“Well, who are they from?” he asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he exclaims. “So it’s like a mystery?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I’m half listening because I’m already reading the next paper heart.
Reach for the stars to bridge your mind and heart.
I frown. The other clue I solved pretty quickly from the call number. But this one is like some line you’d find on a valentine at the drugstore.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I don’t know what this one means.”
He makes a sound that sounds like a tsk. “You’re the worst detective of all time. Your title of Watson has been revoked.”
“You know what this means? How?”
“I told you. I like mysteries.”
“In books, not in real life,” I huff.
He swivels his chair away from the desk so he’s fully facing me. “I’m a man of many talents. Mark Twain is a literary genius so people have forgotten that he also invented the bra strap. It’s an injustice to only be able to have one thing.”
“Mark Twain invented the bra strap?”
He grins. “See? I can be good at book recs and the occasional fun fact. I also solved this riddle easily and I just moved to this town.” He looks at the computer screen on the desk. “And according to your library card you’ve lived here for years. You have no excuse for not solving this.”
I wait for him to say something but he just smirks in his chair. “Are you going to make me beg?” I eventually ask.
He crosses his arms. “No, I just like the added suspense.”
“I don’t have time for dramatics,” I say, my voice rising way past library level. It surprises us both. “I want to do this next clue before my sister picks me up, so if you know this tell me now!”
He leans back in his chair. “Oh yeah? How are you going to get all the way to the bridge from here?”
“How do you know it’s the bri—” I start, but stop short. Reach for the stars to bridge your mind and heart. There are telescopes on the walkway bridge over the Hudson River. He’s right; that has to be it.
And he’s right about another thing: How on earth am I supposed to get there? Unless he can help me…
I normally don’t ask for help from strangers, but this boy works at a library, likes fun facts, and reads Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter. He cracks riddles in seconds. He seems harmless, in a nerdy cute way. The kind of guy Carmen would get homework from but then stop talking to after, even if I told her she was being mean.
“What’re you doing after you close?”
He raises an eyebrow. “What’s in it for me?” he asks.
“You said you just moved here. Now is your chance for a tour of the longest walking footbridge in America from a local.”
“The longest one, you say?” He gives me a small smile like he’s not convinced.
“Not to mention,” I add, “hanging out with me is a lot better than doing nothing on a Friday night.”
I’m playing to his weakness as the new boy in town with no friends yet. It’s a low blow, but I’m desperate. He cocks his head at me like a dog trying to figure out what I’m saying before he responds.
“Well, when you put it that way, I should go just so you don’t think I’m a complete loser.”
I smile. “Partial loser it is.” Then, realizing I asked this random guy to help me before I even got his name, I stick out my hand and introduce myself.
“Ella. Also a partial loser.”
I’m kidding, but lately this doesn’t seem untrue.
“I know, Ella Fitzpatrick,” he says.
For a second, my heart drops. Of course he knows about me. Is there anyone in this town who hasn’t heard about my accident?
It’s only when he waves my library card at me that I realize he just read my name on it.
“My name is Andy,” he tells me, shaking my hand.
But I decide I might still call him Library Boy in my head.
* * *
The last time I went to the bridge was in June with Ashley. My mom thought it was a good idea for me to get some fresh air and other doctors had given me the okay. It was right after I started summer school, so I thought I’d be fine going out in public. I wasn’t.
The bridge was packed with everyone in town who’d had the same idea to walk along the water that day. There were families with kids and dogs. Others were on bikes and scooters, and boats zipped underneath us. I wanted to go home almost immediately, but because my mom really wanted me to start doing Normal Teenage Things again, I forced myself to stay.
I stayed in the hot sun as little beads of sweat formed on my neck. I also stayed as people I hadn’t seen since the accident spotted me and ran up for a hug, pressing the sweat on my back into my T-shirt. By noon the sun was miserable—for anyone, but especially for me, since I had one of my splitting headaches. Ashley and I ended up turning around before we reached the other side of the bridge.
Tonight, I refuse to leave until we find the next paper heart.
It’s a cold evening, so we’re the only ones out here. There’s a certain calmness to being by the water after dark.
The sky is pitch-black, but there’s a glow illuminating the bridge. The horizon is just as bright from the city lights. They are tiny distractions from the real lights burning above us—the stars, which we’re here to see. Telescopes are scattered across the bridge so people can look at them more closely.
If this were a date, it would be the most romantic one I’ve ever been on.
But it’s just Andy and me bundled up in hats and gloves. When we talk, little puffs of air escape our lips, like they do now as he tells me there are over 100 billion trillion stars. It’s another fun fact that I didn’t know, but it makes me feel so small, walking on this bridge, just the two of us.
We stop at the first telescope and Andy peers into the lens. I move to inspect it from behind for the next paper heart. Nothing.
“I thought you’ve read Sherlock Holmes.”
“I have….”
“Then why aren’t you doing what he does?”
I stare at him blankly, with no idea what he’s talking about.
“You know when Sherlock Holmes enters a room, he doesn’t look for clues, he just looks,” Andy tells me.