16 Ways to Break a Heart Read online

  “I’m not giving you money,” she said, readjusting her paint-splattered smock. “Dad gave you two hundred bucks before he left—what the hell did you spend it on?”

  “I needed to feed myself.”

  “Oh please, Natalie, I stocked the fridge Sunday night.”

  “I don’t like what you bought.”

  “Tough shit.”

  “I’ve been ordering rolls from Katsu-Ya.”

  Her head snapped around, eyes huge. “All week?”

  “All week.”

  “That’s exorbitant.”

  That was the point.

  “Please?” I pleaded. “It’s Valentine’s.”

  You were on a David Foster Wallace kick back then, remember? There was this signed, first-edition copy of Infinite Jest for sale at the Last Bookstore downtown. I wanted to buy it for you.

  “I need to get Dan something.”

  “Well, Fluff, you should’ve thought of that before you blew two hundred bucks on spicy tuna rolls.” She scrunched her eyes and slapped the canvas with a messy blob of orange paint. And that was the end of that.

  So I showed up at your house empty handed. And I was mortified, remember? A spoiled brat who’d eaten her weight in gilded ginger while her boyfriend went gift-less on the most romantic day of the year.

  “I’m an asshole,” I said to you as you stripped off my coat and nuzzled your nose in my neck. “Don’t give me anything, I don’t deserve it.”

  “What about kisses?”

  “Unearned!” I wailed, but you kissed me anyways. You were always doing things like that—loving me when I didn’t deserve to be loved.

  “Come with me,” you said, pulling me down the hall and down the stairs and down down down to the basement, which you’d decorated with—from the looks of it—zero restraint. There were drippy candles in Chianti bottles, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, pink roses, red balloons—all the stock symbols of romance.

  I looked at you, speechless. “This is . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s . . .”

  “Foul, say it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, laughing. “It’s absolutely nauseating.”

  You grinned and kissed me again. It was a slow one this time, soft and electric.

  “Do you think I’m a terrible person for trying to extort large sums of money from my mother?” I asked.

  “How large?”

  “Triple digits.”

  “What do you need that kind of cash for? Clothes?”

  “I want to buy you things.”

  You smiled and shrugged me off. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “But I want to.”

  “But you don’t work.”

  I jolted back, stung. “So?”

  “So, you shouldn’t be spending that kind of cash then.”

  My chest tightened. “You think you’re better than me because you work? You think I’m just some vapid, privileged bitch who sits around all day fucking fanning herself while trolling the internet for expensive shoes?”

  “Whoa, Nat.” You scooped me up in your arms and cradled me while I got teary. “Whoa, no. NO. I think you’re incredible. You’re smart, you’re weird, you make awesomely messed-up art—” I laughed at that and let you squeeze me tighter. “I just mean—don’t spend your parents’ money on me. That’s it.”

  I sat up, sniffling, looking you square in the eye. “It’s true, though. I’m a brat. You should’ve seen me with my mother earlier . . .” I shook my head, abashed. “Is it normal to hate your parents that much?”

  You blinked. You didn’t say anything back, so I said, “What, you hate me now?”

  “Stop it, seriously. I love everything about you.”

  I love everything about you.

  I LOVE everything about you.

  Exhilaration shot from my head to my heart. It was nearly an “I love you,” wasn’t it? A pre “I love you”? I let it roll around inside my body for a bit. “Everything?” I asked greedily, grabbing you, nipping at your earlobe like a hungry baby animal.

  “Everything,” you whispered back, wiping my tear-streaked face. “I never want to be the reason you cry. I will never, ever hurt you, Nat. Not ever.”

  LIES.

  LIESLIESLIESLIESLIES.

  You did hurt me, Dan.

  And you’re still doing it.

  Nat

  DAN, 7:14 A.M.

  These past few weeks, the post-break-up weeks, I’ve been driving around on autopilot—feeling sad but in a manageable way: regretful, yes, wistful at times, sure, but mostly I’ve just been bouncing back and forth between mild guilt and massive relief. No more fights with Nat; no more tears or tantrums. I’ve reinvested in school and recommitted myself to the movie. Life’s been okay.

