How to Break a Heart Read online

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, I hope you feel better soon,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  He smiles and nods, and turns toward the door. Before leaving, though, he turns back around and says, smiling, “Wanted to make sure you weren’t just up here hangin’ ten.”

  It’s another one of his jokes. One that he uses ALL THE TIME, like, anytime my brother or I are a little late to dinner, or have slept in late. You know that phrase surfing the Internet? Well, apparently hangin’ ten is an older term that meant surfing—like, your ten toes are hanging off the surfboard. So, in his strange little science-teacher mind, hangin’ ten means “surfing the Internet,” and it’s very, very funny. IN HIS OWN MIND.

  “I’m definitely not hanging ten,” I say.

  He gasp-laughs again and leaves, with a little forehead salute.

  A little later, my mom brings a grilled cheese sandwich up to my room and says, “You want to talk about it?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I tell her.

  “I might.”

  “Have you ever really been in love?”

  She pauses. “Well, yeah.”

  I roll my eyes. Well, yeah isn’t a yes. Well, yeah is wearing fleece pajamas and watching Dateline on the couch with a pointy-looking man in a bow tie. Well, yeah is going to PTA meetings and working in an office and buying in bulk from Costco. Well, yeah isn’t really being in love.

  She puts the grilled cheese on my nightstand and gives me a half smile. “All right, I’m going to bed. Eat your grilled cheese while it’s still hot.”

  I look over at the sandwich. It’s perfectly golden and crisp, and on a paper towel so it doesn’t get soggy. I pick it up and take a big bite. And for a second, I’m full of appreciation for the blah kind of love that would make a mom cook a grilled cheese for her ailing daughter.

  “It’s good,” I tell her.

  She gives me a good-night kiss on the forehead and says, “I love you.”

  “Well, duh,” I say, “I love you, too.” But it’s not nearly the same. It actually should be a different word. How are these different feelings all called love?

  Right before I turn out my light, I send Sirina a text. Good night, my little jazz-handed sea monkey.

  It’s nice to know that she’s the only person on earth who isn’t going to ask what a jazz-handed sea monkey is. Our good-night texts are a tradition we started in sixth grade after one too many rounds of Mad Libs. They’re random blends of adjectives and nouns that make no sense—just constant little inside jokes between the two of us.

  My phone buzzes with her response. Good night, my little coral-reef dancing queen.

  yo pierdo

  tú pierdes

  ella pierde

  nosotros perdemos

  ellos pierden

  It’s the next morning. My mom is standing at my door, her arms crossed. “You think you have what?”

  “A.I.W.S.,” I say. I groan and roll over. “You look really small. I better stay in bed today.”

  She sighs. “And, Mabry, what exactly is A.I.W.S.?”

  Of course she would ask that. Of course. “Alice in Wonderland syndrome,” I tell her. I open one eye and reach for the glass of water on my nightstand, pinching at it with my thumb and index finger. “Why is my water glass so tiny?”

  She raises her eyebrows at me. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “It’s real!” I say. “Just Google it!” And it is—it is! Plus, the good thing is that you don’t have to have a fever to have A.I.W.S., so it’s not like she can prove that I don’t have it.

  But instead of giving me sympathy, she just starts bossing me around. “Mabry, get up, get dressed, and get ready for school.”

  “Mom, okay, listen. I probably just have a migraine.” Here’s what I know from experience: a claim of a migraine or strep throat or even a cold will buy you at least a day out of school, while, very ironically, a claim of an ailing heart—the heart, which you can’t live without, which is the most important organ in the body—won’t even get you a late slip.

  But my mom just turns her head sideways and gives me that no-nonsense stare, like she is the Queen of the Whole World, or maybe even Señora Lomas from La Vida Rica, and I am one of her servants, who has no free will at all.

  At school, on the way to first period, I run into my friend Amelia. She starts talking about the color she wants to paint her room. “It’s kind of like purple, but it’s not one of those pale purples—it’s more like a blue-purple. It’s called Mystic Moon.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “Sounds nice.” And it does. But I can barely focus on anything but the wreckage in my heart.

