Page 47 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Chloe

The next morning, Chloe felt even worse than she had the night before.

She’d hardly slept, instead tossing and turning in bed as she replayed the gala and what she’d done.

Being with Oliver on the rooftop had felt like destiny, but in the moments afterward, Chloe had seen it for what it truly was—selfishness hiding behind the excuse of fate.

On Oliver’s part, because he’d lied—by omission—to her.

And on her part, because she’d been unwilling to let go of a very old dream.

She needed to go to Zac’s apartment and apologize. He had invited her to the gala, and her behavior was nothing short of disrespectful and, honestly, mortifying. When had she become the kind of person who would dance with another man while waiting for a different date to arrive?

And yet, Chloe knew deep down that there was more to it than that.

She and Oliver had a history, and it was unfinished.

Just like when they were teenagers, his touch during their dance and on the roof had been so tender, the underlying yearning delicate, rather than sharp.

It was the opposite of how Zac touched her, all urgent unslaked hunger. Not better… just different.

But with Oliver, the more was that it wasn’t only about one dance.

It was about the years of longing ever since Chloe fell in love with him at age twelve.

It was about the other boys she’d tried to date in school to distract her from the one she wanted, who didn’t see her in the same light.

Last night was about that moment during sophomore year when, finally, Oliver had kissed her.

And about the sixteen years that had passed since then.

It was possibly the beginning—or the end—of what they’d started way back when.

“That doesn’t make it okay that I was an asshole to Zac,” Chloe said to herself as she put on her robe and headed to the shower.

As she stepped into the bathroom, though, Becca popped her head out of her bedroom.

“Hey! It’s still my turn!” Becca pointed at the who-can-shower-when schedule pinned to the bathroom door. Sometimes it really did feel like they were bickering tween sisters rather than grown thirtysomethings.

Chloe sighed. There were technically still twenty minutes in Becca’s Sunday-morning time slot. “Can we make an exception?” Chloe asked. “I messed things up with Zac last night, and I need to go over there and fix it.”

“Oh.” Becca’s fighting stance melted away. “Yeah, okay. Do what you need to do. I know I didn’t start out being, like, the biggest fan of his, but recently… well, he’s been there for you, trying to help you with the origami thing. So I hope you two are okay.”

“Hey,” Chloe said quietly when Zac opened his apartment door.

“Hullo.” He stepped aside and let her in but wouldn’t meet her eyes. For once, he wasn’t spending a weekend morning working out or at the office. Instead, Zac had bedhead and was still in a T-shirt and plaid pajama pants.

“I brought you breakfast.” Chloe held up a cup with a double shot of espresso and a large bag from Giovanni’s Croissants when Zac gifted things to Chloe, be it expensive sushi dinners or jewelry, it didn’t feel extravagant to him.

He just had a lot more money and a higher standard of luxury than Chloe; those things were merely “normal” to him.

They settled on the couch, but with an entire sofa cushion empty between them. Zac held his espresso in his hands but didn’t drink. From the bags under his eyes, it looked like he hadn’t slept, either.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said. “Really sorry about last night.”

Zac laughed humorlessly. “Sorry for what? Because it turns out, you never actually told me what happened. But obviously something did.”

Chloe’s chest tightened. She wanted to come clean, but she also didn’t want to lose Zac.

Maybe it wasn’t fair trying to have both him and Oliver, but she wasn’t ready to choose.

Zac had wined and dined Chloe for the past couple months, and he did seem to care.

Oliver, on the other hand, may have been her first love, but Chloe was still barely getting to know him again.

Whatever had happened in the intervening years he kept behind a heavily locked door, and it was too early to ascertain if he was still the same man her Oliver had once been.

And then there was the reality that Zac and Oliver had to work together.

Individually, they were good people, but they were both alphas, and Chloe didn’t need an MBA to see why the two didn’t get along at the office.

Zac felt like he’d put in his years at Hawthorne Drake and Oliver, a newcomer, was swooping in to steal everything.

Yet, to Oliver, he’d been hired to do a certain job but gotten ambushed on day one by a very territorial Zac.

If Chloe confessed that she had wanted to kiss Oliver, full-out war would break out on the thirty-second floor of Hawthorne Drake, and that could be disastrous to both Zac’s and Oliver’s careers.

“Oliver and I grew up together,” she said carefully. “We were so close, we might as well have been physically attached. It was hard to find one of us without the other. We were just friends for nearly a decade… In tenth grade, though, we became something more.”

Zac set his espresso down on the coffee table a bit too hard, and some of it splashed up through the hole in the lid. He didn’t bother cleaning it up, just sat back on the sofa with his arms crossed tightly. “That was a long time ago. But go on.”

