The Break-Up Artist

36

For the next two days, I stay home from school. On day one, I convince my mom that I have a bad cold. That night, I call Val’s house and practically beg her mom to put Val on. To my surprise, Val doesn’t hang up, and it takes me a few seconds to start talking.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I say back, completing the most awkward greeting in the known universe. Val stays quiet. I have to lead this. I started it.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Sorry because you kissed Ezra?” I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Sorry because I lost my best friend.” Knowing that it’s come to this, that it’s come to me saying that, straining to salvage this friendship or risk losing Val forever, causes me to tear up.

“We’re still together. Not even you throwing yourself at him could break us apart.”

“What? Throwing myself at him?” True, I kissed him first. But what about the notes, the freaking pebbles at my window? Apparently, Ezra has been teaching a class in revisionist history. “It’s not like that, Val. I can explain.”

“I’ll pass,” she says, so cold, like a cult member. “Some friend you are.”

She’s gone full-on zombie.

“Ezra’s taking me on a Starlight Cruise Friday night to celebrate our relationship renaissance. We’re stronger than ev—”

I hang up.

By day two, after I’ve received enough vicious emails and phone calls from my classmates, my mom doesn’t put up a fight and tells the school that I have strep throat. In exchange for my truancy, I spill the details about being the Break-Up Artist. I know my mom must want to yell at me for doing something so mean and then demand I see a shrink for some heavy psychoanalysis, but to her credit, she doesn’t interrupt me. She listens attentively, her hands cupped on her lap. She hides her disappointment and withholds her judgment. That makes me talk more, about Ezra and Val. No gasps from her. I wish I had known my mom would be such a good listener. I would have come to her with other issues instead of Diane.

On day three, I sit at the breakfast nook eating cereal at 2:00 p.m. Some milk dribbles off the spoon onto my sweatshirt, but I don’t bother wiping it off. My mom comes out of her alteration studio and massages her hands. They are cramped from a long day of sewing, from day after day of dealing with demanding customers. All so she can provide me with a pleasant, comfortable life, one which I have just destroyed. I’m daughter of the year.

“I think you should go back to school on Monday,” she says.

My stomach clenches when I think of school. Huxley’s face. Bari’s face. I keep picturing them glaring, ready to pounce. Val. I can’t even imagine her face.

“I know you’re scared, but you can’t stay home forever.”

“You could homeschool me.”

My mom sweeps crumbs off the counter into her palm, then brushes them into the sink.

“I really appreciate your opening up to me about everything that happened, sweetheart. I think I’ve done a good job of listening impartially, but now I want to discuss why you found the need to be this Break-Up Artist person.”

I sink my spoon into the cereal bowl, drowning it in milk. I knew this moment would come, but it’s useless. She doesn’t understand why. She can’t understand because she’s in the type of relationship that I would dissolve. She’s Val in thirty years. “It’s complicated,” I tell her.

“I remember how stressful it was for me in high school. I was one of the last in my group of friends to start dating—”

“Mom, it’s not about that!” Of course, it always has to come back to being single. That’s the only logical explanation why girls do anything, right?

My mom slips her hand over mine and looks me in the eye. “I never had the best luck in the guy department.”

“Mom, stop.”

“But when I met your dad, I knew in an instant why it was never meant to be with any of those other losers.”

“No! You didn’t! You settled. Don’t feed me this image of a fairy-tale courtship. You were single, Dad was single, you came from similar backgrounds, you wanted to have kids and live in suburbia. The end. It was never about love.”

Mom stiffens up. She tries to take it in stride, but I can tell I just deeply offended the woman who gave me room and board inside her for nine months. “You don’t think your father and I love each other?”

It sounds different, more serious, when she phrases it like that. “I know you guys don’t hate each other.”

“But you don’t think your father and I love each other?” She’s in disbelief, which confuses me. Have they seen how they act around each other?

“You never kiss. Dad will kiss you on the forehead once in a while, but that’s it.” I cringe, thinking about my parents kissing on the mouth, kissing like couples do at school. Yuck!

“When we were dating, our friends used to call us the romantics.”

“Seriously? Now it’s like you’re siblings.”

