by Mia Archer
And then she stopped. My eyes darted down to the railing between us. It was stopping her, but something told me she could lean even closer if she wanted to.
No, she was testing the waters. Seeing how open I was to the sort of thing she was talking about.
I looked up at the screen. To Cary Elwes and Robin Wright sharing a tender kiss while the synth and guitar score swelled behind them. And I decided “why not?”
This whole thing had started with me stuck in the theater with somebody trying to make out with me, and it seemed fitting that I’d be repeating the scenario with Maddie now. And so I leaned in. Pressed my lips against hers.
Oh boy. Let me tell you, if there’d been any doubt in my mind about whether or not I was into girls, whether or not this was just some passing fancy that had struck me, it was done away with thanks to that kiss. Because that kiss felt like everything I’d ever been missing when I kissed Steve. When I kissed other guys.
With them it had been like kissing a family member. With Maddie there was passion. Intensity. An overwhelming feeling that this was right. This was what I’d always wanted, even if I’d been afraid to admit it to myself.
Well there was no hiding from my feelings anymore. No, I might’ve been able to run away from this, to try and hide from my feelings, before that kiss. But my life was forever going to be divided into “before the kiss” and “after the kiss” now.
When I finally came up for air I blinked a couple of times. Everything was wrong.
It was like I’d stepped into a time warp or something. And with a quick jump to the left I found myself staring down at Maddie. She stared up at me and she was breathing heavily. Why would I be staring down at her when she’d been sitting next to me?
Memories started to return as I remembered exactly what I’d been doing all this time. I blushed, but it was a good blush.
I was sitting on top of Maddie. Somehow I’d managed to wedge myself in on her even with these old-fashioned theater seats.
I was pressed against her, and I could hear the movie in the background. It sounded like they were having fun storming the castle, which meant we’d been making out for the better part of an hour.
I’d completely lost track of time.
Damn. That was the theater make out session I never knew I’d wanted. The one that was everything I’d ever wanted, and the only thing I needed was to swap out the person I was making out with.
And that, perverts out there, is going to be the most you ever get out of me where making out with Maddie is concerned. You can fill out all of the details yourself as you do your one-handed navigating through this post. You disgusting jerks.
I smiled down at her. Another blush came to my face.
“Well,” I said.
“Well yourself,” Maddie replied.
“I never knew it could feel like this. I never…”
I suppose it was just the emotion of the moment. I found myself overwhelmed. I’d finally found what had been missing in my life for so long. Something everybody else seemed to get by default, but it had taken a lot of confusion and soul-searching for me to get to that same place.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I started to cry. Even though I was afraid it was going to freak Maddie the fuck out and have her thinking she’d gotten with a psycho or something.
I couldn’t help myself. You try finding out that you’re not broken. That there’s not a dull black pit in the center of your soul where the ability to love should be. You try finding out that the whole problem was that you were going for the wrong gender and you didn’t even realize it.
Yeah, something tells me you’d be crying in that situation to.
And, to her credit, Maddie reacted like an absolute angel. Which just goes to show how perfect she was. If I ever had any doubt, which I totally didn’t, thank you very much.
No, she wrapped her arms around me. She let me put my head on her shoulder and cry.
It was a good cry. It was the sort of cry that let out a bunch of tension I didn't even realize I was holding onto. It was probably an ugly cry, too, if I’m being perfectly honest, but aren’t some of the best cries also ugly cries?
Yeah, totally.
When I finally came up for air I realized a lot less time had passed than when we were distracted making out, but it was still more than I thought. I could hear the old detective guy talking to the kid from the Wonder Years. Telling him “as you wish.”
I wiped my eyes. Looked down at Maddie and smiled.
“You probably think I’m crazy,” I said.
She shook her head, suddenly looking very serious. “No. I think you’re just figuring some things out, is all.”
I gave her another hug. It was a quick hug, but there was an intimacy there that had been lacking from every other hug in my life.
“Thank you for doing this for me,” I said. “All of this.”
Her eyes twinkled as she looked up at me and smiled. “As you wish.”
I melted. Could that moment be any more perfect?
24
The Inevitable Bad Stuff
Ashley Timmons says
I, Ashley Timmons, do hereby admit that I am a fucking idiot.
No, it’s totally true, and you’re about to find out why. Because this is the part of the story where everything seemed to be going right, and so of course that’s the moment when everything has to go to shit.
I don’t know why I thought I could have anything nice.
Maybe the work I was doing was always going to catch up to me. Maybe I deserved everything that happened because I put a little unhappiness into other people’s lives. I could go on all I want about how that unhappiness was necessary, I was a surgeon saving a dying patient by chopping off a limb or something, but at the end of the day I understand there are people who don’t like what I did and probably think everything you’re going to read about in this post is karma coming back to bite me in the ass.
