16 Ways to Break a Heart Read online

  “I’ve actually seen it—”

  “Pictures don’t do this place justice. Have you read the press?”

  “No, but—”

  “You really should. You’ll get a much better sense for Kelly’s personality. He’s really dynamic and persuasive but not, like, creepy, you know?”

  “What, like other cult leaders?”

  “It’s not a cult,” I said. “It’s a group of smart, progressive people with a common interest who are exploring an alternative way of life. You should really read up on it, these aren’t religious extremists.”

  Nat smiled placidly and ate a handful of popcorn. “You’re really into the guy, huh?”

  “Obsessed.”

  “So you’re a socialist?” she said, poking fun. “Into Buddha? Yoga? Self-actualization?”

  “I’m into the people who are into it,” I said, shaking half a box of Junior Mints into the popcorn.

  Later, back at Nat’s, we ate chocolate bars and talked about Scientology and Sage Rock. I went on and on about how much I’d hated the film—“It had no vision or, like, unifying theme!”—and Nat nodded and kissed me and said, “The problem with that movie is that you didn’t make it.”

  Around eleven, Nat’s mom came home looking exhausted and messy but somehow still glamorous—paint-splattered denim plus a fat diamond ring. “My God,” she said, switching on a light and plopping down on the sofa beside us. “What the hell are you two doing in the dark? Channeling ghosts?”

  “Demons,” Nat said, sitting up. “Dan, this is Mae; Mae, this is Dan.”

  I shook her small, bedazzled hand. “Really nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah,” she said, inspecting me. “Nat’s crazy about you.”

  “Can Dan spend the night?”

  “What is this, your second date?” Mae grabbed the last piece of chocolate, inhaling it. “What’d you two end up doing earlier, anyway?”

  “Movie,” I said, leaning into the couch cushions as Nat stood up. “We saw Sage Rock.”

  “You saw it?” Mae said to Nat, who was now zigzagging toward the kitchen. “Shelly Epstein said it was atrocious. I should ask Dad if he’s talked to Keith lately. He must be mortified.”

  My stomach dropped. TALKED TO KEITH. “Talked to Keith?”

  Nat was hiding behind the fridge door.

  “Fluff, was it any good?”

  “No,” she said sheepishly, poking her head out. “It was terrible. It made him seem like a total new age zealot.” She looked at me, wincing a little. “I tried to tell you we knew him.”

  I reeled back in time to our preshow conversation: I’ve actually seen it, she’d said about Sage Rock. I’VE ACTUALLY SEEN IT. The words bounced around in my brain like shiny pinballs. She’d been trying to tell me all night and I’d talked over her, eager to impress, wanting to show her that I knew things. That I knew about indie docs and hippie communes and sustainability and avocado groves. I hadn’t even been interested in her side of things, hadn’t been looking for a legit exchange, didn’t want to hear that she’d Googled “Sage Rock” and had seen pretty pictures of Kelly devotees meditating. I wanted to tell her that I’d researched the hell out of the place; that if I were older and better connected I’d have made this movie years ago. I’d needed her to know that I was smart, that I liked smart things, that she was dating a fascinating guy. Instead I’d shown her I was a patronizing dick. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You must think I’m a huge jerk.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said, shuffling back from the kitchen and curling up beside me on the couch. “I’ve seen the Dayview footage. You would’ve done an amazing job with Keith and his cohorts.”

  She could have annihilated me right then. She could’ve called me a condescending prick. She could’ve shamed me, laughed in my face, stomped on me for being an insecure showoff. Instead, she showed her support. Her belief in me. She picked me up and dusted me off and made me feel like a goddamn prince.

  “Dan Jacobson.” I’m halfway to the gym when I hear it—my name echoing loudly over the shoddy North Hollywood High PA system. “Dan Jacobson to reception.” I do a loop and head back to the office where Glennie, the old lady with the crazy curls who works the front desk, greets me.

  “For you, honey.” She hands me a slightly swollen manila envelope, just large enough to house a short stack of hate mail.

