Two Unsuspecting Hearts

“I thought you wanted to be a writer?” her mother said sarcastically casting her gaze around the untidy room. 

“Fine, I’ll go. Happy?”

“Yes.”

Louisa, known by her friends as Lucy, rolled her eyes. Like any average girl of sixteen, she had her aspirations but rarely had the motivation to actually do anything about it, usually leading to a small disagreement with her parents. This time, the topic was the Writer’s Convention. 

Every four years her town held a big shot conference where writers came together to develop their ideas over fancy little cakes and sipping their tea but quaint little teacups. Or at least that’s how Louisa thought of it. It was only by invitation and Lousia’s family was immensely proud when their little girl received the golden ticket. The convention always consists of professional adult writers and two high school students. One from the lower side public high, and one from the upper side public high. Both schools always held a short story competition which would determine the one student who would be sent. This year, over the perhaps more than one hundred submissions, the girl who had no interest in the happenings of a glamorous life was chosen. And thus, here our story begins, with a young sixteen-year-old girl preparing herself for the gala of her life. 

After hours of driving, shopping, and trying on dresses with her best friend May and her mother, they settled on the right dress. Louisa’s long dark brown hair was styled in an updo with some curls hanging down. Her face was pounded with makeup to make her look, in May’s words, “natural, but like fairy natural… you know what I mean?” Her dress was the same ocean blue as her eyes and came off her shoulders, and her heels were black with little bows on them. Looking at herself in the mirror, Louisa didn’t know where the Lucy she knew went. The girl staring back at her was fair and grand so much unlike the tempestuous teen she was. Her mother and May fawned over her for a few minutes until May’s mother came to pick her up. Then it was just Louisa and her mother. 

“Lucy, you know I’m so proud of you” and after a quick pause, “right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How about you go and you neet the nice kid from the upper side and learn something new from a famous writer and just enjoy yourself. Try not to critique anyone, ok?”

“Ok, mom, sure.” 

Feeling a little rejected and anxious, her mother slunk back to the living room to read a book until a car from the upper side came to pick her daughter up. 

Soon enough the soft purr of an engine came to the front of their house and Lousia’s mother yelled for her. Down came our protagonist with a change of heart since deep down she really was excited. The man driving the big, black car came out and opened the door for her. To her dismay, there was a boy in a suit sitting in the back waiting for her. Well, rather staring out the window and not saying a word to her. Quickly, her enthusiasm turned to an awkward throb in her chest. She knew nothing about this boy and his lifestyle, but at the moment he was being incredibly rude by not talking to her, and so like any other bitter teenager, she started to make presumptions about him. However, she remembered her mother telling her to be friendly and decided she would play nice. Win him over with some kindness. 

“Hi, I’m Louisa.”

Silence.

“I’m in my junior year.”

More silence. 

“What about you?”

Slowly the boy turned his head towards her. She was almost taken back by how eerily familiar he looked. He had a head of curly brown hair, a sharp jawline, and eyes that she knew had seen a lot. For a second she started to question all of her thoughts on the life of the upper side kids. Were they really as bad as she thought? 

“Theo, and same.” and with that message, he turned his head back to the window. 

Louisa didn’t know how to respond to that so she decided she would too turn her face to the window and watch the world speed by. After what felt like an eternity of silence, but was really only about five minutes, Theo turned his head a little to the side so he could look out of the corner of his eye at the vibrant girl sitting next to him. He wanted to say something but was having some trouble finding a way not to say anything so to seem pretentious. It was too late for that though because in the reflection of the window Louisa could see that he was slightly looking at her. She thought he was judging how she looked and was comparing her to the beauty and radiance of the girls he usually goes to school with and decided she would describe him to her mother as pretentious. 