  Until this morning. And shit, I should’ve known. What the hell was I expecting? That Nat and I would part ways amicably? That we’d keep in touch via social media? See each other twice a year for coffee catch-ups? Send each other postcards from our respective sides of the city?

  Hell no.

  It’s Natalie.

  Natalie.

  She’s batshit and brilliant and even though this relationship retrospective of hers has been relatively tame thus far, I know there’s something larger lurking in the distance. She’s got a 10K fireworks display hiding behind a curtain where she’s crouched with a box of matches, twirling her mustache.

  I shove the note in my equipment bag and glance out the window at the desolate stretch of San Fernando speeding by. I’ve been doing this commute every weekday for the past three years—Metrolink from downtown to North Hollywood and back. It’s exhausting. But Nat used to make it tolerable. She’d meet me most days after school at Union Station. Wait on the outdoor train platform in her uniform—bobby socks and bright-red lipstick—grinning while the Santa Anas whipped her hair wildly from side to side; sun setting behind the mountains; eighties metal blaring in surround sound.

  “Snacks,” she said to me one afternoon early on in our relationship, thrusting a white paper bag into my hands as we exited the station and headed for her car. “There’s some chips in there, some dried fruit, some other stuff—to tide you over till dinner.”

  “You’re incredible.”

  “I’m pragmatic,” she said. “You’re always ravenous.”

  I reached into the bag and pulled out a giant, lumpy cookie. “Oh man.” I took a bite, dying a little. It was fantastic—subtly sweet and buttery with bitter chocolate. “Jesus.”

  “Right?” She smiled knowingly. “They’re from a bakery on Larchmont.”

  “Are you an angel?” I asked, devouring the rest in two quick chews.

  “Don’t you know yet?” She shimmied her shoulders. “I’m the devil.”

  We zigzagged across the lot to Nat’s old Buick Riviera—tan exterior, gray interior (lots of rich, arty girls on the Eastside drive junk cars). “What’re we doing for dinner?”

  “What do you feel like?” I asked, getting in. Scrambling to come up with cheap options. “Guisados? Or burgers maybe?”

  “Can we go to your house instead? Make frozen pizzas?” She looked at me pleadingly. Nat loved my house. She was always saying things like, “It feels so homey and authentic here,” and “You have, like, an actual den. With carpet.” Her parents’ place was distressingly modern—all hard angles with glass and concrete.

  So we went to my house. We made boxed macaroni and cheese with small sides of frozen broccoli. Dad stayed in his study working on a brief, and Jessa and her friend—a quiet girl with a face full of makeup—hung out on the front deck filming themselves with my camera. “That chick has five hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube,” Nat whispered to me over a forkful of broccoli. “I’ve seen her videos. She has, like, a whole tutorial on how to make lipstick with powdered Kool-Aid.”

  We watched a movie after that. Something Nat wanted to watch; something frothy and romantic which was fine because Nat had her feet in my lap—dainty things pain
ted with glossy pink polish. She was squirming and smiling; cringing gleefully while the people on TV fell in and out of love.

  “Could you ever love anyone like that?” she asked a little later as the film score picked up; rain and tears melting makeup off the actors’ faces.

  I laughed. I knew what she was really asking: Could you ever love ME like that?

  And I could. I would.

  Instead I shrugged and said, “Maybe,” and she crawled into my lap; a slow, wobbly creep like a cat or a baby or a seductress.

  “I don’t want to go home tonight,” she said.

  “So don’t.”

  We kissed and she shivered a little.

  “You okay?” I asked, rubbing her arms and pulling her close. “You cold?”

  “No, I’m just—” Her eyes were suddenly wet. “I’m just really, really happy that I’m with you.”

  It was such a small moment—it wasn’t Valentine’s or The Park or Dayview—but it was Nat at her best: earnest, sweet, a little vulnerable.

