The Break-Up Artist

22

“Can we talk?” she asks. Her eyes plead with me not to brush her off.

“What’s up?”

She scoots back from my locker. I drop my book bag on the ground, and I swear the floor tiles crack.

“I really like your new look. Remember I told you to use a darker base?”

“Thanks.” I squat down and take out my morning textbooks. I can’t remember the last time we were hanging out together sans Ezra. It seems like a decade ago.

“So how’ve you been?” she asks.

I feel like I don’t know this girl anymore. How did we get this out of the loop? I throw my books back in my bag. I’ll run down here before seventh period. This is torture. “I have to get to class.”

“Wait.” Val grabs my book-bag strap. Her voice breaks. “I miss you.” She wipes her nose with her blazer sleeve.

“I’ve been here.”

“We’ve drifted.”

“That wasn’t me!” I didn’t ditch anyone for a guy.

And now I’m crying, too. I miss the Val who talks in only run-on sentences.

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry. I don’t want our friendship to end over a guy.”

I’m pleasantly surprised by her self-awareness. “Me neither.”

“I want us to stop having awkward conversations whenever we see each other. That’s not us!”

“It’s not!”

I hug her. That’s the first certified-Val thing she’s said to me in a long time. We smear the tears off our faces.

“I promise to rein it in with all my Ezra talk,” she says.

“So even you’ve noticed it?”

“I’m telling you, Becca. It’s like a vortex. You don’t even realize you’re getting sucked in. Having a boyfriend is such a rush, and it makes even boring parts of my life exciting. And so I think that everything in my life is going well. I thought we were great this whole time. But then I saw you hanging out with Huxley, and you sat at her table. And I realized that something wasn’t right.”

I drop my backpack on the ground with a thump. She smiles, like she missed hearing that thump or something. “How are things with you and Ezra going?”

“Fine. I don’t know. I get that he’s a movie buff, but that’s like 80 percent of what he talks about. Between you and me, it’s getting old.”

“Maybe your relationship has run its course,” I say, hoping for a breakthrough.

“No way,” she says. She doesn’t give it another thought. That doesn’t matter to her. I want to ask her if she truly loves Ezra, but I won’t. Our friendship is too fragile for probing questions right now. I find myself getting frustrated with her again, more than I have after past relationship discussions. Now that I’ve gotten to know Ezra, he deserves someone who appreciates his movie-buff personality rather than someone who tolerates it for the sake of avoiding singledom. He’s looking for something special; Val’s looking for a plus one.

I get into my locker and make the necessary book swaps.

“So be honest with me,” Val says. “Is Huxley a better friend?”

“No,” I say. An automatic response. I couldn’t hesitate for a second or else Val would never forget it. “Unless you find backhanded compliments endearing.”

Val laughs, happy that her top spot on my friend list is secure. “And what kind of a name is Huxley anyway? I’ll bet her real name is something like Heather, but it was too bland for her taste.”

The bell rings, and for some reason, that makes us laugh harder.

When I get home, I find an email from Mr. Towne waiting for me, burning a hole through my inbox.

I need a REAL progress report. Let’s chat.

I roll my eyes at the email. Is he my dad asking how my homework is coming along? None of my clients have required a progress report. They have faith in me that I’ll get the job done. But then, they haven’t had to wait this long for results.

“Things are taking a little bit longer,” I tell him on video chat. “But I am making progress.”

His gray eyes stare coldly into the screen. He leans back and rests his arms on his gut. “It’s been almost six weeks since we last spoke. You can’t give me radio silence like that. One snarky email won’t cut it.”

What kind of metrics can I give him? I don’t exactly work in statistics. Trust the process, I want to tell him. Couples aren’t destroyed in a day. Still, I nod in agreement. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep you updated.”

“So after six weeks, you’re only just ‘making progress’?”

“These things take time. Do you think Huxley is just going to give Steve up that easily?”

