This all started because of a hospital bed. I wish I could say that I didn’t remember much but I remembered a lot from before my mother sold me. I used to think she gave me away because she was dying. It seemed natural not to have parents - the people in stories with happy endings seemed to always lose theirs. Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Hanzel and Gretel… My favorite story was of Peter Pan. His story never ended and was always happy. I thought I was going to have a happy ending. I don’t think that way anymore.

Maybe the knowledge of my death was embedded into me so well that my face felt weighted. “Keep that frown up and you’ll definitely make no friends,” the principal said. He was also my specially assigned guidance counselor, one of the only few who knew my “secret” - if you could call it that. He seemed to be afraid of me, or Mr. Barrie, but I guess anyone would be afraid of a time bomb. “Then again, better you don’t. Mr. Barrie said the cleaner the removal process you have, the better.”

Dr. Jones - he preferred the title doctor because he had Ph.D - did everything to make sure I flew under the radar. I wasn’t allowed to choose my classes, and despite knowing that my home schooling was far more advanced than the average 12th grade level, he placed me in Band 3. 

Band 3, I soon learned, as I sat in the back of the class, wondering why the teacher hadn’t come in yet, was for the rowdy or less-inclined bunch. Meaning, they had learning disabilities that the school couldn’t be bothered to deal with or they were real assholes. Either way, none of them were interested in making friends with me. And I wasn’t sure I remembered how to talk to people. 

I kept my arms stretched across my desk, feeling safe and protected from the paper balls and shouting that bounced off the walls. This one boy, with an untucked white shirt, and sloppy long hair was watching the boy in front of him rock back and forth on his chair. With each sway, the boy got closer to tipping over. Just when I thought he was going to fall, he would hook his feet against his desk and slam back down. Then the boy with long hair grabbed the edge of his chair, holding it as the other one struggled. 

“Seth, you asshat. Let me go.”

The one with long hair, Seth, smiled. His lips long and thin, and his smile even thinner. “Okay.”

I gasped loudly, sitting up as the boy’s chair fell backwards. It was like watching one of those movies about high school on TV. His head landed with a thud against the carpet, and Seth leaned back into his chair, laughing. He had two other friends, both with dark brown hair, that patted him on the back and laughed along with him. 

“Asshole.”

“You told me to let go.”

The other boy straightened his white shirt and khaki pants before sitting back down. Just as he got comfortable, the door opened and the classroom grew quiet. The teacher was tall, and according to my schedule, known as Mr. Seme. He was a short, slightly stocky man with rectangular glasses and a red nose that rested under the frames.

“Good morning class.”

I shrunk back in my seat for a bit, wondering if he was going to make me introduce myself, but instead he wobbled straight towards his desk. As the class started to get rowdy again, a lot of things that happened before coming here crossed my mind again. During our session, I had asked Henry what to expect on my first day of school. As he held my hand - something Mrs. Barrie’s Feng Shui doctor recommended - Henry coughed a few times before he was able to get the right words out. 

“You - ack - there’s nothing,” he hacked, clearing his throat like it was a broken water wheel, “to be afraid on your first day. People won’t even notice you.”

The nurse came in and told me to stop talking. It was making him worse. “Don’t talk, Mr. Barrie” she warned, her gaze never straying from the clipboard in her lap. She would write every now and then, but since Henry and I weren’t allowed to speak, I wasn’t sure what she was writing about.

Henry leaned back, his tired eyes closed and black. “You’ll be fine, Lara. And if you don’t like it, you can just quit.”

“People don’t just quit school.”

“Yes, but you’re different.”

Watching Henry breathed heavily, struggling to get air into his lungs, was the best warning I would get for the time I had left. Which wasn’t much as all. His health was unpredictable, but there weren’t many close calls until now. “Tell me a story,” he managed in between gasps, so I reached over for his phone to read one online. I was a bad  storyteller. I didn’t know how to stop at the good parts. But Henry wasn’t looking for something worth re-telling, he just needed a distraction. 

My father was in the hospital bed when my mother sold me. I was holding his hand, swinging my legs from the chair when Mr. Barrie came in and took me away. I didn’t cry, scream or ask for my parents. I was three, and they told me that my daddy would wake up if I went with them. Some nights I tried to remember if my mother cried when I left. I honestly don’t remember. She cried a lot regardless of my presence, and I know now she loved my father a lot more than she loved me. I have a feeling he never knew I existed. I never had a memory of him out of the bed.

I looked up from reading The True Bride when I noticed Henry was sleeping. I waited until the clock turned ten before removing my hand. ”I want to be noticed,” I said quietly. But that was a stupid wish. I was as different as can be. In blood type, in organ compatibility - every fiber of me was separated from the rest of the world that the only match was Henry.  