Over the next ten minutes, Louisa’s eyes widened as she watched the enormous mansions and gorgeous gardens pass her by. Theo was trying to figure out a quiet way to turn her impression of him around since he was getting a feeling that his cold introduction was going to make the evening very, very, uncomfortable. Soon enough, the small crew arrived at the entrance to a massive home with child’s balloons out front somehow announcing that this is where the prestigious writing convention would take place. The chauffeur opened the door for Theo while Lousia was making sure that she had everything she might need tonight in her bad. When her door opened and the gracious hand came down to help her out, she thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until she had flattened her dress standing outside that car that she realized it was Theo who had helped her stand. There they stood, before the giant door into the hall for a few seconds taking it all in. After taking in the amazing home they stood before, Lousia took a sneak peek at Theo’s face expecting to see boredom. However, all she saw was astonishment that a house this great existed. So this was the second thing they had in common, after both being in their junior year at high school. 

Theo quickly turned to Louisa, “Wanna go in?” 

“Yeah” and together they started for the entrance. 

To both of their disappointments, the convention was no convention at all. It was simply a great gathering of adult authors sympathizing and talking about life, not writing. And it is always a disappointment to realize the gods you look up to are only normal people with flaws and bad manners. As Louisa and Theo were the only people under forty-five there, they were forced to be bounced from group to group with adults asking them intruding questions about their lives, opinions, or relationship. New authors to the convention thought they were dating, old authors of the convention thought they were incapable of good stories because of their “damned phones”, and the two teens thought that everyone was so rude. 

After a few hours, the two went to grab some drinks and get to know each other. Louisa learned that Theo’s full name was Theodore and that his mother kept a giant teddy bear from his childhood for him in the attic for years. After a small Theo of fourteen had stumped up the attic and saw that ginormous bear, he apparently had a heart attack as it was dark and scary in their attic and allegedly peed his pants. This earned him the nickname of Teddy. Despite having the name Theodore, no one else actually ever called him that, and he reserved a special place in his heart for what could be a very good friend for years to come. Theo learned all about the Lucy May knows. The Lucy that sneaks out at night to the park with her best friend to tell scary stories, or gives her mother a fright with endless pranks. Combining the fact that this girl was calling him Teddy with the story she told earlier of her mother naming her after the woman who wrote  “Little Women” he decided it was only fit to call her Jo. Of course, no one in Louisa’s life had ever called her Jo, but she didn’t mind the new nickname. 

After some more time flitting here and there amongst the other authors, the two slipped away to explore the mansion. They wandered from room to room trying to break into the rooms with locked doors and feeling the books that seemed to line every wall on the second floor. Eventually, they found themselves on a balcony attached to the top floor of the “treasure house”, as the two were calling it. Here they say down in their formal wear and just looked at the darkening sky. Both were acknowledging the cliche happening here. The rich young boy and the poor, well less rich young girl meeting and becoming lovers or whatever doomed love story this could turn out to be. Though they both acknowledged it, neither of them cared enough to stop it. It was nice to have someone who really gets you to talk to. As it turned out both their short stories had been about lonely kids their age, which isn’t an uncommon topic, but they were able to talk about it ina different way than Louisa had tried to talk about it with May. 

“Teddy, do you think after this we’re still going to talk to each other?” 

“I don’t see why not… besides, if we stop talking, I’ll really have no one to talk to” he added with a slight grin.  

“I just wanted to make sure since I’m pretty sure the people who were picked before us didn’t stay close.”

“Well, I don’t think we have anything to worry about since I genuinely like you as a person.” 

The new Jo and Teddy talked and laughed and smiled. They couldve spent the time networking downstairs, but they felt like they were getting a better experience on that special balcony just sitting together. 

About three hours later it was hearing ten-thirty which was when the youngsters had to leave so the adult authors could get drunk. Arm in arm, like an old fashioned couple, they skipped through the halls mocking the formalities of the 1% and falling down from uncoordination and laughing. 

As the night came to a close they exchanged numbers and waiting outside for their ride to come. Theo was dropped off first leaving his new closed friend in the car texting all the details to her second-best friend, May who was greatly misunderstanding the relationship between the two writers. 

And after a long night of telling her mother everything that happened, showering, and returning to her normal life on the lower side, she thought about the new friend she had made and the possibilities of the two unsuspecting hearts.