“At this rate, you’ll have them broken up by their silver anniversary.” He squirms in his office chair, like a kid in a waiting room. He’s probably not used to working with a teenage girl, especially not one in a costume. “Listen, college acceptances become binding by May 15. If Steve gets locked into Vermilion, then that’s it. His life is over. He’ll be stuck with her forever.”

I’m not the first person to think that, but hearing a grown man say it feels slimy. He’s not a member of Ashland’s social world. He doesn’t have that right to care about gossip.

“You have one month,” he tells me before disconnecting.

I relay our conversation to Diane. I want to quit this assignment. It used to stimulate me; now it makes me uneasy.

She lies on her bed, painting her toenails a funky neon shade of green. With her Rutgers sweater still on, she looks like a Christmas decoration.

“You have to keep going,” she says.

But it doesn’t seem that simple anymore. I keep picturing Huxley by the water fountain, that forced smile plastered on her face while her supposed friends gossip about her demise mere feet away. None of them care that she’s busting her butt to make this SDA show spectacular. How will it be once she and Steve are kaput? That’s all people will talk about until finals. It’s not like other couples where the dumper and dumpee can mend in relative obscurity. That forced smile will become a required part of her wardrobe.

Diane senses my confusion. “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for this girl?”

I throw myself onto the bed, making Diane smear a green streak across her foot. This is why I hate getting involved in my subjects’ lives. I need distance to perform a break-up. You don’t see hit men sharing family albums with their targets.

“I mean, we’re kinda-sorta-maybe, on some level, approaching the near vicinity of being friends again,” I say, though I know we’re a bit closer than that.

“Of course you are. Who else does she have to turn to?”

“Exactly.”

“This is all part of the plan, but it’s not real. Not for either of you.” Diane blows on her feet. “You’re a spare-tire friend.”

I fold my arms over my stomach.

“No, not that spare tire. You’re a temporary replacement. If you stop your plan and Huxley and Steve patch everything up, do you think she’ll still want to be friends with you? Her lemmings will come running back to her, and you’re going to get ditched. She won’t need you anymore.” Diane shrugs her shoulders. I didn’t come to her for a sugarcoated answer. “She’s done it to you before. Don’t let history repeat itself, B.”

I was blinded by her popularity, by the choice lunch table. But Diane’s right. She’s so right. We’re not real friends. Real friends don’t treat you like a social pariah to hide the fact they were ever friends with you. I am her spare tire. That’s what happened with Diane’s friends, too. When Sankresh dumped her, they stopped calling the house after a few weeks. They put in a little effort to show they weren’t completely heartless. Then it was back to their more-significant-than-Diane others.

And Val. I don’t let myself think of what will happen if things pick up between her and Ezra.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say with firmness in my voice. I know what I have to do.

Ashland High is way too trusting. The faculty can’t be dumb enough to actually believe that students will use the bathroom pass to go to the bathroom. But still, nobody stops me as I walk out of school and into the parking lot. Nobody’s around to raise an eyebrow as I pull a wire hanger from under my zip-up fleece. And nobody approaches me when I squat down next to Steve’s car. It’s almost as if they think we’re responsible adults here.

I unwind the hanger and slide the stick of metal down the passenger-side window of his used Jetta. I keep one eye on the school, and the other on the hanger. I jangle it around until it finds the car lock. I lift up slowly and...click. I can’t believe that worked. Thank you, internet.

I crack open the door. My bathroom pass sticks out of my back pocket. The freezing wind of bipolar April isn’t doing me any favors. No slow moves, I tell myself. Just do it and walk away.

I inhale a gust of the icy air and pull the condom wrapper and half-used tube of Ladybug lipstick from my front pocket. I place them under the seat, where they will wait patiently for Huxley’s foot.

I can’t help but smile. Maybe it’s nerves or adrenaline or the sheer ridiculousness of my current situation, but I am loving my job right now. I find reserves of energy, a renewed purpose.

“Becca, you’re freezing,” Ms. Hardwick says when I come back to class.

“The heater in the girl’s room isn’t working. I’d bring a coat next time.”

I shoot Huxley a Steve-sized smile on the way back to my seat.