Heart

Who knew a flick of a knife could create such a legacy? All he'd wanted was to profess his love to the world, or at very least the people of this park. And probably the squirrels that would scurry up the tree, or the dogs that would use it as their personal toilet.

Ugh, he did not want to think about that wretched yapping neighbor dog peeing on his love proclamation. 

AJ + SS

He'd carved a heart around it. It's supposed to be a heart, though it's slightly asymmetrical, because she set her hand on his knee as he was making his second side, and it startled him well enough to make his hand jerk out. He had set down the knife in favor of said hand. There was something he wanted to slide onto it, if she would allow him to.

"Anna, this is a promise of my love for you. Will you marry me?" 

She let him slide the ring on her finger.

"You do realize it should say AS + SS now, right?" She runs her finger, that bedazzled finger, into the grooves of the letters, flashing her confirmation in his face. 

"I'll have to carve a new heart. One that perhaps isn't so lopsided."

"Don't worry about it, Sean. Just stop fiddling with that knife and kiss me already."

There are twenty six letters in the english language. That meant that for one could go through 676 people before duplicating his initials. He noted this hypothetically, because he doubted there were 26 people with names beginning with the letter X, unless they're all named Xavier, and he could hardly believe that each one would have a surname with a different last letter, just to suit a hypothetical. With initials like SS, it's probably probable to say that someone shared them with him. In his yearbook alone, there's ten kids with the surname Smith.  

He figured there were more than ten in the world.

Now here's the rub. There's also a one in 676 chance, hypothetically, that someone had the initials AJ. Which made the chances of two people having the same pair of initials of them really, really high. He wasn't going to do the math, because he's pretty sure he already messed that up, just like that dilapidated heart.

That little heart is the thing of legends, and he screwed it up.

Better that than screw up getting the girl, right?

--

It was a few months later when Afton Jones got her cat stuck in the tree. She had been taking him out for a walk. Which yes, sounded peculiar, but her landlord had refused to let her get a dog, and she refused to not have the pleasure of parading her pet around town. At that moment, it was currently displeasure, as he had pranced off after some bird he'd never catch and ran up the tree. She had tried to hold on in vain.

That trunk had given her quite the bump to the noggin.

The leash was dangling just out of reach. Sure, she could have jumped up to yank her cat down, but at the risk of choking the idiotic fluffball, who was now crying from the branches, she relented.  

Dialing for her brother, she peered up at her cat. He was still crying. She wanted to too, as he told her that he was actually at the doctor's office, and that he would have to send his buddy. He was supposed to meet her brother for lunch after his appointment, but he reassured her that he would love to come rescue her cat, to the tune of one free meal from the diner.

He arrived without a ladder.

"How are you going to get him down?" 

"I'm going to grab him and bring him down." He scaled the tree and was reaching out to her cat in seconds, producing a bag of treats from his pocket. It only took one fishy nugget to convince him they were friends.

Back on the ground, she leapt forward to hug him. It was a knee jerk reaction, one that let the cat escape from his clutches and run off into the park, leash dragging behind him.

"Oh, come on!" She bolted off to follow the cat, with her hero hot on her heels.

"This brings a whole new meaning to keeping up with the Joneses," he laughed, shaking the bag of treats. 

She would have laughed if her lungs weren't on fire. 

They cornered him at the lake. He had been contemplating his next move, as he hated water, and he had scooped him up, curling the leash around his hand until he was forcibly tucked into his elbow.

"You are one feisty cat."

"Thank you so much, uh-"

"Seth. Seth Sullivan." He shook her hand with his free one. "Now, let me escort you and this kitten back to your car before he makes another break for it."

She rubbed the back of her neck. "Actually, we walked here. We live right up the street. But no worries, I have it from here. I owe you, Seth Sullivan."

He shook his head. He did that a few times, every time she tried to deny him letting him drive her home in his car. Finally she conceded, because he had her cat hostage (if you could say such a thing about such a happy looking cat), and let him drive them home.

"At least let me offer you some cookies. I just baked them this morning."

Somehow cookies became lunch. To be fair, he was a better date than her brother would have been, and cuter too. And it made his heart pitter patter way more when he asked her out for lunch on Saturday. A picnic in the park, for AJ and SS, right under that stupid heart.

--

Another month passed, and Alice Johnson was using the tree for shade from the bright sun to read her book. Her mother had insisted that she go out for fresh air. Said that she had cooped up for too long reading that book.

She'd put it down long enough to make her way to the park to pick it back up. She had to know what was going to happen next.

"Mind if I share the shade?" There was someone standing before her, holding a thick book in their hand. 

"Go for it," she said, turning the page of her paperback. She felt the spine cracking in her hands, guilt crawling over her. It was a library copy.

He settled back into the tree. She stole a glance at the title of his book as he pulled his long hair back.

That had been an audible gasp.

"I take it you're a Ransom Riggs fan." He knocked his knuckles against the hard cover. "Last one in the series. I was so excited that I decided to buy myself a copy. Couldn't wait for the library to get it in."

She tilted the cover of her book towards him. "I'm on book 5. Borrowed from the library. I can't afford to get new books without coffee stains."

"I'll have you know, those are hot chocolate stains, and I am very sorry about them."