And the funny thing is none of this would have happened if I wasn’t such an idiot. If I didn’t fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
What trick was that? Well you’re going to have to read on and find out, though I know I have enough of a captive audience at this point that you’re going to keep reading. I could throw up a post in nothing but emojis and all of you would spend hours or days trying to translate it.
Especially if I mentioned something about girls making out or revealing who Maddie really is. Some of you really need to get a life.
I’m not going to be that cruel, though. Mostly because I think those things are the stupidest thing ever.
Without further ado here’s the part of the story where things start to go bad. I’m sure that’s the part all of you have been waiting for. Where the drama really gets going.
Oh, and also? All you perverts who asked me for more details about making out with Maddie? I hope your dicks fall off because you’ve been choking the chicken too much.
I was on cloud nine as I walked into school the next day. And why not? I had Maddie’s phone number now and I could get in touch with her whenever I wanted. I felt like everything was right in my life.
Well, almost everything. Because no sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I saw Steve hanging out at my locker.
Great. Just great. This was something I’d been putting off for too long, but I supposed I was going to have to rip off the bandage at some point. It was going to suck doing this, but it had to be done.
He frowned as I approached. Which had me wondering if he could sense that the end was nigh. Had he seen me talking with Maddie yesterday after school? Had he been out at the mall and seen us together? Was it possible he’d struck a bargain with Keith and they’d snuck into that theater and seen what me and Maddie were doing?
Of course even if any of those ridiculous scenarios were true, that didn’t change the fact that I needed to break up with Steve. That I needed to do it now, because I couldn’t continue things with Maddie with a clear conscienc
e if I didn’t make a clean break with Steve. I couldn’t continue leading Steve on letting him think our relationship was something it wasn’t.
Not when I’d come to the realization that it would never be what he wanted.
“Hey babe,” he said. “Hadn’t heard from you in awhile, so I figured I’d stop by your locker where you can’t avoid me.”
He smiled, but it was a desperate smile. The kind of smile that you see on a person who knows it’s the end, but they’re still doing their best to put a good face on things.
My heart broke for him. Not to the point that I was going to do something stupid like stay with him even when I knew what I had to do, but I still felt bad about what I had to do.
“Listen Steve…”
“Crazy stuff this morning, right?” he asked.
I paused. Did he know? Did he somehow have a sixth sense that told him I was about to dump him? I guess that made things more awkward, but at the same time it’d make this easier if he knew about it and he’d already dealt with it.
“I know Steve,” I said. “This is difficult, but…”
“I mean who would’ve thought the breakup artist was that big a deal? I thought it was just a story people made up to make up for them not being as great at relationships as we are, you know?”
I was so poleaxed by what he said that I ignored the part where he talked about what a great couple we were. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I was more interested in the bit about me. The bit about the breakup artist, that is.
“Come again?” I asked.
“Well I figure we’re so great together that…”
He tried to put an arm around me as he said it, but I shrugged him off.
“I’m not talking about that,” I said. “I mean the bit about the breakup artist. How did you even hear about that?”
He looked at me like I was an alien from another planet.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “It’s everywhere!”
“What’s everywhere?” I asked, trying my very best to not grind my teeth.
“The story about the breakup artist,” he said. “Surely you read it. Your friend’s the one who wrote the thing!”
I felt fear going down to the very core of my being.
Valerie wrote an article about the breakup artist. Steve had read it which meant other people probably sent it to him since he wasn’t the most savvy with the whole Internet thing, which meant it was probably everywhere.
I pulled out my phone and went to the school newspaper website. Though it really wasn’t accurate to call it the school newspaper since it didn’t actually get distributed in print any longer, but whatever.
Sure enough right there on the front page was a story all about me. All about the breakup artist, that is. And it wasn’t a touchy-feely happy piece about all the good work I was doing splitting relationships that were long past their expiration date.
But who am I kidding? Everyone who’s reading this has read that article. I’ll go ahead and link to it at the bottom of this post or something if you haven’t read it just so you can see what a huge hit piece it was.
You won’t find it on the school’s website anymore. They took it down after all the drama, but the thing about the Internet is nothing ever goes away forever, so Valerie’s bitchy shame is out there permanently for everyone to see.
I couldn’t believe it. Valerie had written a hit piece on me. My friend, and she wrote a hit piece on me.
Of course I didn’t know then that she suspected who I was. As I glanced through the article I didn’t see any indication that she knew the breakup artist’s true identity. At least not until I got to the very bottom and my heart froze as my blood chilled.
The gist of the article was simple enough. The breakup artist was real. The breakup artist was out there ruining people’s relationships. She’d done “exhaustive” research, which probably meant she was reading the same gossip forums everyone else was and printing it as fact. She figured that Kylie and Thomas were a result of the breakup artist, but she couldn’t be sure about others.
