16 Ways to Break a Heart Page 10

  “Dan?”

  You woke up groggy and annoyed and like, “Seriously, Nat?” But then I kissed you and put my hands in certain places, and you got all happy and horny and semi-malleable and seemed willing to let me spend the night.

  “I have to be up in four hours,” you said after a few minutes of lackluster kissing.

  “So? Don’t take the train then, I’ll drive you and that’ll give us extra time.”

  “But you’ll miss first period.”

  “I’d rather be with you.”

  “Let’s just sleep, okay?”

  That stung, Dan. When had you ever chosen sleep over sex? “Oh come on,” I said, hiding my hurt; grabbing the waistband of your shorts and pulling you close. You laughed uneasily and disentangled yourself before burying your head under a pillow.

  My heart sank. “Why don’t you wanna be with me?”

  “I do,” you insisted, reemerging with an evasive grin. “I just want to be with you while we sleep.”

  Well that wasn’t good enough, Dan. I felt wounded and unwanted, and if you weren’t going to prop me up then I was going to take you down. “What kind of guy turns down sex?”

  Your body went rigid. “I dunno,” you snapped back, your expression suddenly icy. “What kind of girl climbs through windows at night, begging to be fucked?”

  My jaw smacked the floor.

  “You don’t want to be with a girl who likes sex, Dan.” I grabbed my phone and got out of bed. “You want to date a vestal virgin.”

  Well that embarrassed you. You went red-faced and started backpedaling. “That’s not what I meant. You provoked me.”

  This is why I never told you about my past.

  It’s why I lied about being chaste and pure.

  I’d always feared moments like this one, when you’d see me for who I truly was: a deviant. A dirty girl. “If I ask you something right now will you be completely honest with me?”

  You nodded, steeling yourself.

  “Swear to me.”

  “I swear,” you said, and I wondered why I’d even come here in the first place. Had it been so unreasonable to expect that you’d be happy to see me? That we could make things right after the thing with MOCA? “Are you repulsed by me?”

  “No,” you insisted, and you sounded sincere but I didn’t believe you.

  “Do you wanna break up?”

  “Natalie.”

  “Answer me.”

  “No.”

  “But you won’t even touch me.”

  “It’s just late, Nat.”

  “You think I’m slutty?”

  “Natalie, stop it.” You grabbed me and pulled me back to bed.

  I was so worn out, Dan. So sick of trying, of fighting, so sick of being sick. “Okay,” I said, lying down, just wanting you to hold me again; wanting everything to go back to how it was in the beginning when I was new and you were new and our relationship was full of hope.

  In the morning things seemed better.

  “Take this,” you said as I was heading out. It was your favorite fleece-lined jacket. “It’s cold, okay?” You kissed me with minty lips and slipped it over my bare shoulders. I nodded and kissed back and apologized for the night before. “I shouldn’t have surprised you like that,” I said, and you said something like, “That’s okay,” but you didn’t say sorry yourself.

  The jacket was shiny and rain resistant but soft and warm on the inside. It smelled faintly of that cologne you never wear—the woody/soapy one? I sniffed the lining, stuck my hands in the pockets, and felt something sleek and square. “Hey, your phone.” I pulled it out and a picture of us from the previous spring lit the home screen. My knees went weak. We’d been so happy then—the two of us by the beach, squinting against the sun; wavy, windswept strands of hair blowing sideways across our faces. “Can I send this to myself?”

  You grabbed your cell and your eyes crinkled warmly. “That was a good day,” you said, punching in your password and passing the phone back. Immediately, a text exchange popped up.

  “Dan?”

  You had your back turned. You were jamming your camera and all your school-supply crap into your book bag. “Hmm?”

  My vision blurred. My head got hot. I quickly scanned the conversation thread:

  Please wear something obscene to school tomorrow.

  It was the elf again.

  Just twelve hours earlier you’d been sending lewd texts to that skanky, fucking elf.

  Well, I just about lost my goddamn mind.

