Unbreak My Heart

by Melissa Walker

  “Your eyes are playing tricks on you, old man,” I tell him.

  He laughs. “Maybe so.” I look in his direction and I can see his white hair ruffling in the breeze. Mom’s freckles make her look young, but Dad’s prematurely white hair—not to mention his round belly—sometimes makes him look like Santa Claus with nerd glasses. He used to be blond, but that was before my time. I used to wish my hair were white when I was younger—I thought it was so unique. Even luminous, somehow.

  I look up again. The sky is huge out here on the water. It’s so big you can see the curve of the earth, which makes me a little dizzy. Sometimes the sky freaks me out, to be honest. Space and the universe and all that? Scary.

  We settle back into a comfortable quiet, and I’m thinking about how nice it is that Dad and I can do this—sit out here and be silent together. Mom’s always talking or bringing something up, but Dad’s more relaxed, more …

  He clears his throat, which puts me on edge instantly. Dad never clears his throat unless he’s nervous about something.

  “So do you miss them?” Dad asks.

  “Sorry?”

  “Amanda, Aaron, Ethan, your friends …,” says Dad.

  I close my eyes and shake my head. Just when I thought Dad was being cool, he has to go and bring this up. I didn’t even know he knew Ethan’s name. I wish he didn’t.

  “Did Mom ask you to talk to me about this?”

  “No,” says Dad. “I just know something’s been on your mind, and I thought you might like to let some of it out.”

  I hate that my parents assume they know what I’m thinking about when I close myself up in my room. They always imagine that they understand situations so much better than I do, but do they know Ethan? No. They’ve never even met him—they just saw him in a Facebook photo one night when Amanda and I were on the computer in the den, and Mom asked Amanda which guy her boyfriend was. They don’t even know Amanda, really—not like I do. Mom thinks she’s a saint because she does things like make emergency cupcakes for the church bake sale on just a day’s notice. They have no idea she actually bought them at a bakery outside of town and then smudged up the frosting a little to make them look homemade.

  “No,” I lie. “I don’t miss him—er, them.”

  “It’s okay to miss him, you know,” says Dad. So maybe he knows more than I thought he did. And I’m glad that we’re both looking up and not facing each other right now, because a tear slides down my cheek before I can stop it.

  It’s not like the tear is all sadness. The thought of Ethan still affects me—I feel sad, mad, nostalgic, bitter, excited, wistful, energized, and, like, a hundred other emotions whenever he enters my mind. Also, I’ve done something ridiculous. I’ve gone through my iPod and found all the songs Ethan put on my playlist—well, all the ones I still had on there, anyway—and then recreated it as an on-the-go situation. I am completely masochistic.

  “He isn’t mine to miss,” I say a minute later, after I control the quiver I know would have crept into my voice if I’d responded right away.

  “No one belongs to anyone, Clem. Especially not when you’re sixteen years old.”

  “Dad, let’s just say there are rules.”

  “I know,” says my dad. “I know all about the rules. There are times when life gets lived outside the rules, though.”

  “Yeah, well, high school is pretty unforgiving of social rule-breakers,” I say. “Believe me, my ex-friends have made that very clear.”

  “Well, maybe that says more about your friends than it does about you,” says Dad.

  I know he’s trying to help with his circular vagueness, but I’m so not in the mood. He doesn’t know the details, and I’m not about to try to explain everything to him. It’s like I’m inside this situation that has so many different emotional components and friend connections that it feels like a web that only I and maybe, like, two other people can totally grasp. I decide that I’m staying quiet, looking for one more shooting star, and then going to bed. That way it won’t seem like I left because of this conversation.

  A few seconds later, I see a bright light streak across the starboard side of the sky.

  “Whoa,” I say.

  “That was a big one,” says Dad. “I hope you made a wish.”

  “I did.”

  I stand up and kiss him on the forehead.

  “Good night, Dad.”

  “Good night, Curious Clem,” he says.

  He used to call me that when I was little. I’d ask him a million questions about everything—the boat, his shirt buttons, the color of the sky. Anything that entered my field of vision, really. I’ve lost some of that curious nature, though. I have answers now, and they’re not all as magical or interesting as I once thought they would be.

  When I tuck into my bed, I try to think, from a curious perspective, about Dad’s question: Do I miss Ethan? I miss my friends, I miss the way my life was before Ethan was around, and—okay—I miss the way I felt when I was with Ethan.

  And I wonder if it makes me a bad person.

  chapter eight

  Dear Amanda,

  I always envied the way you were with guys.

  It was like you could cast a spell on them or

  something …

  “So that new kid Ethan is in my Physics class,” she said.

  “Oh, he’s in my AP American History.”

  At my house after school in early September, we sat on my bed and stared into the mirror. I had a brush in my hand and was slowly combing through my long brown hair. Amanda was trying on different lipsticks with a box of tissues by her side.

  “He’s a junior, so he could technically go off campus, but I’m thinking about inviting him to sit with us at lunch.” She pursed her lips and applied a dark pink that made her pale skin look luminous.

  “That looks so much better on you,” I said. “Take it.”