Real cutting journalism there Val. Taking anonymous speculation from message boards and reprinting it as your own idea? Internet journalism at its finest.
Then there was the bombshell at the bottom.
“I know who you are. If you have any decency you’ll do the right thing and give me the interview I want and the people deserve. Maybe then we can talk about whether or not I actually reveal who you are to the world.”
Now this is where we get to the part where I acted like an idiot.
If I was smarter, if I was in my right mind and thinking like I usually did, the devious person that I was who regularly broke up couples who deserved it, I wouldn’t have fallen for a line that stupid. I wouldn’t have given myself up.
But let’s take look at the state of mind I was in. I’d just had that incredible time with Maddie. I’d just watched Sandra break up with her boyfriend and it had been a messy breakup that I got blamed for even though I had nothing to do with it.
I worried that if my identity got out Maddie would find out who I was and decide she didn’t want anything to do with such a horrible person. I worried that if my true identity got out there, if Valerie was serious and leaked it, then my friends would turn against me.
Basically I was worried everything that eventually ended up happening would happen. And it turns out I would’ve been better off to keep my mouth shut.
Let that be a lesson to everyone out there while we’re still in high school. If anyone comes nosing around saying they know something about you assume they’re on a fishing expedition and they don’t know jack shit.
Don’t talk to the cops. Don’t talk to nosy reporters. Let my low stakes example in high school where it doesn’t have life altering consequences be a lesson for the rest of you.
“Is something wrong babe?” Steve asked.
I sighed. I’d fully intended to dump him and be done with this once and for all, but once again circumstances had stepped in and given our relationship a reprieve.
Sure I could’ve said something then and there, but with the luck I’d been having lately it would turn into a big blowup of an argument. It would distract me from the important thing, which was getting to Valerie as soon as possible. Before she had a chance to reveal anything.
“Hold that thought Steve,” I said. “I’ve got something important to do.”
Steve sighed and rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. You always have something more important than me.”
I felt bad, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the panic that had seized me. So I ignored his pouting as I tore off through the halls.
I knew exactly where I’d find Valerie, and I needed to get there fast. Before she said anything that would really screw things up.
It's sort of ironic that it ended up being something I said that totally screwed up my life, huh?
25
Showdown
Ashley Timmons says
Let’s talk about friends. Or at least so-called friends.
When it comes down to it how can you really know who your friends are and who’s just waiting for a chance to screw you over?
You can’t. That’s the sad truth about the world. I’ve learned that love isn’t necessarily the lie I always thought it was, but I’ve also learned other things too.
Like that friendship can be a lie. Sure love can be a lie too. People lie about love all the time for the best reasons and the worst reasons. They love someone but they’re not in love with someone and they feel bad about it. They want to get into someone’s pants. They just aren’t feeling it anymore but they did once upon a time and don’t want to hurt anyone. Maybe there’s money or kids involved.
Yeah, there are lots of reasons to lie about love, but Maddie had taught me that it was out there. It was real. That I'd been too cynical in my view of the world.
I’m sure as shit cynical about friends now. They’re the ones who can really hurt y
ou.
Let’s take my friend Valerie, for example. I’d known her for most of my life. Our group of friends started hanging out in middle school. It looked like we were going to be the proverbial BFFs. But then she went and did what she did that day.
She hurt me, and she hurt Sandra. I suppose Darrell and Sean were collateral damage too, but does she care? Ask her today and I bet she still tells herself she was justified.
I’m not the only bitch in this story who was deluding herself into thinking she was doing a good thing, and she wasn’t even getting paid for it.
It’s not even like you thought you were doing it for a good reason, Val. No, I guess I could understand if you were taking a principled stand or something. If you thought you were doing something good by betraying one of your best friends.
I could understand it, even if I didn’t like it.
But let’s be honest. That’s not what it was about, was it Val? I know you read this, even if you don’t leave comments. Other people tell me about all the ranting you’ve done. About how pissed off you are that my story is getting more hits than your rag. How this little bit of drama I’m dropping on the world is way more interesting than anything you’ve ever written.
Because when you get down to it that’s what it was always about. All Valerie ever cared about was getting her name out there. Was writing something that other people would read and talk about. And if she happened to write something that involved screwing over one of her best friends in the process?
Well, as we’re about to learn Valerie isn’t the kind of person to care about that. So let’s get on with the story, and introduce the true villain of this whole thing. At least from my point of view.
I know there are plenty of you assholes out there who still think I’m the bad guy, but reserve judgment. I promise I’m going to have a bombshell to drop by the end of this post, and it all started with me activating the recorder on my phone as I rushed to the school newsroom.
I always thought calling the place a newsroom was kind of putting lipstick on a pig. Putting on airs, if you will. It was nothing more than a glorified classroom that had computers running around the edge rather than desks arranged in the middle.