  “GOR. GEOUS,” she says, like it’s two words. “But I’m a little scared.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Well, come on, Mabry. Purple! It’s bold, even for me. What if I totally hate it? I mean…”

  She keeps talking but my ears no longer register her words. Instead, I see him, My Love, My Nicolás, moving—gliding—toward me in slow motion. I inhale a warm breeze. A bird soars behind him. I hear a piano playing gently. The breeze caresses his bangs from his face. For that moment, the air catches as if it’s been locked in my lungs, and our eyes meet as if they’ve been seeking each other through eternity, and—

  Er.

  Wait.

  Not. As. Planned.

  Instead of running toward me—as the music increases in pace and intensity, as the bird is joined by its mate—Nick bolts. He takes an immediate detour into the Teen Life lab, which I know he doesn’t have until sixth period.

  “…was thinking about pink, but then I was like, pink, really? I mean, how old am I, four?” Amelia is still going, twisting her blond hair around her fingers as she talks.

  “Right,” I say, but it comes out a little garbled, because, of course, I am speaking through a crushed soul. I don’t want to see Nick anyway. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t! Okay, I do. But I shouldn’t want to. I mean, you go out with someone for six weeks and think you know them, and suddenly, your future mother-in-law is calling you to break up!

  Amelia looks at me. “You okay?”

  I clear my throat. “I’m really sorry, Amelia. I sort of just saw Nick.”

  “Oh.” She twists her face into a grimace. “Ugh. That’s the worst thing about a breakup. Seeing the guy all the time afterward.”

  No, Amelia, I want to say. The worst thing about a breakup is scraping your soul off the bottom of his shoe! It’s like we’re living on different planets sometimes.

  Our friend Jordan catches up to Amelia and me in the hallway. “Hey!” she says to us, all too cheerfully. Then she looks straight at me. “Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

  “She and Nick are over,” Amelia tells her.

  “What!?” Jordan says. “Since when?”

  “Since yesterday after school,” I tell her.

  “What happened? Oh my god, did he leave you for Ariana?” Jordan asks, meaning Nick’s girlfriend before me.

  “No,” I say. “For karate.”

  “Karate? What?” This time Amelia does the drilling. “He actually said that?”

  “Well, I haven’t really been able to talk to him. I think maybe it’s just what his mom wants him to do. She’s the one who called.”

  “His mom broke up with you?” Jordan says, way too loudly. “What a wimp!”

  “He’s n-not—” I stammer. I haven’t spent six blissful weeks in love with a wimp—there’s no way! I mean, do wimps have those ocean-blue eyes? That slightly crooked but adorable smile? I think not!

  “Yeah, he’s such a baby,” Amelia declares.

  Jordan smiles. “Just wait till word gets out.”

  “You’re not—Don’t say anything, please!”

  “Don’t worry, Mabry,” Jordan says. “This makes him look bad, not you.”

  “Yeah,” Amelia adds. “You should totally be laughing at him.”

  “Just don’t say anything. I don’t want anyone l
aughing at him. Please!” I beg, but the bell rings and they scatter away too quickly. I’m left pleading for a mercy that will never come, like on La Vida Rica, when Irina was lost and stumbled upon a pack of wolves in the hills and was never heard from again.

  At lunch, I find Sirina in the à la carte line. “My world is falling apart,” I tell her.

  A normal Sirina response would be to say, Your world is not actually falling apart. Instead, she just gives me this I-feel-kind-of-sorry-for-you look and orders a Chipwich from the cafeteria lady.

  “A Chipwich? You’re eating an ice-cream sandwich? Really?” I ask Sirina.

  She looks at me. “Yeah, why not?”

  I just shake my head. It’s hard to feel like you’re being taken seriously when you’re pouring your heart out to a friend who’s just sitting there eating a Chipwich, like it’s a day at the carnival or something.

  At our lunch table, Jordan immediately scoots over to make room for us, and Amelia gives me a pat on the back, which actually makes me feel a little more like a leper.

  Sirina wedges in close to me and I open my lunch—pasta salad.

  “He won’t even look at me,” I say as I stare into the chaotic, oily bunch of noodles.

  “He’s an infant,” Sirina says.