“Your father and I love each other very much. It’s just that after twenty-six years of marriage, it becomes a different kind of love.” My mom pulls a rag from the sink and wipes down the rest of the counter. She’s always working to make things look nice, from bridal gowns to tabletops.

“You two didn’t even go out for your anniversary.”

“We’ve done the lavish anniversary events many times over. They become boring, and expensive. If your father wanted to, he could’ve taken me out to the nicest restaurant in Manhattan and then to a show. But we had both worked long hours that day. I know how much your father loves any show about war. And he knows that Brunello’s is my favorite restaurant that does takeout. So we relaxed on the couch eating chicken cutlet and learning about Iran–Contra, and it was a great anniversary. I know it’s hard to understand now. I’m sure couples at your school act much...differently. But that’s what love is.”

“It sounds boring.”

“Welcome to real life. After the first dates and romantic gestures peter out, because they all will eventually, you have to be left with a person you still want to look at every day.”

“And Dad?”

“I still do.” She wipes the milk off my sweatshirt.

Maybe she was right. I think back to all those boring moments between my parents, and how they know every little detail about each other without even thinking. They weren’t acting like anything. They don’t need to prove to the world that they’re in love with PDA and giant stuffed animals.

“Did you see the news?” She pulls the daily paper from the counter. “Steve Overland got a full scholarship to Chandler University. He even had a press conference with the coach there.”

She shows me the article. I spit cereal all over the table. I recognize the coach. How could I not recognize the baby face and sparkly blue eyes? Chills crawl up my arm. Everything about him is utterly familiar, except for his name.

I clench the phone in my hand and shut my door.

“Hello, Chandler University Athletics,” the secretary says.

“Coach Latham please.”

“Latham here,” he says into the phone.

“Hello, Mr. Towne.” I try to sound ominous, but he laughs.

“Great job, Ms. Williamson,” he says.

“You’re not Steve’s uncle, are you?”

“You got me.”

“Steve’s family never had a problem with Huxley. You just wanted her out of the way so Steve would play football for your second-rate school.” I shake my head, shocked at my stupidity.

“Come this fall, we won’t be second-rate anymore.”

“You lied to me.”

“You’re giving me a morals lesson? You break up couples for money.”

“I thought I was helping his family.” I’m not some mercenary, splitting up couples no matter what. I always needed a compelling reason to take on a client. But is any reason really good enough?

“I’m sure you were. They didn’t want their son to languish at some nothing school because of some controlling girlfriend.”

“Better than some conniving coach!” My voice bounces off the walls. Nausea overwhelms me. I need to sit down.

“I told you what you needed to know to get the job done. You should see Steve. I’ve never seen a kid so happy. You did the right thing.”

I think of Huxley, who I doubt is as happy. And for what? So Coach Latham can get a nice Christmas bonus? “He was already happy with his girlfriend.”

“Are you sure about that? When I spoke to him at the press conference, that was not the case. If they were really in love—” he laughs at the thought “—they would still be together.”

I don’t think any relationship could withstand the lies and manipulation I used to break them up. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t interfered? What would have happened to all the other couples?

“I’m going to tell,” I say.

“Who’s going to believe you? You’ve been talking to Mr. Towne.”

“I can track your IP address, too.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone about our agreement if I were you.” He lowers his voice, and a chill passes through the phone into my body. That wasn’t some friendly advice. “I think it would mostly hurt you. Nobody will appreciate the sick after-school job you have going on.”

“They already know.”

“The damage has already been done, then,” he says. “Trust me. You don’t want this story leaving your school and becoming actual news. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get me fired. But my coaching record, while not stellar, is still good. Another college will hire me once this blows over. The first win of the season will make this story ancient history. But you...”

I swallow hard and clutch the phone closer to my ear.

“This will follow you around forever. In college admissions, in job interviews, in relationships, in perpetuity. Everywhere. Do you want it to be the first thing people learn about you? Are you ready to be the Break-Up Artist for the rest of your life?”

I try to be strong and cold, but tears are running down my face. I want to scream at him that he is so wrong, that I can’t wait to expose him for the scum he is. But sadly, he’s right.

“Forget it, Becca. It’s high school.”