  “You’re a liar and a coward,” I screamed, throwing your phone clear across the room.

  You whipped around, confused. “Hey! What’s your problem?”

  “I asked you over and over again if you wanted to break up, and you swore you wanted to be with me. You SWORE it. You told me on that hike that us taking time apart was just about perspective and boundaries.” I ran for the door but you full-body-blocked me.

  “Natalie, stop it.” You were gripping my wrists now, which hurt. “What the hell is happening right now?”

  “How’s Arielle, Dan?”

  Well, that shut you up. Your face went paper white. “We haven’t done anything yet.”

  “YET? Oh my GOD.” I yanked my hands back and rolled my eyes. “Move.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “You’re SORRY?!”

  “Can you please just”—you waved a finger in front of my face—“not scream? Jessa’s asleep still and—”

  “I don’t give a shit if your sister can hear us!” I reached for the door again. You swung left, throwing an arm out. “Get out of the way.”

  “Just let me explain.”

  “That you screwed someone else, which is why you won’t screw me?” I whacked your arm sideways. “Spare me, please.” I yanked hard on the doorknob and made a run for it.

  “I didn’t screw anyone!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Natalie!”

  “WHAT?!” I stopped at the foot of the staircase and stared at you. I felt horrible and high—completely jacked on adrenaline and feelings of vindication.

  “Don’t leave like this.”

  “You don’t love me, Dan.”

  And Dan? You fucking HESITATED. “I do.”

  “Okay, you know what?” I jiggled the lever on the screen door, my heart racing. “Your movie is a twee pile of shit. Go fuck yourself.” I rushed outside to the Buick and ran right into a pocket of cool, biting air. Then I got in my car, turned the ignition, and slammed the gas pedal.

  “Natalie!” you shouted as I screeched and bopped down your potholed driveway.

  I heard you, Dan, I did, but I didn’t stop driving. I cut a sharp left then a quick right and—poof!—you disappeared from view.

  Nat

  DAN, 1:52 P.M.

  Gross, right? But accurate. Everyone’s nightmares confirmed in under sixty seconds of high-octane drama. My movie was a twee pile of shit and Nat finally had confirmation that something was happening with Arielle. Only nothing was happening with Arielle. Nothing physical anyway. It’d only ever been a bit of innocent flirting—a text here, a wink there. Ari was like a shot of sugar when I was feeling depleted; a quick pick-me-up when I felt dim in the shadow of Nat’s oppressive light. But Nat didn’t want to hear any of that. She’d resorted to her usual MO of name-calling and hysteria, and then before I knew it we were unexpectedly over. We were over, weren’t we? I mean, no one had explicitly said the words, but how do you bounce back from that kind of nastiness?

  And what was I supposed to do after she’d driven off, anyway? Wait? Go after her? Give her space? Go to school? I felt paralyzed and numb, like some sort of anesthetized, lobotomized zombie-bot. I stood on the grass for a while just waiting for something to change. Then I went back inside and grabbed my backpack and headed down the hill to the bus stop. I didn’t know what else to do.

  By the time I got to school I’d missed the first half of trig, so I spent the rest of first period on a ben
ch behind the auditorium. Each message I sent to Nat went unanswered. What if she’d done something stupid? What if she was drunk on the 405 at eight a.m.? My heart sputtered and skipped like a backfiring car. I felt crazy. Restless. I texted Ruby:

  D: Where are you right now?

  R: World lit. Why?

  D: I think Nat and I may have just broken up.

  R: Holy shit.

  R: Like for real?

  R: I’m open next period. Walk me to 7-Eleven and I’ll cheer you up. Buy you a Slurpee?

  R: Dan, you okay?

  D: I’ve got a chem quiz next period and I’ve already skipped calc.

  R: Well, whatever you want.

  What I wanted was to shut my brain off; to quit this nonsense with Natalie where every fight circled back to my inadequacy and her volatility. I wanted to stop resenting her successes. I wanted to be the better person but I also wanted the freedom to be a screwup. I was, I am, only seventeen after all. Don’t I get a pass for being reckless and immature?