Covering her mouth, she stifled a smile. "You monster."

"I prefer Samuel, but sure, you can call me that."

She hurriedly flipped to the back of the book, where tucked into the dust jacket was a small note, wishing the reader well on their journey, with an email beneath it. 

"Samuel Shaw, perhaps?" She wiggled the note between her fingers. Many times she had been tempted to send notes to that email, to gush about her favorite lines and scenes. Yet every time she had opted for the little red x.

He tapped the paper in her hand. "Not a single person has taken me up on this, you know."

She gave a shrug and turned back to her own book. He seemed disappointed, but cracked open his own volume, shifting back into the tree. Then his phone buzzed. A new email.

He opened it to find that she had written him, phone tucked behind the guise of her book. It was a simple hello.

She could feel his eyes on her. A smile was forming on her face, and she was going to blame the book, instead of her silly flirtation. Was that what that was, her flirting? She had thought about this Samuel guy for many books. Did it matter that he had a mop of curly hair and a inked up arms, instead of the shy, clean cut boy she had envisioned?

She had typed him dozens of unsent emails about the books. Now, turning to stare back at him, she only had one question.

What would it be like to run her fingers through that hair of his?

A leaf fell on her head. A surge of jealousy went through her as her raked his fingers her hair to remove it. Then again, maybe that was a surge of curiosity. Her face turned pinker, and she turned to hide it.

Her eyes connected with the heart. 

AJ + SS. 

Coincidence, right?

He took the sticky note from her, removing the pen from his hair. It tumbled down as he scrawled ten digits onto that scrap. "For you know, when you finish your book. So I can lend you this one."

"Okay."

Or maybe for a hot chocolate date. Just not around his books this time.

--

Xander had been minding his own business while taking his nightly run around the park. He had noticed a small bump by the tree. He ran past, thinking maybe it was just a rock.

He ran back, just to be sure.

It was a wallet, he found, and he opened it to find the license of a very pretty girl. Sophia Snyder. According to the address, she only lived a few blocks away. He could alter his route for one night to return a wallet.

He decided to walk over. Running with someone else's wallet seemed mighty suspicious. He wasn't going to get arrested for returning a girl's wallet.

Knock knock.

"Are you Sophia Snyder?" The girl shook her head. 

"That's my sister. She went out. Can I help you?" 

He felt for the lump in his gym shorts. This girl did look a lot like Sophia. Could he trust her in handing off the wallet to her? He wanted to say yes, but he really wanted to meet Sophia. He'd heard the legend of the tree, and she was an SS.

"Actually, I was hoping to help her." He pulled the wallet out of his pocket, dropping his keys along with it. He bent to pick them up. Her eyes trailed along his torso as he stood, and he remembered that he hadn't taken the time to put a shirt on. 

Her eyes were more focused on him than that wallet.

"Come in. I'll call her. She'll be so relieved."

The unfortunate thing was she had gotten stuck in traffic on the way back, and he had gotten stuck shirtless on her couch, waiting. The sister had offered him food and drinks and conversation, but never a shirt. Which meant a lot of ogling, and him failing to hide behind a throw pillow. 

He was eating a piece of berry pie when a berry had fallen down his chest. She had swept it up with her finger, and then slowly, her tongue. Surprised, he was also torn. There was a beautiful girl licking him clean. She had given him delicious pie, plate hovering in the air now. His body tingled. It had been a long time since he had found someone. And now, here he thought he had found someone, only to get propositioned by her sister, who had moved up to his lips, setting the pie on the table.

The key turned in the lock.

"Oh, hello." There she was. SS, even more beautiful, albeit frazzled, in the doorway.

"I found your wallet by that tree in the park. The matchmaking one." He handed it off to her, silently asking his body to cooperate. That pie had gotten him mighty razzled. 

"Thank you." She took it, thumbing through to find all of her cash still there. She pulled out a tenner, and handing it to him, she continued. "For your troubles. Now if you'll excuse me, I better call my girlfriend and tell her our date is back on. Thanks again!" 

Just like that, gone. He had waited half an hour to find out that not only was she already with someone, but with someone on the opposing team. He never had a chance. All of that for ten bucks and half a slice of pie.

The sister took a bite of his pie. "You don't actually believe in that matchmaking garbage, do you?"

He sighed, taking the fork from her.

"I guess not."

"In that case, you want to finish what we started?"

He followed her, dropping the fork. They finished, and repeated, day after day, because frankly this girl made good pie, and he wasn't going to hold his breath for a loophole on a magic tree.

One afternoon they had settled under the tree. He pointed out that if the wallet hadn't been found here, if he hadn't gone searched for that SS to fulfill the destiny of the dilapidated heart, he would have never found her.

"Technically, you did. Lettie is short for Scarlett. Scarlett Snyder. But your initials aren't AJ, so why'd you go searching anyhow?" She wove her hand into his, thumb swirling over his.

"My family calls me AJ. Alexander Junior. But back in grade school, there were already two Alex's in my class, so I said I'd be Xander. Name kinda stuck." He tilted his head back to look at the heart. 

She stopped swirling her thumb. "You realize what this means?"

"That you're willing to admit that there is some sort of magic behind this tree after all, SS?"

She ran her free hand along the carving. 

"Maybe so, AJ. Maybe so."