  “Who dropped this off?” I ask, glancing out the window, hoping to catch a fast flash of Nat running away—her hair flying sideways, her plaid kilt blowing upward and back.

  “Who do you mean, honey? The courier?”

  I deflate. “No, sorry, I thought . . .” These past few hours of reading and reflecting has me stuck in some strange relationship vortex: Do I hate her? Love her? Is she a vindictive psychopath? Or is she that wounded girl I once loved? The one with passion and drive and undeniable dramatic flair? “Thanks, Glennie,” I say, stepping back outside. I immediately rip into the package.

  More letters, of course.

  Same ribbon, same pristine cardstock.

  MAY 14, 2017, SUNDAY, 5:04 P.M.

  Hey again,

  So here’s the part in our story where you stop loving me and start resenting me.

  Flashback three months. We were in my room on your laptop, scrolling backward through footage you’d shot the previous night. You and Ryan’s mother had taken Ryan to visit a postsecondary vocational program, and Ryan had thrown a fit. He’d cried and screamed and hid behind his hands and now you were wondering whether you should use the footage you’d shot. It wasn’t “upbeat enough,” you were saying, staring at the computer screen while rubbing your face in frustration. “This should be a triumph for him, you know? It’s a really well-run program, they get these kids paid jobs at local businesses, it’s clean, it smells good, the woman who runs the place is insanely passionate and committed and—”

  “Right, but . . .” I watched you sideways. Weren’t there limits to documentary filmmaking? Unexpected plot twists and obstacles? “Isn’t your job as a documentarian to, like, go where the story takes you?”

  Your head snapped around to look at me. “Yes, of course. But there has to be some growth. A character arc. Ryan can’t just go from happy to completely miserable.”

  “Why not?” I said, a little indignantly. “I mean, if that’s reflective of real life?”

  “Because you don’t get into USC film school by bumming the shit out of the admissions board.”

  I touched the mouse pad lightly, sliding backward a few frames to a still shot of Ryan’s mother holding back tears. “How could you not include this?” I asked, leaning closer to the screen. She looked so tired and sad, her mascara bleeding into the creases by her eyes, her lips riding that slim line between sad smile and frown. “This is real life and it’s completely compelling. She’s terrified because her kid’s been at the same school since he was six and now he’s a grown man with zero support system who can’t take care of himself. Why can’t this be your story, Dan?” I pointed at Jane Espinosa’s frozen face. “THIS.”

  “No.”

  I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but your response caught me off guard. “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not the story I want to tell. This movie is about Ryan, Natalie, not Jane Espinosa. It’s about resilience in the face of adversity, and I feel like you’re trying to make me make a whole other movie.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything,” I said, touching your leg lightly. “It was just a suggestion.”

  You shrugged me off. “You don’t ever just ‘suggest’ anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This is the same shit we’re always fighting about. You think you know better.”

  “No,” I said, laughing at the absurdity. “YOU think I know better. I’m just throwing shit out into the ether and seeing what sticks.”

  You slammed your computer shut. “I’m going home.”

  “What? Why?” I jumped up. “I thought we were gonna
get dinner after this.”

  “Lost my appetite.”

  “Seriously?” I said as you stood. “You can’t leave.” I ran around you and blocked the door.

  “Natalie, move.”

  “No.”

  “You’re being a child.”

  “I’M the child?” I said, irate. “You’re the guy with the massive ego who can’t handle a drop of constructive criticism.”

  Well that did it. You went red, veins popping, jaw rock-hard. “Natalie—” You tucked your laptop under one arm and darted left. “MOVE.” I blocked you again so you went right. If you hadn’t been so pissed and I hadn’t been so desperate, this would’ve been funny. The two of us flitting back and forth in an awkward, stilted dance.

  “You’re always leaving,” I said, frantic for you to stay. “If something’s too deep or too real or if there’s even the slightest threat of conflict, you’re out.”

  “Yeah, because you’re crazy and it’s terrifying.”

  I looked at you, stunned. This was my cue to back down like I always did when we fought. To surrender. To cry and flail and beg your forgiveness. That’s how I’d always kept things right with us when things went out of whack. And you seemed to like me a little more when I was playing the flailing damsel.

