The Breakup Artist

by Shannen Crane Camp

  It was a touching moment, but it was, sadly, completely irrelevant to what I had to do there. I sat down at an empty table near the door and took a plastic-wrapped bagel from my white backpack. I opened up my breakfast as quietly as I could, not wanting to draw any attention to myself. We only had about ten minutes before the first bell rang, warning us to get to class, so I decided to take those ten minutes to really observe the couple before me. Something about the entire situation didn’t make sense. It didn’t match up with the other clients I had helped before. Karen didn’t look politely bored or audaciously interested in another boy; she looked happy. The blush I’d seen the day before returned to her cheeks at something Nate had said, and a smile spread across his face at the sight of her quickly reddening cheeks. Unless Karen was a wonderful actress, she was happy with Nate, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be getting an Academy Award any time soon.

  “You’re doing another job,” came a matter-of-fact voice beside me. I turned, my face set in grim annoyance, as I instantly recognized the voice.

  “How do you pop up everywhere? Do you just dedicate your time to following me around?” I was angry at my break in concentration, and my voice showed it. David’s eyes held mild amusement at my disgruntled expression.

  “Actually, I just got lucky on this one. I always eat breakfast in here.” He looked like he was trying to hold back his laughter at this fortuitous chain of events. “So, can I eat breakfast with you?” he asked finally. I shook my head firmly at his question and rose to leave, though his hand instantly encircled my wrist. “Please, Amelia?” Again I shook my head, though I did sit back down, against my better judgment. “What if I promise not to talk about our little disagreement at all? It’ll just be a nice normal breakfast.” Much to my surprise, his eyes actually looked hopeful, as if he really wanted to eat breakfast with me. I knew it was a bad idea, and every cell in my brain was telling me to leave, but my muscles didn’t seem to listen to my brain, so there I sat. Fraternizing with the enemy.

  David relaxed once he decided I wasn’t going to leave, and he let a smile grace his lips. He pulled a granola bar out of his backpack along with a plastic bottle of orange juice. I picked at my bagel with a doleful expression on my face, hoping he’d take the hint. Karen and Nate were still giggling and whispering at their table, though now it only annoyed me, where seconds before I’d found it heartwarming. David looked at me sideways and laughed softly.

  “Sitting with me isn’t that bad, is it?” he asked with a grin. I turned my head to him, giving him a very clear look that answered his question in a second. He raised his eyebrows at me, still smirking, and shook his head. “All right, time to change the subject. How was dinner with your mom last night?” I looked down at my half eaten bagel, hoping to hide any hint of the truth my expression may show.

  “It was fun. We did dinner and a movie. Probably stayed up later than we should have but it was worth it.” I wasn’t sure why I was lying since he’d probably bugged my house or something and knew that I’d really spent the evening eating reheated leftovers. If he detected the edge to my voice, however, he didn’t show it.

  “That sounds like fun,” he said simply, without a smidgeon of sarcasm. I nodded my head but said nothing in response. Our conversation had definitely taken a turn for the awkward. I couldn’t quite understand why David had decided to eat breakfast with me. It seemed odd that he was so bent on destroying me and yet he wanted to spend time with me. I suppose he could be trying to get to know me better so that it would be easier to take me down. After all, that’s what I did to my customer’s boyfriends. I sighed deeply, instantly attracting David’s attention. “You all right?” He asked that question a lot.

  “I guess,” I said glumly. David always seemed to make me so depressed. It was a mixture between my hate for him and his stupid ideologies and my secret wish that he’d just realize that he wanted to be with me for the rest of his life so we could live happily ever after. “I feel like the victim of a kidnapping,” I said suddenly, once again using my brilliant social skills around this boy who seemed to always make me say the most ridiculous things. David looked at me the way I expected him to—like he had no idea where that had come from.

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s like you’re holding my business hostage, and yet I’m forced to be around you and eat breakfast with you . . . so it’s like you’ve kidnapped me, and even though I know you’re trying to ruin my life, I have to be around you and treat you civilly.” The words came spilling out of my mouth with absolutely no censor. I wasn’t even sure if they made sense, but the whole thought process had definitely made sense in my head before it had made its big debut out of my mouth. Surprisingly David didn’t look confused, but disappointed.