  I think about that night a lot. Everything felt so regular and right then. So much promise and possibility. So little disappointment and doubt. That’s the version of Nat I miss most now: the unguarded girl who liked wall-to-wall carpeting. The one who trembled when we kissed late at night. The one who ate boxed mac and cheese like it was fucking filet mignon. Where’d that girl go, huh? The one on the train platform, hair flying everywhere?

  The train lurches forward now, jerking me back to reality. I shake off the memory and then quickly glance out the window at the stretch of valley speeding by: strip malls and stopped traffic; juice carts and palm trees. There’s the 7-Eleven where I buy my morning coffee—I’m nearly at my stop.

  I shove the letter into the front pocket of my backpack and pull out the next in the series, number five: heavy card stock, calligraphic script.

  I slip my finger under the envelope flap.

  FEBRUARY 15, 2016, MONDAY, 7:00 A.M., LOOSE-LEAF NOTE LEFT ON DAN’S BED

  Dan,

  Clean up your shit, please. The basement looks like it’s been hit by a cartoon-heart missile. It’s like Cupid and Casanova had a whole big fuckfest with a bunch of stuffed animals. What the hell were you two doing down there anyways?

  Audra’s coming over today, and we need the basement to shoot. Have all your crap out by 4:00 p.m.

  Thanks!

  Jessa

  FEBRUARY 15, 2016, MONDAY, 9:14 A.M., TEXT

  From: Mae Fierro

  To: Natalie Fierro

  Child o’ mine, I had two twenties in my wallet yesterday that have somehow mysteriously disappeared. Did you take them, you little thief???

  5

  LOS ANGELES, MAY 7, 2017, SUNDAY, 7:06 P.M.

  Hi,

  I’m back at the park—OUR park—the sacred spot where we shared that explosive/exhilarating/intoxicating first kiss. Though now I’m writing about a different first. A less fun first. My first black eye. Cue the violins.

  We’d been drinking that night, remember? Whiskey, the good stuff, stolen from my parents’ not-so-secret stash. I suggested we go to the park, and you liked the idea, so we went. We took the shortest route—through the hills, down curly streets cluttered with pale-pink houses, down two separate sets of hidden staircases. We got our hair caught in overgrown wisteria vines. We slow-danced to a rap song with a droning drumbeat pumping out the windows of a passing SUV. Twice, you backed me into trees and kissed me like it mattered—pressing against me with your hips and pulling at my hair until it hurt.

  “Last one to the swings,” I said when we’d finally hit Silver Lake Boulevard. I was already darting through traffic—yelling and weaving like a drunk idiot.

  “Are you crazy?!” you shouted, chasing after me, nearly getting hit yourself; cars swerving behind you, drivers honking and screaming out windows.

  “Am I crazy?” We were safe now, panting and grinning; standing at the park perimeter. “Yes! Don’t you know that yet?” I meant it as a joke but it came out sounding flat. You stared back at me, head cocked, eyes blinking—as if seeing me for the very first time “What, no cute quip?” I said, and you swatted at me. I ducked, laughed, and ran toward the swing set. “You up for a challenge?”

  “What’s at stake? Money? Favors?”

  “Don’t care,” I said, meaning it. I didn’t give two shits about the prize, I only wanted to win. You grabbed the chains of the neighboring swing, and we both got to work pumping quickly. Within seconds we were neck to neck, flying high; jackets blown open, cheeks flushing pink.

  “Look who’s ahead now?” you said not too long later. I was losing, which I hated, so I feigned exhaustion and leapt from my swing. But instead of the perfect dismount I’d envisioned—complete with cute curtsy and a wave to the crowd—I botched the landing and fell face-first into a massive, broken branch. “Shit!” That initial jolt of pain was excruciating, like stubbing a toe or getting a hand caught in a doorjamb. I clutched my eye protectively, rocking around in an effort to shake off the ache.

  “Jesus, Nat, let me see.” You were crouched at my side suddenly, prying my hands away from my throbbing face. “Oh, Nat.”

  “Is it terrible? Am I deformed?”