  She smiled. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “I can trade you for the cheek stain I got at Sephora last week.”

  “Deal.”

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick, sparkly pink pencil. “You can use it on your lips too.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I think he’s from Ohio or something. So do you think he’s cool?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “That kid, Ethan.”

  “Oh,” I said, making pink circles on the apples of my cheeks like they do in the commercials. Ethan Garrison. I didn’t think much of him. He was tall and sort of goofy looking, with floppy brown hair that was too long to be short and neat, but not long enough to be, like, intentionally long hair. It was unkempt. That’s the word that came to mind when he walked into my AP American History class on the first day of school and sat across the room from me. “Yeah, he seems nice.”

  Amanda smiled then, and I saw its meaning, even in the mirror. It meant that Ethan had become more than the new kid—he was now Soon-to-Be Amanda’s Boyfriend.

  She always had a boyfriend. Amanda had dated Daniel Bick and Rob Morris and Seth Hirschberg—each for three months plus. She’s the kind of girl who knows how to smile at a guy, what to say to make him feel good, how to throw her head back ever so slightly when she laughs to show off her long, elegant neck. She’s gorgeous, too, but not in an obvious way. She has really short blond hair—a pixie cut that might look boyish or mom-like on someone else, but there’s something about her face. Her eyes are huge and open, almost, like, anime-sized. And they’re always full of light, a little joyful, a little teasing.

  And now that I knew she had her sights set on Ethan, it was my job to be encouraging.

  “He’s really funny in history,” I said. It was true. I had a positive feeling about him, like he was a nice guy who’d be good for my friend.

  Amanda flopped down on the bed dramatically. “So we should study, right?”

  She never spent long talking about guys—she wasn’t into that. She just established her interest and moved on.
<
br />   “Yeah.” I sighed and pulled out my Honors English vocab sheet. We had this really hard teacher who drilled us on SAT words every week. The year before, two kids in her class got perfect verbal scores, so I guess her methods worked, but still—exhausting.

  “Let me quiz you,” said Amanda.

  I gave her my worksheet and rested my back against the wall. She stretched out on my pillow and put her legs across my lap.

  “Celerity.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Start with one I know!”

  “That’s not any fun,” she said, smiling.

  “I truly have zero idea,” I said. “I haven’t started studying these yet.”

  “Okay, think of it this way: if you drank celery tea, it would probably just run straight through you.”

  “You mean I’d have to pee?”

  “Yes, and you’d have to rush to find a bathroom with swiftness and speed,” Amanda said with a grin. “Good, right?”

  “I’m supposed to see the word celerity on a test and think of drinking celery tea—which I’m not even sure is a real thing—and having to run to the bathroom?”

  “Yes!” She was superpleased with herself. “It’ll work. Trust me.”

  We went through the rest of the list, and Amanda thought up silly memory devices for each one. Capricious: “Think of me! I’m a Capricorn and I am so fickle with guys.” Wanton: “This is how you act around Chinese food like wonton soup—totally lustful and undisciplined.”

  Some of her ideas were a real stretch, but I spent the whole study session laughing.

  “We’re so acing this test,” she said when she was packing up to go home.

  “Obviously, because we’re geniuses.”

  “Naturally.”

  She gave me a small wave and an excited smile as she left my room. “Ethan tomorrow!” she said.

  And I knew he’d be hers. Who could resist Amanda?

  chapter nine

  The first time I really noticed Ethan was when our history teacher, Mr. King, made an incredibly lame joke. I rolled my eyes, and then saw Ethan see me do it. He smiled. I smiled back. His smile? It was nice. But it wasn’t like I was hit by lightning or anything.

  The second week of school, Amanda invited him to eat lunch with us for the first time. Henry, Aaron, Renee, Amanda, and I always had this one picnic table on the quad—we’d kind of claimed it freshman year. Amanda and I even carved our initials on the top right corner of the table: CLEMANDA = BFF.

  When Ethan came over to sit, Amanda patted the space next to her, and he and I ended up across from each other. Everyone made awkward small talk with Ethan; it was horribly dull, so I said, “Enough small talk.”

  And he said, “This isn’t small talk. This is enormous talk.” It’s a line from this old movie called Frankie and Johnny that my parents love.

  So I snorted Dr Pepper through my nose. For real.

  “Yes!” Ethan did a fist pump. “I got Clementine Williams to laugh.”

  “Like that’s some big feat?” I challenged, feeling pretty flattered that he knew my full name; it was early in the year and we hadn’t even really talked to each other yet.

  “You only break at the truly funny stuff,” he said. “I’ve noticed in history.”

  Then he popped a Dorito in his mouth and grinned at Amanda.

  “It’s true,” she said. “Clem has a totally selective funny bone.”

  “Just because I don’t laugh at the preview parts of movies like some people,” I said.

  “Ugh, I hate that!” said Ethan, crumpling his Dorito bag in disgust. “Could people’s humor be more generic?”

  I looked pointedly at Amanda then, and she giggled as she raised her hand. “Guilty,” she said. “Those are the best parts!” Her voice came out all cute, and I saw Ethan melt.