  “Maybe you’ll get Stockholm Syndrome,” he said with a laugh before turning serious again. “Amelia, I know you feel like I’m ruining your life or sticking my nose in your business, but I’m really trying to help you. I’m sure I sound like a shrink or something, but you really do fascinate me.” He stopped short once those words left his mouth and I wondered if he was rethinking what he’d said or just wondering if he’d come off as a creepy stalker. I was still bothered by his insistence that he belonged in my life somehow, but I couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of affection for him. He kept his gaze trained on me expectantly and I looked around for some kind of out. Karen and Nate had left without me noticing, so I took this as the perfect opportunity.

  “I need to go. I’ve lost track of my client.” I stood from the table, leaving my bagel behind and walked away from the cafeteria, feeling the oddest impulse to turn around and go back to where David sat with a frustrated expression on his face. I instantly heard footsteps behind me, which I knew were David’s so I turned abruptly to thwart any attempt he was making to follow me. “What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Because I’m—”

  “Trying to help me? Yeah, I know, you’ve used that line. What is it you really want? You know there’s nothing morally wrong with my business. If people want me to help them break up with their boyfriends, that’s between them and me. It has nothing to do with you, so just stay out of it. Besides, you can’t do anything to stop me. You don’t have some claim over the hearts of angsty high school boys.” I glared up at the guy who stood before me. His shaggy blond hair was hanging in his green eyes as usual, and the glare he wore matched mine perfectly.

  “You’re not doing anyone any favors by doing this. They should do this on their own. It’s not like they’ll be able to hire someone to take their tests for them or grieve at their parent’s graves when that time comes. You’re really hurting people and you don’t even see it. If you could just see how much these meaningless little high school relationships mean to some people, I don’t think you’d be so bent on destroying them.” A look of sadness passed over his handsome features, catching me completely off guard. This look lasted only a moment though before it hardened and he continued on his tirade. “Life is hard. Sometimes we have to do stuff that sucks. That’s just the way it is.”

  “All the more reason for me to make one less thing a burden, don’t you think? Besides, if you’re worried about me being the cause of heartbreak, you can just shelf that theory. These couples would break up anyway. I’m just speeding the process along a little.”

  “That’s not what bothers me!” he shouted, and I was instantly glad that the cafeteria was almost empty so that we only had to endure a few curiously aggravated stares.

  “Well then, what is it, David? Did your friends’ breakups really bother you that much? Apparently you’re the one who needs to learn to deal with hardship, not my clients.” I did feel a bit bad about the words that were escaping my mouth especially since he got that same “you just ran over my dog” look that he had given me on our date. I was a generally pleasant person. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever raised my voice at someone, but for some reason David just had a special w
ay of getting under my skin. David looked at me intently, biting his bottom lip to keep from swearing at me, I’m assuming. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.

  “At first I was really bothered by what happened to my friends. I guess I still am in a roundabout way.” His tone was even again, and the stares that had been trained on us were now back on their food. “I was really angry that their girlfriends hadn’t had enough decency to at least break things off themselves. It still would have been hard for them to hear about the demise of their relationships but when they’re set up to look like something they’re not . . .” His words trailed off then. Quite possibly because he realized that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. It was like we had been reading a book and thirty pages had been cut out of my copy. Shaking his head and apparently deciding to give up on whatever direction he was taking with this little talk he continued, “That’s when I decided to ruin your career. But like I said, I became fascinated by what you do. Well . . . why you do it, really. And then, when I went in for the kill to topple your carefully practiced business, I made a mistake.” He looked at the ground now, some of his confidence obviously leaving him. It was odd to see David looking shy when he’d always seemed so outgoing and forward to me.

  I kept my eyes locked on him, waiting for him to reveal what the mistake was. I saw a small blush rise in his cheeks and I immediately knew: he had kissed me. He’d gotten attached to his work just like I had that night. It was really an easy problem to resolve—we would simply stay out of each other’s way and it would all be forgotten. But we didn’t seem able to do that.

  “So you don’t want me to stop my business out of some moral obligation?” I said quietly, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. He shook his head, raising his eyes slowly until they met mine. He almost looked embarrassed and I wondered, in a moment of chagrin, if he’d ever had to ask a girl to be interested in him. Not that I wasn’t interested in him already. But the mere fact that he actually needed to ask me to choose him over something else was apparently more than he’d had to do in the past.