Chloe bit her lip. “Oliver was my first crush. I’d loved him already for several years when he finally seemed to realize it. But our ‘relationship’—if you can even call it that—was very short. His family left Kansas one day later, and then Oliver and I lost touch.”

“It didn’t look like you had lost touch on the rooftop.”

Chloe noticed she was twisting the fabric of her skirt with her hands, and she clasped them to try to still her nerves.

“We reconnected quite recently. I’m not going to lie, there’s still chemistry between us.”

Zac shook his head, jaw clenched so tight, the muscles in his neck stood out. “So,” he said, through gritted teeth, “what exactly did I interrupt last night?”

“Nothing happened,” Chloe said, forcing herself to look him in the eyes as she decided which parts to share and which to skip. Her chest got tighter, and it was difficult to even squeeze out the words. “It was a moment. A charged moment, but… that’s it.”

Zac looked away. He got up from the couch and started pacing along the bank of windows, his footsteps forceful, unlike the usual lightness with which he ran.

“I know I’m not your boyfriend and we’re allowed to date other people if we want, so I have limited right to be angry—”

“ You invited me to the gala, Zac. You get to be mad.”

He let out a long, pained exhale. “Couldn’t it have been anyone other than Oliver Jones? Do you know how bloody condescending he is at work? Just because he can do things with numbers in his head that the rest of us need complex spreadsheets for, doesn’t mean he gets to make us feel stupid.”

Chloe didn’t know if Oliver really was condescending at work, but she could understand why Zac might feel that way.

Numbers had always been ridiculously easy for Oliver.

Chloe remembered a story his dad had told about a parent-teacher conference in first grade, where the school’s math specialist had sat down and opened up her fist to reveal a handful of pinto beans.

“How many do you see?” Ms. Simmons had asked.

Mr. Jones counted them one by one. “Seventeen.”

Ms. Simmons nodded. “It took you five or so seconds to count them out, which is what almost everyone has to do. Most people can’t recognize anything higher than five or six beans at a glance.

But when I did the same thing with Oliver, he told me instantly that there were seventeen.

He didn’t count, he automatically knew. And he did it again and again, with different handfuls of beans.

Your son sees numbers—mathematical patterns—where ordinary people don’t.

It might seem unremarkable to you right now, Mr. Jones, but you wait and see as he gets older.

I would not be surprised if Oliver has the IQ of a genius. ”

Chloe had been there as that genius became more and more apparent over the years. And the thing was, Oliver didn’t mean to show off. Math was just so effortless for him. It was like being born a Pegasus among horses; Oliver sometimes simply forgot that not everyone else could fly.

“I can’t ask you to forgive me, Zac. But I am really sorry. And I understand if it’s over between us.”

He leaned his forehead against the bookshelf and closed his eyes.

“I don’t want it to be, Chloe. I admit I was upset—still am—but I like you a lot, and…” Zac looked up at her. “I want the chance to be the one you choose. Even if it means I have to compete against Oliver both in and outside the office.”

Chloe got up from the couch, walked over, and hugged him. “It’s not a competition, though, is it? We’re all just trying to find that person who fits with us best. But thank you for your grace. I don’t deserve it, but I appreciate it.”

Zac held her for a minute.

“Well, competition or not,” he said, “a surprise for you showed up this morning. It was something I’d been working on last week.”

She tilted her head in question.

“The New York Times called. They want to send a reporter and photographer to interview you and take pictures of your paper roses.”

Chloe jolted out of Zac’s arms. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re doing something great, and you should let it be celebrated.” He frowned. “We talked about this. About how important it is to make sure your accomplishments are recognized? And how your project could be a springboard to something better?”

Something better . There it was again, Zac’s ambition. It was what drove him, so he viewed the world through that lens. But that wasn’t what motivated Chloe. For her, the paper roses were enough, just as they were. She didn’t need them to be bigger, or to lead to anything else.

But she had wounded Zac last night, and here he was, forgiving her and offering her a gift at the same time. It might not be something she wanted, but she certainly wasn’t going to throw his gift back in his face. Especially after stealing away to a rooftop with his enemy.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling him close again for another hug.

“Is that a yes?” Zac asked. “You’ll do the interview?”

She nodded into his T-shirt, into this thoughtful soul who didn’t quite understand her but wanted so badly to help and make her happy.

“Yes,” Chloe said. “Set it up and tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”

When she got on the subway later, there was one seat available.

On it was a yellow paper rose—made from gold-foil-striped paper. Chloe gasped. Could it be? The new one she’d written for her mystery pen pal, now come back to her?

“Is this… yours?” she asked the men sitting on either side of the seat. The first shook his head; the second barely glanced up before returning to his crossword puzzle.

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.