HEARTLESS
Chapter 1 (Opening, first 1000 words to include sample dialogue)
Harbrook University students commit to protecting their own safety and the safety of all romantic entanglements by agreeing to the following:
I agree to not take any unnatural action to expedite or encourage the expulsion of mine or another’s heart.
I agree to return my heart to my chest immediately following a cardiac event.
I agree to report any observed heart malfeasance to the school medics, including but not limited to the following: improper heart removal, reckless heart endangerment, stealing or harboring hearts, and organ dissection, experimentation, or dismemberment.
As Mac stared at the policy in her shaking hands, she knew one thing for certain: she was making a huge mistake.
It felt far from pleasant to finally admit this to herself, impatiently bouncing her knee up and down in the waiting room of her college counselor’s office on her first day at Harbrook University. She was already on campus after all, past the point of no return. Within the next hour, she would have a course schedule in-hand and be helplessly swept into her mediocre life.
The sickening feeling of disappointment was stirring in her gut, so she hastily scribbled her signature on the policy document and diverted her attention to the rest of the waiting room. She took a deep breath and was hit with the familiar scent of industrial floor cleaner and fresh ink from an overused copy machine.
Plastered across the walls of the counseling center were inspirational posters— some of your standard offenders, such as “Hang in there!” with a kitten clutching a rope, but worse were the ones trying to be modern in their sense of humor. Directly above the receptionist’s head was a poster of an anatomical heart with the bold text:
Aorta tell you how bloody proud I am of you!
Mac did her best to refrain from rolling her eyes. Directly next to the “humorous” heart poster was a notice that read:
CALL 888 TO REPORT ANY HEART MALFEASANCE TO THE HARBROOK CENTER OF HEART AFFAIRS IMMEDIATELY.
She felt her breath catch in her throat. Without thinking, her hand wandered back to the top of her sternum to rub the scar barely peeking out from her oversized sweater, at this point just a faint white line stretching the few inches from her heart to her collarbone.
The wound had healed months ago, but she still chose to wear her heather gray hoodie to hide any possible traces of it. Though the outfit was casual, she added a sweep of eyeliner and a dash of mascara to frame her large green eyes and draw attention away from her messy brown curls that she could never seem to fully untangle.
Heart affairs were the last thing she wanted to think about today. Letting her heart make terrible decisions was what had gotten her here in the first place.
Mac forced her attention back to the room, taking in the vinyl flooring spotted with yellowed stains. The out-dated afterthoughts of decor were exactly what she expected given Harbrook’s unsavory reputation as a struggling state school. Though her mom insisted they had a remarkable arts program, Mac refused to believe any college her mom attended could be taken seriously.
She should have been grateful that her mom’s alumni status helped her get into Harbrook with only weeks before the semester started, but she only felt resigned as she clocked the other freshmen awaiting their first semester schedules. Nervous energy seemed to radiate from every student she saw, the dull thudding of the receptionist’s keyboard like a symphony to accompany their anxiety. Mac caught herself subconsciously settling into the rhythm of those around her, instinctively tapping her toes onto the cheap flooring.
There was a small chuckle to her right, and Mac whipped her head around to see the girl sitting next to her watching her curiously. The girl leaned back comfortably in the blue plastic chair, an upbeat pop tune leaking through the bright purple headphones stretched across her perfectly straight, jet-black hair.
She tapped her bright red boots to the beat of her music and locked eyes with Mac, flashing her a quick grin before nudging the headphones back to her neck.
“You look nervous. First time?”
Mac blinked. “For what?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “It was a joke. Since we’re all freshmen?”
“Oh, right.” Mac huffed a nervous laugh before quickly averting her gaze down to the orientation schedule resting on her lap.
Meeting with the college counselor was the first task of orientation day, and unsurprisingly, Mac awoke before her alarm to beat the crowd of freshmen that would be arriving at any moment. She met uncertainty with preparation, and developed her own version of the freshman orientation schedule weeks before arriving on campus.
Mac planned to arrive exactly seventeen minutes early to each event planned for the day to give herself ample time to navigate between buildings, and to get the best spot in every line. She loathed waiting in lines— it simply gave her more time alone with her own thoughts, which was especially unacceptable on a day like today.
Because today, she was making the one cliche mistake that she, of all people, should have known better not to make.
She was throwing away her future because of a boy, and she hated herself for it.
“Mackenzie Webster? Ms. Rivas will see you now,” the receptionist called from the front of the room.
Mac felt her chest scar twinge with pain, and forced an awkward smile to hide her grimace. She zipped her hoodie up an extra inch and hastily gathered her backpack.
“Go get ‘em, heartbreaker,” the girl with the red boots called. “And watch out for the blood stains.”
Mac jolted as she looked at the ground, imagining pools of blood creeping toward her pant legs. Instead, all she saw was the sad off-white flooring, covered in…brownish yellow stains.
Too much dried blood for industrial cleaners to erase.
“Thanks for the heads up.” Mac nodded to the girl and gingerly tip-toed across the room as fast as she could, darting into the counselor’s office where her future would be decided.