  D: Toss in a fifth of whiskey and some french fries and you’ve got yourself a deal.

  R: We’ll be blitzed by lunch. You sure you wanna throw the whole day away?

  I thought about it. But then I realized that the key to all this freedom business was to just say screw it and not think.

  We didn’t go to 7-Eleven. We went to a liquor store on Colfax where Ruby paid a homeless guy ten bucks to buy us a bottle of bourbon. Then we walked two more blocks to the Jewish deli, where we got sandwiches and Cokes and took those to the park for a midmorning boozy picnic.

  “So, are we gonna talk about it?” Ruby asked after her first sloppy bite of roast beef. Her parents lived on sea vegetables and Buddhist ideals, so she really relished any chance she got to eat processed meat.

  “I mean, sure?” I said, my stomach tensing and rolling. I’d hoped I’d be a little drunker than this by the time Ruby got around to asking questions, but—“Nat found some messages on my phone from Arielle Schulman.”

  Ruby’s face fell. “Oh, Dan.”

  “We haven’t done anything. It’s just been a bunch of, like, dumb, shitty texts.”

  “Sexts?”

  “Not even! Well, not really.”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t give me that look.”

  “You just”—she sucked some dressing off her thumb—“you can’t do that kind of thing. You can’t commit to one girl and mess around with someone else. You two should’ve broken up a long time ago.”

  I shrugged. Ruby pulled out the bottle of bourbon and spiked both our Cokes. “Do you feel relieved at all?” she asked, chewing her straw and watching me sideways.

  I thought about the night before. About the sex we’d almost had. About the bad feelings I’d felt and the hateful thing I’d said about her begging for it. “I mean, honestly? I feel guilty.”

  “Don’t. She’s an emotional vampire.” She took another sip of soda then said, “You’re a good guy.”

  What kind of girl begs to be fucked?

  What kind of girl begs to be fucked?

  What kind of girl begs to be fucked?

  “No,” I said, pouring an extra shot or three into my icy Coke. “I’m really not.”

  Later, drunker, we ended up back at Ruby’s for some vegan ice cream and shitty TV.

  “You want whipped cream?” she asked, swaying a little, aiming the spray can at my face before redirecting it at the bowl.

  “That can’t be the real stuff.”

  “It’s made with rainbows and bean curd.” Giddy, she sprayed a soft cloud of soy onto my plate. “Cherry?”

  I shook my head and felt some happy sloshing between my ears. A fourth a bottle of booze gone, and I was pleasantly numb. “Can we watch something scary?”

  “What, like, home movies?” She licked some cream off her hand. “Get the napkins, will you?”

  Ruby’s house always smelled like rice. Her mother was a macrobiotic zealot, and there was a cooker in the kitchen that ran around the clock. The shelves in the living room were cluttered with crystals, totems, and paperback books about enlightenment. There were plants everywhere too—hanging, creeping, propped up in corners; the biggest ones got space on the deck. “What time’s your mom back?” I asked, settling in on the couch; devouring a bite of mint chocolate chip.

  “Not until six.” She grabbed the remote and slid her feet under my butt. “We’re going scary, huh?” She switched on the TV and scrolled through the digital queue. “Torture horror? Paranormal? Monster movie?”

  “Do you wear makeup?” I asked. It was a drunk question. A dumb one.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Her eyes were dancing with amusement and suspicion. “Why do you even care?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, laughing along. “But specifically, like, on your lips?” They were so plump and soft looking; the color of a day-old bruise. “Do you do anything special to make them that way?”

  “What way?” she asked, blushing, mindlessly touching her mouth. “You mean like lip gloss?”

  Natalie wore a gloss that I liked a lot. It smelled like cake batter and made our mouths stick together when we kissed. “Yours look purple.”

  “My lips?”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking about different sorts of kisses: sweet ones, French ones, the ones you give babies and stuffed animals. I wondered idly what it would feel like to kiss Ruby. “Did anything ever happen with you and that old dude you dated?” Old Dude had been a junior at UCLA.

