Heart Improvement: A Brooklyn Heights Bachelor Romance

Chapter 1 - Chelsea

I wake up right before the alarm, but today it’s not annoying, it’s thrilling. Today’s the day. New York City, here I come!

The house is still quiet when I start a pot of coffee. Samantha, my best friend, said I could drive down to Milwaukee yesterday, stay at her place. She said an Uber would cost like fifteen bucks.

My parents heard the word Uber and said no way. They are both insisting on driving me, even though it is over an hour and a half each way.

“You’re up early,” my mom says when she comes into the kitchen.

I’m sitting at the table, both of my hands wrapped around a huge mug. I’m kind of clinging to it, to be honest. Now that the day is here, my nerves are on fire.

“Good morning,” I say cheerfully.

Fake it till you make it is my motto. My mom hesitates, then plants a kiss on the top of my head.

“Good morning,” she says. “What do you want to eat?”

“Oh, nothing,” I say.

She frowns. It is my last day here for…a while. She doesn’t usually make me breakfast, I mean, I am twenty-three years old. But she looks so sad.

“What about egg sandwiches?” I say.

Her face brightens and she gets to work.

“What time are we leaving?” she says.

“Eight-thirty, dad said.”

We both look at the clock. It’s 7:12.

“I’ll go get your father up,” she says and leaves.

I eat my sandwich. It’s delicious, but it doesn’t do much to cover up the gnawing ball of nervousness growing in my stomach. It would help if my parents would be happy for me, instead of just worried.

“He’s in the shower,” she says when she comes back.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say.

I’m half talking to her and half to myself.

“I know,” she says, sighing. “I’ve just…been dreading this day. I knew one day it would come.”

It’s long overdue,I think. Twenty-three, remember?

“And it’s so far,” she says. “When you used to talk about moving to the city, I thought you meant Milwaukee. Maybe Chicago. Not New York.”

“I can’t pass this up,” I say quietly.

I mean, come on, FIT. It’s a big deal just to get in.

“Chelsea, I am proud of you. We are both proud of you. I would never hold you back. I’m just…going to miss you, that’s all.”

She sniffs and then we are both crying and hugging. She squeezes me really tight, but I don’t object.

“We will always be there for you, whatever you need,” she says. “And you can always come home.”

“Morning,” my dad says gruffly.

We both look up. He’s standing in the doorway.

“Hi, Daddy,” I say, wiping my eyes with my napkin.

“We have to leave in a half hour,” he says.

I get up and give him a big hug before going up to my room. I take a shower, lingering in the small bathroom at the top of the stairs. When I was little, I loved the pink tub and sink. Now, not so much.

My outfit is hanging on the closet door. Everything else is packed. When I get back to the kitchen, my mom and dad are filling their travel mugs.

“Do you want one?” my mom says. “Also, I packed you some snacks for the plane.”

I bite back the urge to remind her I’m in my twenties—practically mid-twenties—not elementary school. Anyway, it’s a good idea. The food at the airport, and on the plane, is probably super expensive and terrible.

“Thanks,” I say.

We load the car, and my dad backs up. Last weekend my mom and I turned the vegetable garden and worked in the compost. As he pulls away, I can see the seedlings in the front windows.

We planted them in February. Any day now my dad will start complaining they are starting to block the TV. I won’t be here to plant them outside. Maybe I should have stayed until August, like my parents suggested.

But the apartment was available,I think. And if I can get a job waitressing, or bartending, I’ll make so much more in New York.

“Nancy says Myles landed in Munich,” my mom says, waving her phone at me. “So I guess he won’t be there when you get there.”

“No,” I say.

That’s the point, I’m the house sitter. His company wanted him to go to Germany for two years. He didn’t want to leave the apartment empty, and I needed a place to stay. He and I thought it was a perfect arrangement. Samantha even said it was a sign.

“You have to go,” she said on a rare weekend home.

She was staying at my house, in my room. It was like we were twelve again, sleeping in my double bed together. Her parents were on their annual Florida pilgrimage, their house locked up and winterized.

She was the first one I told. Not just about the apartment, but when I got into FIT. I have an associate degree in art, which took me way too long to get, but I had to fit it in around working as much as possible.

“Do you have the key?” my mom says.

“Right here,” I say, jingling them.

We had a set copied from the ones my Aunt Nancy, Myles’s mom, had. I thought it was kind of nuts that his mother—in Wisconsin!—had a set, but they did come in handy in this case. And it wasn’t like she could pop in on Myles whenever she felt like it.

I don’t mention that there are three keys, or instructions for alarm codes. I printed those out and stored them in my purse. Can’t be too careful. What if the phone charger at my seat on the plane doesn’t work?

The airport isn’t that busy, but there’s a cop directing traffic at the terminal, ready to yell at anyone who takes too long. My mom gets out to hug me and my dad gets my luggage out of the back. We exchange an awkward hug and I promise to text when I land. And when I’m safely in Myles’s apartment. Yes, she said ‘safely’ specifically.

The airport isn’t busy, which I suppose for a random Tuesday in May makes sense. I get through security in a jiffy and then I’ve got over an hour to wait before boarding.

I browse the magazines at a newsstand. I finger one on interior design. I don’t need to buy it, I have a subscription to it. My parents gave it to me when I was in high school, and they’ve kept it up. I changed the address to Myles’s address—my address—in New York.

Might even be there when I get there,I think as I head back to the gate, thankful for the snacks my mom gave me. A tiny bag of peanuts was four dollars.

I sit down at the gate and pull out my phone. I check my calendar. Class registration will open in a few weeks. I already know most of the course descriptions by heart, I must have read them all a thousand times over the past few years.

“Attention, we will now begin boarding flight 932 to New York City.”

Boarding now,I text my mom and Sam.

Sam texts back a thumbs up.

Text me when you land, I read—from my mom, of course.

I text back a heart, then add several more.

It seems to take forever to get everyone on board but finally we are pushing back from the gate. The plane makes a sharp turn and I’m expecting another delay, but we immediately speed up.

I look out the window and see the runway drop away.

This is it,I think. My life is about to begin. Finally.