Three Paper Hearts

Chapter One

My nails were freshly painted, I was squeaky clean from my shower, my hair looked nice and bouncy, my fringe was agreeing with me and I was dressed in my newly acquired purple skinny jeans with my coffee-stained coloured t-shirt that had a big print of a horse on it. Matched with my slightly scuffed black high-tops, smiley-face studs and pink clip in my fair, I reckoned I looked pretty good.

            But still, as I sat on the doorstep outside of the house, I was eating away at my lipgloss. Of course I was nervous. I had been nervous all day.

            I was sitting out on the front step because though I had told my parents I was going out with a friend, I hadn’t decided to elaborate and say who the friend was, let alone if it was a girl or a guy. But there was no way I was going to let them embarrass me in front of Shaun McDonald.

            I couldn’t believe I when he asked me out, let alone that he was actually talking to me. It had been on Thursday, one of my favourite days of the week since it was the day before Friday. We had been sitting in Social Studies and Charity had gone off to grab a textbook for us and Shaun leaned over from his group of desks and said right by my ear, “Hey,” making me jump.

            I turned around in my seat to see who it was and just about died. Shaun McDonald was talking to me.

            “I was wondering…are you doing anything this Saturday?”

            I don’t quite remember what my reply was, and I’m glad because it was probably something humiliating from the way he laughed.

            “Well, neither am I… would you like to hang out, then? Go to the movies or something?”

            I know I nodded then; my mouth had forgotten how to make sounds that came out as words in English.

            He asked for my number and I wrote it down inside the cover of his Social Studies book and later when I was at home I got a text that said hai, its shaun. 4got 2 ask, wats ur address? I texted back what my address was and then he replied that he would pick me up at three thirty. I had saved the texts to another folder on my phone so I wouldn’t accidentally delete them. I wanted to save them forever.

            I had been daydreaming about Shaun McDonald since the start of the year, which was just over a term now since the holidays had just ended. We were friends through other people so I knew that he knew I existed, I just never thought that he liked me the way I liked him.

            His car pulled up our drive way and I stood up, straightening my shirt, brushing down the back of my bum and flicking my hair out of my face. Look casual.

            My heart was beating about a million miles an hour and my tongue felt too big in my mouth and unable to form words.

            “Hey,” he said, stepping out of his car. If the first car I ever had looked like his, I would die happy.

            “Hi,” I managed to get out with a smile. “Nice car.”

            I had never been on a date with someone who had a car before. It was sort of cool.

            We pulled up outside the movie theatre and when Shaun turned off the car the radio went too, leaving us in silence.

            I hopped out and walked around to the footpath where he was waiting.

            “So what do you want to see?” he asked as he pushed open the door and held it for me.

            I silently begged for not Harry Potter. Charity had gone and seen it last week. It did not sound nice. And plus, Daniel Radcliff is hideous.