  But I was sick of it.

  So this time when you reached for the door I grabbed your face and kissed you. It was an impulse move and I expected you to pull away but you didn’t, you BIT back.

  “Ow!” I said, wincing, my hand flying to my face. “What the hell?”

  The air between us felt charged and hot, and you watched me, silent, for a long beat.

  And then.

  Well.

  There’s no nice way to say what happened next, Dan.

  We hate-fucked.

  We kept our clothes on and it was rough and impersonal and you—my good-guy boyfriend, the guy who had never slept with anyone BUT me—made me feel like a complete and total whore.

  N

  DAN, 1:36 P.M.

  This is how we started sweeping shit under the rug. With sex.

  At first it seemed like we’d discovered the great panacea; the cure-all for everything from petty grievances to true, deep despair. If Nat was being a raging bitch, it was fine, we’d fuck it out! A fight over Arielle Schulman or some sort of setback with my movie? No problem, a quick bonk and alakazam! Issue solved. Every wrong could be righted with some low-impact acrobatics; every pain dulled with a hate-fueled fuck. It worked like the ultimate magic bullet until one day it didn’t. Until the thrill of makeup sex—of near-breakup sex—was suddenly gone.

  “Dan, you want cake?”

  “Sure,” I said to Nat, who was next to me now sucking frosting off her thumb. I took the plate and glanced quickly across the table at the tiny Fierro clan: just Mae and Mariella. Per usual, Nat’s dad was away on business. China this time, I think. Or maybe it was Taiwan.

  “Can I finally pop the cork on that bottle of Veuve Clicquot?” Nat said to Mae, her eyes big with giddy delight.

  “No freaking way!” Mae said, absentmindedly wiping cake crumbs off her shirt with a damp paisley bandana.

  “Can I please have something alcoholic?”

  “Natalie.”

  “This is a big deal!”

  It was a big deal. The Fierros had just learned that Natalie had been handpicked to participate in the Young Arts Program at MOCA—a year-long, highly selective, paid position where teens get to work with museum professionals on current exhibitions. This was the big next step that Nat had been waiting for. She’d get to immerse herself in the art world and learn the inner workings of the contemporary museum system. She’d get to make things and plan parties and hang with famous people, and it would only be a matter of time before she’d dump me and take up with some bullshit conceptual artist who would somehow catapult her and her fledgling career to next-level superstardom status. I was outrageously jealous and thoroughly disgusted with myself. To compensate, I was smiling like an insane person.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Nat asked, her mouth stuffed with berries and whipped cream.

  “My face?”

  “Yeah,” she said, swallowing, sucking the tip of her plastic spork. “You look, like, crazy.”

  “I’m just happy for you.”

  “That’s what happy looks like?”

  My stomach dropped and my fork followed. “I’ll be back.”

  “Wait, where’re you going?” She was clutching the neck of a bottle of Pellegrino. It was a poor substitute for Veuve Clicquot and she looked disappointed.

  “I need to make a quick phone call,” I told her, which was a lie of course. I just needed an excuse to get away and be alone for a while.

  Fifteen minutes later Nat was hanging in her bedroom doorway, arms folded, watching me. “Did I ever tell you about Mariella’s divorce?”

  I sat up. I’d been lying on Nat’s bed on my back, absentmindedly scrolling through Arielle Schulman’s Instagram feed. “Mariella was married?”

  “For five years, yeah. Second marriage.” She shut the door and came in and sat by me on the edge of the bed. “They broke up two years ago after Mari found the guy having relaciones sexuales with her eighteen-year-old daughter.”

  “Whoa.”

  “She’d been living in Mexico City with her dad and had just moved in with them a month earlier.” Nat looked at me. “So anyways, Mari stabbed him.”

  “What?” I was certain I’d heard wrong. Nat’s face was so placid and serene. “She stabbed him?”

  “Yeah. Like with one of those small serrated steak knives. He didn’t die or anything. And he didn’t press charges because he’d screwed her kid.” Nat watched her lap and played with a small rip in her jeans. “But anyways, that’s that story.”

