The Break-Up Artist by Philip Siegel

Author:Philip Siegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

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.

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