  “You mean did I give it up to my college boyfriend?” She waited for me to say something snide back, but when I didn’t she went, “I’m waiting for the right guy.”

  I felt something familiar bubbling up; something animal and ugly. “Who’s that?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer; I knew how Ruby felt about me. How she’d always felt.

  “You gonna make me say it?”

  No, worse. I was gonna make her prove it.

  I pushed aside a couch cushion and kissed her. Knowing full well it was wrong. Ruby was tanked; I was only six hours out of an insane, all-consuming, frenetic, horrible, thrilling, terrifying relationship with a girl who may or may not have been the love of my life. I was heartbroken. I was horny. I was disillusioned and drunk and I wanted to do it so I did. And I should regret it but I can’t because here’s the thing—sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, and sometimes it’s this:

  Ruby’s hands were in my hair and her lips were soft and parted and she tasted sweet and felt so warm and each time our mouths met I felt tiny shocks and tingles. Our legs got mixed up, our shirts came off, everything was suddenly really slick—tacky skin and damp hands and I was crazy aroused so I gripped her hips and she moaned a little and then we were kissing faster and touching more and she was whispering something into my mouth, she was saying, “It’s okay, I want to,” and I knew what she meant, knew she wanted me to be her first. Which was flattering but horrifying because what the hell was I doing? This was Ruby, my best friend, and Natalie—my girlfriend? ex-girlfriend?—had been in my bed that very same morning. “We can’t,” I said, breaking away.

  “Why can’t we?” She was breathing fast still, looking messy and splotchy and so, so pretty.

  “Because, Rubes, we just can’t.” I glanced over, shamefaced. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes were brimming with shiny tears. “Sophomore year it was Ginny Schecter, and then after her it was that girl from Crossroads, and then all of a sudden there was Natalie—screwed up and stuck up and rich.” She swiped at her nose roughly. “Why wasn’t it ever me?”

  “Because you were, you are, my friend.”

  “So?”

  “So there’s a lot more at stake with you.”

  “That’s bullshit, Dan.” She looked so sad and defeated. “That’s just some line that people say to each other in movies.”

  She was right, it was a line. And why hadn’t it ever been her? Ruby made me feel secure and loved, and Nat had always left me
feeling shitty and resentful.

  No contest, right?

  It was the Buick I saw first, parked between the garage and Dad’s succulent garden.

  “Hi,” Nat said. She was curled up in the wicker love seat on the front porch, clutching her knees to her chest.

  “Hi,” I said back, walking slowly and with trepidation. The bourbon buzz had finally worn off, and, feeling nauseated and exhausted, the reality of what I’d just done was setting in.

  “I just need to know,” she said, getting up, “if you fucked the elf.”

  She meant Ari of course, but Ruby’s face was flashing in my mind on a torturous loop. “No,” I said. “I told you. It was just a few dumb texts. When you and I fight, Ari and I flirt. That’s it.”

  “You swear.”

  “I swear.”

  “You never touched that girl?”

  “Not once.”

  “Swear on your mother.”

  I hesitated a second then took the line of least resistance. “I swear on my mother.”

  Nat’s posture softened. “I didn’t mean what I said about your movie.”

  I was suddenly, inexplicably weeping. Hunched over, hands covering my wet face, crying like a kid.

  Nat wrapped her arms around me, rubbing my back while whispering, “It’s okay . . .” Her soft, clean hair brushed against my sweaty, sticky face.

  “No it’s not.”

  “It is. Dan. Look at me.”

  I looked at her.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Was it the fight from earlier? Or maybe the guilt I felt about my slipup with Ruby? “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.” She wiped my wet cheeks. “Do you want to be with that girl?”

  I didn’t, so, “No.”

  “Do you want to be with me still?”

  I honestly wasn’t sure. “Yes.”

  “You smell like booze,” she said.

  “Drinking lunch.”