Still, even with Henry’s words, when it came to school, I was disappointed with how transparent I had become. No introduction, no opportunity to make a fool out of myself - Mr. Seme had gone straight to his desk. His legs were propped on the table, the rest of him hidden behind the newspaper. All students were doing their own thing. I watched that one - Seth - prop his feet onto his desk and lean back, whispering back and forth between his friends. The way he smiled, at times, he reminded me of Henry, a messier, healthier, blushing version. Like a Henry with a functioning heart. 

Suddenly he looked at me. I quickly bent over and pulled out a notebook from my bag. I uncapped my pen and started scribbling as if I had something very important to write. It was probably suspicious to see a girl taking notes when the teacher wasn’t teaching. I hadn’t thought it through. So when Seth came up to me and asked what I was doing, the words that came were outright lies. 

“Taking notes.”

Seth snorted. He snatched the notebook from my desk and started reading outloud, “Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved her father…” he stopped verbally, but his eyes scanned the rest of the page. I felt my cheeks heat up as he frowned. The way his face knotted was a mix of disgust, he looked at me like I was very strange. I knew the words on the page were pathetic. “I’m not a good storyteller…” He waved me off, dismissively.  The story was bad. It was - 

He looked up at me sharply. 

“Why are you re-writing Cinderella?”

omg Soompi’s format is driving me crazy. Does anyone else have this problem??

Thank you! You’re really kind :)

I’m moving The Boy Who Owns My Heart to Figment.com. The site really functions like a novel, and I like how it’s reader friendly. It remembers where you stopped so you can go back to it. I know most of you don’t want to sign up for another account, so I don’t think you have to - but to comment, save your place and explore my latest updates (like getting an e-mail update), follow me there as well. 

I’ll also post updates to tumblr in case you don’t want to move (but Figment will contain the best, most edited/up-to-date version). I’ll fix the Soompi page when the forum starts looking normal again. But with the change, I’ve always re-wrote the prologue to be more direct (and changed the age of the characters). I found the first version too pretentious and coy. This version is more honest. 

*the name of the story is changed to The Non-Zero Sum. 

I thought about it a lot after they promised me the year off. I didn’t think they would actually let me go when they asked what I wanted for my birthday. “Anything you want, Lara,” Mr. Barrie had said. He was eating drinking coffee when he had me brought up from my room. The white foam caught slightly on his mustache, and I tried not to laugh as he looked at me very seriously. Covering my smile with my fingers, I mumbled, “It’s okay, sir. You provide everything.” Last year, I asked for a trip to Disneyland, and after my doctor check-ups, they agreed that a week trip would not put my heart at risk. As long as I kept my diet and took my vitamins.

“Don’t be shy. It’s your last birthday.” 

My last birthday. I had never thought of my seventeenth birthday as my last. The Barrie family never held their power over my head. Most of the time I forgot that next day brought me closer to dying. I should be wishing for the sun never to set and never to rise, but the Barries did a good job of making me forget. Even though my price tag was tattooed on me, Mr. Barrie gave me a gold bracelet for my eleventh birthday. It was thick covered most of the tattoo, which, over time, had faded into a gentle stain. I fingered the bracelet, it had grown rusty looking from years of wear and tear.

Mr. Barrie cleared his throat, and rumbled, “I’ll give you a day to think about it.” 

“Yes, sir.”

I bowed my head as Halo, my bodyguard, came to take me back to my room. He kept close to me as we walked down the stairs, pacing me carefully to make sure that I didn’t run out of breath. “Slow down.” Halo gripped my elbow and pulled me back. 

“Sorry.” 

Halo nodded towards his feet and I paced myself to his steps. Right foot, left, and right foot, left until we hit the bottom and turned the corner to find my room. After years of being with Halo, I trusted him to lead me through the dark. We walked through the kitchen, the cold tiles pressed against my feet like they were coming up to reach me.

I lived in the back of the house, but I had nothing complain about. My view was of the backyard that the Barrie family never visited. They had a beautiful rose garden that was only for show. When the roses were in bloom, the gardener would pick the best and then the house keeper, Sandra, would prepare bouquets to decorate the house until everything smelled of roses.

As we reached my room, something shattered from the kitchen. Out of habit, Halo appeared swiftly in front of me, his hand hoisted over his gun. “Stay here,” he said, walking towards the noise. He flipped the light switch on. I squinted from the sudden brightness, but it was obvious who it was. Henry, kneeling on the ground in his suit, was sheepishly picking up pieces of the broken vase that used to sit on the window sill. There was a white corsage on his front pocket, limp from dying. I remembered, tonight was prom night.

Prom night. I had seen those on the Disney channel and several movies. The lonely girl always had a beautiful dress, the popular girl was so so pretty, and even the ugly girls looked gorgeous covered in makeup. I wanted to go to prom, I thought. I wonder if Henry’s date was pretty – she probably was. 

“Leave it,” Halo said, breaking me away from my dreams. He moved to the sink. The cabinet underneath had seven identical vases, and this was Henry’s third replacement. “Sandra will get it tomorrow.” 