  “No, it’s just—” You laughed, and I relaxed a little, suddenly embarrassed by my hysteria. “It’s just red.” You kissed it—“You’re still gorgeous, Gorgeous”—and then you kissed ME. And then you picked me up and dusted me off and walked me back up the hill to my house.

  The next morning I looked like I’d been whacked in the face with a boom mic.

  “What the hell happened to you?” my mother said, greeting me with uncharacteristic concern as I shuffled into the kitchen in search of coffee and an ice pack.

  “It’s fine, it’s just a bruise. Dan and I were at the playground last night and I fell off a swing.”

  “You fell off a SWING?” She inspected my eye, touching it gingerly. “I’m calling Ginsberg.”

  “I don’t need a doctor.”

  “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

  I had. I looked horrific.

  So I went to see Ginsburg. And whatever, I was fine; you already know how this story shakes out. But here’s the noteworthy part—no one questioned the swing bit. Not my mother, not my dad, not even my goddamn pediatrician. I’ve seen the TV shows: girl shows up with a big, black shiner and it’s never an accident, it’s ALWAYS the boyfriend. But when the boyfriend is Dan Jacobson—teen heartthrob, good Samaritan—nobody bats a flipping eyelash. Everyone just assumed I was dating a goddamn saint. And who can blame them? I thought that too.

  Two days later, when the bruises had ripened into a pretty little constellation of pink and blue stars, I took photos. I thought maybe I’d use the pictures to do some sort of gnarly self-portrait—something provocative and affecting that might earn me some legit art cred. But then I got distracted. My face healed up, I got busy with school, I got busy with you, and eventually I just forgot the whole thing had ever happened.

  Until this week, that is, when I dragged all five photos to my desktop and stuck them in a folder titled “Why?”

  I wonder if people will ask questions about you now, Dan.

  X, Nat

  DAN, 7:22 A.M.

  Holy shit, is that what these notes are about? They’re part of some larger plot to make me look like a rageful prick? I mean, what’re we talking here? Assault charges? Domestic abuse?

  God, she’s fucking insane. I have never, ever laid a hand on her. Whatever psychotic scheme she’s hatched, whatever ugly manipulation she’s dreamed up—she sure as shit better not see it through because this could easily, easily wreck my life.

  But she knows that, though, doesn’t she? That’s her whole MO—play hard, play fast, get dirty.

  Last spring, Nat called me shit-faced from a party in West LA: “I need you to come get me,” she said, slurring her words. “I’m at Krystal Wang’s place in Brentwood and I drank a whole bottle of Two Buck Chu
ck.”

  I’d just gotten home from shooting an Espinosa family dinner in Glendale and Jessa still had the car. Annoyed, I nearly told Nat to Uber home but stopped myself. We’d already gone ten days without seeing each other because: “You’ve been working nonstop, Dan. Don’t you care about our relationship? Why don’t you miss me as much as I miss you?”

  So I went.

  It took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get to her by bus, and when I finally arrived—sweaty, irritated, spent—she was passed out in a drained, defunct Jacuzzi in Krystal’s packed backyard. “Hey,” I said, shaking her. She barely stirred. Her hair was matted to her flushed face and she’d wriggled halfway out of her sundress. “Nat, wake up.” I rooted around in her purse—a leather pouch I’d found lying in a small pool of booze at the bottom of the tub. “Where’d you park?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your car.” I jangled her keys. “Where’s it at?”

  She cracked one eye. “I thought you were shooting?”

  I scooped her up, tossed her over one shoulder—“Come on, sleepyhead”—and carried her around the side of the house, weaving between clusters of kids holding beer bottles and Ping-Pong paddles and Solo cups and cigarettes.

  The following morning, after a night spent holding Nat’s hair back while she puked in the downstairs half bath, I drove her home.

  “You should’ve been at that party,” she said, yawning, sliding a lazy hand up my thigh toward my crotch.

  “Stop, please.” I was trying to merge from the 10 to the 110—a tricky intersection that always made me tense.