  “When Axyl broke up with me, I un-friended him,” Jordan says. “You should do it first before he does it to you.”

  “But I could never un-friend him,” I say. “He’s still the love of my life.”

  Amelia chimes in. “You should just come in tomorrow looking all hot, and be like, Whatever, dude, I’m over you.”

  I sigh and shake my head. No one understands. No one!

  “Block him on your phone, too,” Jordan says. “I blocked Axyl on everything. There was no way he could come crawling back to me. I didn’t want to speak to him or see him or have anything to do with him—not if he was the last guy in the world.”

  She’s such a drama queen sometimes. “I’d rather die,” I say.

  I’m still staring into my pasta, and no one’s talking, but I can practically hear them all exchanging glances, their eyes inflating, their eyebrows shooting up into their hairlines. Sirina nudges me in the ribs with her pointy elbow. “They’re just trying to help, Mabry,” she says.

  “I know.” I exhale. “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s a butthead,” Amelia says.

  “Don’t call him that!”

  Amelia and Jordan get up from the table, exasperated, and start to walk away. “Sorry,” I call after them. To Sirina, I say, “I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I just—I just want him back.” My eyes brim with tears. I try not to blink.

  “Hey, Mabry?”

  “What?”

  “You, my friend, are the poster child for misery.”

  I sigh and poke at a noodle with my fork. “I can’t wait for you to fall in love so you know what it feels like.”

  Sirina looks at me for a second. Then she shakes her head and looks away and says, “The way you’re acting, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

  We finish lunch. Or rather, I finish staring at mine, and she polishes off her Chipwich. “Sorry,” I finally murmur.

  “I know, me too,” she says.

  And just as we’re about to leave the cafetorium, she says, “But, Mabry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You are driving me crazy.”

  I’m kind of stunned. I really have no idea what to say to that, but just then, Mrs. Hurst, the nutrition manager, starts screeching about how we all need to return our trays and pick up all remaining food and “food waste” from our tables and UNDERNEATH THEM and get headed to our fourth-period classes. She says it with such urgency you almost feel like you must spit out anything in your mouth just to follow the rules. So, luckily, I don’t have to say anything to Sirina right now.

  At the end of the school day, I see Mi Amor again. Through the crowd of faceless faces, he is sailing toward me. My breath catches in my throat for a second. I feel like I am about to drown.

  He will save me. His hand will grab mine, and he will sweep me out of this mighty middle-school ocean.

  Nicolás! My heart calls out to him.

  And it appears as if he hears my heart. Because his sparkly blue eyes meet my emerald-green ones. I open my mouth to say his name, to ask if we can just talk—and then, out of nowhere, A SHARK ATTACKS.

  A shark by the name of Patrick Hennessey. Who is usually more of a minnow than a shark, but today he might as well be a great white.

  “Nick!” he calls out. “Downstairs. You coming?”

  “Wait up!” Nick calls back. He bolts past me.

  I am Cristina aching for Luis. I am Andres pining for Consuelo. I am Elisabet yearning for Cristof. I am devastated, alone, abandoned. A washed-up shell piece on a remote island beach. The piece that winds up jabbing you in the ball of the foot, and then gets cursed at and thrown back into the ocean.

  “Mabry, Maaaay-bry.” Sirina puts her hands on my shoulders and steers me toward the locker we share. “You’re standing there like a statue from a Greek tragedy. You look ridiculous.”

  I sigh. “Let’s just get this day over with so we can go home and watch La Vida Rica.”

  “Oh, my little pobrecita,” Sirina says, rubbing my shoulder.

  Then we hear, “Girls?”

  We turn to see Mrs. Neidelman. She’s in charge of the Hubert C. Frost Middle School news blog, The Vindicator. I’m a reporter and Sirina’s both my editor and photographer. It’s something we’ve been working on together since we got “redirected” from the drama club last year. Well, since I did. I still remember Jessica Morgan’s snotty little face when she told me, “This is the drama club, not the melodrama club.” And then Mrs. Neidelman just happened to ask me if I could help out by writing for The Vindicator. “Anyone as passionate as you are, Mabry, would be an asset to our team,” she’d said. And Sirina quit the drama club and came with me.

