it-“

“Yes, I got it” I held up my wrist and showed him the sparkling green gem that hung from it, “Gatsby’s green light, am I correct?”