  That was the predictable moment of the day—guys always turned to goo for Amanda. But the amazing thing was, Ethan made me laugh extra hard, like, ten more times that afternoon.

  As we walked to Mr. King’s history class together after lunch, we saw this kid in our grade named Kevin in the hall.

  “Is it me, or does he look exactly like a young version of Mr. King?” Ethan whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  I glanced at Kevin. “Completely.”

  “YMK!” Ethan shouted at Kevin as we passed. He held up his hand for a high five, and inexplicably, Kevin smacked it.

  “Hey, man,” Kevin said, as if Ethan shouting “YMK” at him made any sense at all.

  “Young Mr. King,” Ethan whispered after Kevin was gone.

  “I got it,” I said, my hand clapped over my mouth to stop the laughs.

  “And that is why I like you,” said Ethan.

  In class, our desks were in this U shape that Mr. King liked to say promoted discussion, and Ethan’s seat was right across from mine. We had just sat down when Sharon Golding walked in wearing sunglasses over her regular glasses. I glanced at Ethan with my WTF? face, and he mouthed “Six eyes?” I cracked up, but no one else even noticed.

  Later when Mr. King called on me to talk about the causes of the Civil War, I answered with a smartass quote from The Simpsons, and Ethan let out a big guffaw.

  It was like he and I shared this connection. We’d look over at each other and start laughing at least three times per class. After a few weeks Mr. King even said, “Clem and Ethan—if you were sitting together, I’d threaten to separate you. As it is, I’ll ask you to avoid flirtatious glances while I’m teaching.”

  That made us laugh even harder. We weren’t flirting, we were just sort of becoming good friends. And it was great to be good friends with your best friend’s boyfriend, right?

  chapter ten

  We pull into the Grafton Harbor Marina in Grafton, Illinois, where the Illinois River meets the Mississippi. There’s a sign that says THE KEY WEST OF THE MIDWEST, and there appears to be a floating booze cruise nearby. This is not the place we should be right now.

  I won’t go into great detail, but it seems that sometime in the night, our toilet clogged. Ours meaning mine and Olive’s.

  “I think somebody had one too many Double Stuf Oreos last night,” I say at breakfast.

  Olive scowls at me, but there’s no avoiding it. This morning, our family was faced with a foul, odorous reality. That’s why we’re all above deck now as Dad pulls alongside the dock—it is way stinky down below. I jump off the boat and tie us off.

  An appreciative whistle echoes behind me.

  “Nice cleat knot,” says Red. I recognize his voice before I see him. When I do turn around, I notice that his orange hair is tucked into a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. He looks cute. I smile at him.

  “Thanks.”

  Then I see his face contort. The smell from the head has hit him.

  If this weren’t so hilarious, I’d be mortified. As it stands, though, I have to laugh.

  Just then, Olive steps off the boat.

  I look at her, then back at Red, raising my eyebrows.

  “No way,” he whispers.

  I nod. I feel bad selling out my own sister, but I can’t have him associating this awful smell with me for the rest of the summer.

  Olive marches down the dock past Red like she hasn’t a care in the world. She holds her head a little too high, though, and I know she’s embarrassed.

  I turn back to Red and remember that I really don’t want to talk to him any more than necessary.

  “I should go—” I start, trying to get past him.

  He lets me by, but then he follows me at a quick clip, keeping up with my long strides.

  “Did you need something?” I ask him, when it’s clear that he’s not going off in his own direction.

  “No,” he says.

  I keep walking. He stays with me step for step.

  “Well, yeah,” he continues. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

  “What?” I ask, more like What? You’ve been thinking about the fact that you need to tell me something after you me
t me once for thirty seconds? than What have you been meaning to tell me? But he takes it the second way.

  “It’s about the bananas,” he says.

  “The bananas …” I slow down my walk to a normal stroll.

  “Yeah,” he says. “There were a ton in my cart the other day, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Okaaay …”

  “I mean, you know, bananas are, like, the worst thing to have in closed spaces because they can really stink up the joint after a few days with that rotten-banana smell,” he says. “And it’s not like I’m Betty Crocker or something and planning to make banana bread when they start to turn. I mean, I’m kind of impressed with myself that I even know that you can do that with brown bananas, but just because I know you can do it doesn’t mean I’m capable of the actual execution of baking banana bread.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, barely keeping up with his verbal flow.

  “But I wanted you to know that I’m not one of those people who lets bananas stink up the boat,” he says. “It’s just that my dad likes to have about five bananas a day—the man is like Mr. Chiquita over there, so we have to keep them stocked. It’s almost like he’s a banana chain-smoker.”

  Then he chuckles to himself and takes a tiny notebook from his back pocket. He flips it open.

  He stops walking, and so do I.

  He writes something down, shuts the notebook, then looks up and sees my confusion.

  “Oh.” He opens it again and shows me what he wrote.

  Dad smokes a banana.

  I stay silent.

  “I like to draw,” says Red. “The image of my dad smoking a banana is one I want to capture at some point, so I have to remember it. Don’t worry, I’ll write ‘Inspired by Clem’ on the back so I won’t forget who gave me the idea.”