Henry grinned. His tired eyes turned upwards as the veins on his neck strained as if smiling was already too much work for him. “Thanks, Halo.” He was so pale, it always surprised me how white he was. And it was not in a nice un-burnt way either. He had the look of someone coated in flour, his lips, lacking any reddish color, practically blended in with his skin. “Hi Lara. Happy Birthday.” 

“Thank you.” 

He started towards the living room when he stopped with an “Ah.” Henry turned around, digging into his pocket and walking with a limp that would have horrified his father. When his hand came out, in it was a bracelet made of rubber. It jiggled in the air for a bit. “This is for you,” he said. I took it carefully, looking at the blue band that read: MILK CARTONS. “Got this at a table at prom. The profits go to bringing missing children home.”

It was small but sincere. “Thanks,” I chirped, much happier than the first time around. Henry looked completely disheveled, his suit wrinkled from squeezing through the window and dirty from the bushes and plants he had to walk through. Henry watched as I slipped the bracelet. It pushed my golden one back, and I turned my wrist around several times. With both bracelets together, you could barely see my tattoo. My smile could only convey how grateful I was until Halo muttered, “It’s Lara’s bed time, Henry.”

 Henry looked at the microwave. “Right. Mine too. Goodnight guys.”He gave a wave and started upstairs when I suddenly asked, “Henry, will you show me pictures of prom?” 

“Yeah, during our session tomorrow?”

“Okay.”

“‘Night, Lara.”

“Goodnight, Henry.”

Only tomorrow never came for us. Henry got his first of the many predicted heart attacks. In the middle of my lessons, Halo rushed in and took me to the hospital. Henry had fainted during his presentation, causing the students to scream and go into a panic as his teacher called an ambulance.

 It sounds stupid, but as Halo rushed me to the hospital, all I could think about was how much I wished I had gone to prom. To school. The last fifteen years of my life were spent knowing enough names to fit on one hand. As Halo sped through the lights, I closed my eyes and imagined myself in a pale green dress, dancing with someone who could be my Prince Charming. And I got even more upset when I didn’t have a face for him. I wanted to be able to dream about something. And as cliché as it sounds, I wanted something more. My life was already unconventional enough. A cliché was what I needed. A cliché like prom night and a first kiss.

Henry was still unconscious when Mr. and Mrs. Barrie came from work. I was in the bed next to him, waiting for the doctor to give the okay for surgery when he came in and said that everything was okay. Henry’s heart would be good for another year. Another year. Those two words echoed in my head as I looked at the familiar coloring of Henry’s skin. He was almost grey with death. The palms of my hands had more color than him.

 My eyes fell to my tattoo. They had removed my bracelets in case I needed an IV drip. June 14, 2011. Today was June 15th… I wouldn’t live to see the Olympics, the election or even the new Hunger Games movie. And even if I was lucky enough to live until then, there would be nobody to share my excitement with. Nobody to argue about how Michael Phelps was a cock, nobody to show off my first vote to… nobody to go to the movies with. I already had nobody to go to the movies with. And as I watched the fear etched in the Barries’ face, I breathed in the courage to ask Mr. Barrie for my birthday present.

It sounds stupid, but it was a big deal for me. “Sir, did you really mean I could have anything?”

“Yes, Lara.”

I promised him to be good. To keep the rules and be more obedient than I ever could be, and then I asked him if I could attend public school. Just for a year - and then Henry James Barrie would have a happy heart.

Since I’m probably never going to get to that, I guess it’s only right that I answer you. I think this would ruin the experience though, because it’s a summary that isn’t read. It’s so disappointing but… 

Faun’s pretty much out of the story after they reach S. Korea. Naeri was going to meet her sister, Stella - who Halo is in love with - and find out that JiYoung was MinKyu, the ex-boss of PYRO, and her old boyfriend. Except JiYoung doesn’t react well to Stella, and when Halo sides with Naeri, Stella gets jealous and aggressive towards Naeri. When they’re at the beach for fun, JiYoung drowns and remembers everything, becoming the more charming MinKyu (he lost his memory to drowning). There’s a romance between him and Naeri, which makes Stella even more jealous - she consorts with the enemy gang to get rid of Naeri but instead, Halo finds out and warns Naeri. Stella is sent away (with Halo as a guardian), but during this she manages to slip out information and Minkyu gets hurt again, only this time the damage is permanent. He becomes a child, mentally, again, so him and Naeri go back to America.

Dean marries KoAh cause he gets her pregnant and leads a straight and narrow life after that. 

Sorry it’s taking me so long to write chapter 2! I’m working on it this week, and it should be up by next Tuesday. I should not have outdone myself by making chapter one so long. Ah haha, also I’ve been on a roll with the TLD book (writing Chapter 4 now) so I didn’t want to break it, but I have started Chapter 2!