  Mrs. Neidelman clasps her hands together, like she can’t quite contain her excitement. “Well, I’m so glad to have run into you girls. I have a last-minute request.”

  “Sure,” Sirina says, way too quickly. She wants to become a news editor or a photojournalist for real one day. But working on The Vindicator isn’t as much fun for me as it is for her. I mean, the interesting stuff is not what’s going on in the classrooms and on the fields—it’s the stuff that happens behind the bleachers, under the stairwells, in the hidden alcoves. The stuff that Mrs. Neidelman won’t let us write about.

  “There’s a band rehearsal in the cafetorium. Would you mind snapping some photos? Maybe write a blurb about the concert next week?”

  I sigh. No bleachers. No stairwells. No alcoves. No janitor’s closets.

  “Yeah, okay,” Sirina says.

  Mrs. Neidelman looks right at me. “Now, I know this isn’t the most exciting thing, but it’s been a slow news week”—as if there’s ever been anything but—“and, Mabry?” She looks at me and gently clears her throat. “Well, this will be good for you. You know how I love your, uh, flair, but this is good practice for just sticking to the facts, okay, dear? The who, what, where, when. Just some nice, basic reporting.” She gives me a cautious smile.

  I tell her okay, but as soon as she’s down the hall, I mumble to Sirina, “Nice, boring reporting.”

  “Boring,” Sirina says, and laughs. “Okay, Mabry, that’s one thing you will never be.”

  “Welcome, ladies!” Mr. Greer, the band sponsor, greets us with a radioactive dose of enthusiasm as we enter the cafetorium. His smile spreads his mustache wide over his upper lip. “Urine for a real cheat!”

  Or at least that’s what it sounds like he says, but it’s hard to hear anything over the squawking trombones, the farting tubas, and the kazoo-like screech of a flautist in distress.

  Sirina smirks at me. “Some ‘treat,’ huh?”

  “Treat?”

  “Yeah, what Mr. Greer said. ‘You’re in for a real treat.’”r />
  “Oh, right,” I say.

  I follow Sirina closer to the stage, so she can get some shots.

  “Hey,” I tell Sirina. “Any closer and our eardrums might actually burst.”

  “Fine, I’m sure we can leave if it becomes medically necessary,” she says, and takes a couple shots.

  “Wonderful, boys and girls. Just wonderful,” Mr. Greer calls out, his hands pressed to his heart. “But let’s try that ‘Hero’s March’ once more.”

  And the band plays on. It’s bad enough that my face starts to squeeze and pull in all sorts of directions on its own. When the music finally stops, Sirina looks at me, amused.

  “Can we leave?” I ask. “I think it’s already becoming medically necessary.”

  But the soloists are about to start, and Sirina shushes me. Mr. Greer calls Kipper Garrett up front. Kipper’s this shy kid in my biology class. He’s kind of short and square-shaped, which seems to bother everyone but him. Some of the guys make fun of him—not just for how he looks, but for the off-brand shoes he wears, or for the thermos he brings in his lunch. But it never rattles him. It’s like when he was little, his dad told him the sticks-and-stones rhyme, and it’s stuck with him ever since.

  “Kipper will be playing a lovely rendition of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry,’” Mr. Greer tells us.

  Kipper steps forward in his slightly-too-long black pants. He wipes off the reed of his clarinet, places his lips on it, and closes his eyes.

  I brace myself. Sometimes you just want to go up to kids like Kipper, give them a little knock-knock on the head, and say, Are you trying to make it that easy for those jerknuts? Are you aware that you’re practically serving yourself up to them on a silver platter? Because even though their teasing doesn’t seem to faze you, it makes the rest of us feel pretty bad.

  But when he starts playing, I stop feeling sorry for him. He’s good. I mean, really good. The music he plays is like eardrum balm. Sirina takes a few closer shots of him, and when he’s done, she claps. I do too.

  Mr. Greer announces Kailey Kinnell next on saxophone. She is whomping out something that might be “When the Saints Go Marching In,” but it sounds like the mating call of a whale with sea pox.