  I paused for a beat, suspicious. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because. I know this may sound crazy, but I can kind of understand how things get that bad. How they can escalate so easily. Like, how our fights can get.” She gave me a significant look.

  I laughed, taken aback. “You got something serrated in your pocket . . . ?”

  “No,” she said, stony faced. “But I’ve gotten physical with you before.”

  “Oh,” I said, smiling through my discomfort. “So we’re gonna talk honestly about this now?”

  She sat back and shrugged. “You’re pissed about the MOCA thing.”

  “Yeah,” I said. She knew how I felt; why hide it?

  “So how do we fix that?”

  There was nothing to fix. Nat was winning at life, and I felt emasculated and threatened. “We don’t.”

  “Because I’m not gonna turn down the internship for you.”

  “Did I say you should?”

  “You don’t have to say it. I know it’s what you want.”

  Was it? I mean, the damage had already been done. Whether she took the job or not she’d already gotten the boost of validation that came with beating out thousands of other applicants. “I’m happy for you,” I told her.

  She let out a short, fake laugh. “No you’re not.”

  True. This was tension you could stab with a steak knife.

  And yet.

  No one was screaming.

  Nat wasn’t throwing punches.

  We weren’t madly screwing in some vain effort to fix our broken relationship.

  Because this was the problem that fucking couldn’t fix.

  “I’m going back downstairs, okay?” She was standing now, her jaw locked, her smile frozen in an insincere C-shape. “Mae wants to watch a five-hour Swedish miniseries from the seventies called Scenes from a Marriage.”

  “That’s Bergman,” I said, not moving, grabbing my phone off the nightstand. “It’s actually really famous.”

  “That’s what I hear. So are you coming?” she asked, shoving the door open with her bare foot. She was backlit now, a few frizzy hairs catching hallway light. She looked haloed. Sainted. I punched in my passwo
rd and pulled up Arielle Schulman’s Instagram feed again.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” I said, double-tapping a photo of Ari in a blue bikini.

  OCTOBER 10, 2016, MONDAY, 3:31 P.M., EMAIL

  To: Nathan Harmon

  From: Dan Jacobson

  Hi Nate,

  My name is Dan Jacobson and I’m an aspiring filmmaker. Mae Fierro gave me your email and suggested I get in touch. I’ve seen all your movies and absolutely loved your latest, “Preach.” I too have an interest in religious extremes, and I deeply enjoyed the film’s exploration of Christian fundamentalism.

  I don’t know if Mae has mentioned me before, but I’m a senior at North Hollywood High and am currently working on a short documentary about a young man with severe developmental delays. I’m also in the process of applying to your alma mater, the School of Cinematic Arts at USC. I’d love to meet you for a coffee to discuss filmmaking if you’d be willing.

  Looking forward to your reply.

  Best,

  Dan Jacobson

  OCTOBER 26, 2016, WEDNESDAY, 7:54 A.M., EMAIL

  To: Nathan Harmon

  From: Dan Jacobson

  Hi again, Nate.

  A few weeks ago I sent you an email re: the possibility of meeting for coffee to discuss filmmaking/your experience at USC. I wanted to follow up.

  Hope all’s well with you. Really looking forward to hearing back.

  My best,

  Dan Jacobson

  OCTOBER 27, 2016, THURSDAY, 12:54 P.M., TEXT

  Dan: Heads up, Schulman. That shirt you’re wearing is completely see-through.

  Arielle: That’s the point, pervert. Enjoy it.

  13

  LOS ANGELES, MAY 15, 2017, MONDAY, 8:46 P.M.

  You ready for this one, Dan?

  I’m in your garden right now surrounded by succulents, watching Jessa and her internet friend screw around on the porch with a selfie stick. Remember how this story starts? It was a few nights after the MOCA standoff, and I was so desperate to see you that I scaled the garden trellis and crawled through your window at two a.m. Shameful, I know, since I’d stayed so strong while you’d sulked like a child over my internship coup, but now that some time had passed I was missing you again. Pathetic? Romantic?