  The bell rang, causing us both to jump, and I looked around the cafeteria to see that it was already empty. I looked back to the boy who stood in front of me, the one boy who’d ever been interested in the real me, the me I didn’t even know existed. And of course, I did the exact opposite of what I knew I should have done. I walked away without saying another word.

  ☼☼☼

  I have absolutely no idea what we talked about in history that day. My thoughts were completely consumed with David’s sudden interest in me. Well, I guess it wasn’t so sudden if he’d been dwelling on this for a year. But that confused me even more than if it had been sudden. That meant this boy had been thinking about me for a year and still wasn’t bored by the concept of me. Most of my clients got bored with their significant others after a week. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen someone stay together for a whole year. The mere idea was almost too much for my brain to handle.

  I rubbed at my temples with my eyes closed. I hadn’t even realized that the teacher had popped in a DVD until I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Opening my eyes, I glanced up at Mrs. Recht. She stood at a mere 4'11" at full height and her short brown hair bounced when she walked. Her thick black-rimmed glasses always seemed chic to me; they didn’t match the rest of her wardrobe at all. The muted neutral skirts and tucked-in white blouses seemed like something straight out of one of her ancient archaeology videos. I gave her a wary smile, sure I was about to get in trouble for not listening to the lecture.

  “Amelia, are you feeling all right?” she asked with genuine concern. I’m sure she didn’t want the truth, which was that I felt like jumping off a cliff. There was no need to cause any undue panic, so I simply shook my head. She nodded in response. “I didn’t think so. Would you like to go to the nurse?”

  “Yes, please,” I whispered, glad she had waited until she started the movie to talk to me, rather than singling me out during her lecture. The last thing I wanted was people staring at me any more than they normally did. Mrs. Recht scribbled down a note and her signature on a yellow slip and handed it to me.

  “Feel better, dear,” she said with more motherly concern than I’d ever even heard from my own mother. I smiled at her, instantly thankful for all concerned teachers who were actually invested in the well-being of their students.

  Trekking to the nurse’s office, I went over my speech in my head. I just have a really bad headache and can’t concentrate on class right now. Can I go home? That sounded believable enough, though I didn’t know if the nurse actually sent people home for headaches. I’d never been in the nurse’s office before, which seemed a bit odd. I guess I really had missed out on everything having to do with the normal high school experience.

  Why was that? Why couldn’t I have a normal relationship with a person? Wasn’t that more important than utilizing my God-given skills? And wasn’t David right in saying that I could make more money at a less entertaining but much easier after-school job? Looking back on my total relationships, not just romantic, but human in general, I couldn’t count one that had actually lasted. I had my one friend in elementary school and I had my mother. My mother and I barely even spoke once my father left. She always found ways to keep herself busy, and I seriously suspected that she had another family she wasn’t telling me about. I practically lived alone. Even when I was at school and surrounded by people, I was still alone. I didn’t have any friends or any boyfriends, and I didn’t talk to anyone in my family. How could someone live their entire life without human contact?

  Perhaps I expected things to get better once I started college. Like, if I could just hold on until then I’d suddenly find a million people who’d want to hang out with me and a perfect boyfriend who’d like me for who I was . . . like David seemed to. It was a frightening thought, but I really did have two choices at the moment: I could continue on in my normal pattern, being comfortably aloof and separate from the normal world of human relationships, or I could quit my job and be with David at the risk of actually connecting with another person. It seemed like the answer should be obvious, but if I gave up my job I’d be giving up the only constant in my life. The only thing that had stayed with me forever wasn’t a person, but a hobby. People were unpredictable and flaky, but my hobby, which I was in control of and governed, was always there for me. As dumb as it sounded, giving up my job would be like giving up my only friend. It had almost become an addiction or a comfort blanket for me. But perhaps that was one of the big reasons I should drop it now, before it became such a crutch that I’d never be able to stand on my own without it.

  “Are you all right?” came a voice from in front of me. I blinked away my thoughts in confusion and looked down at the plump nurse behind the desk. Apparently I’d wandered over to her office without any awareness that I was doing so. I’m sure I had a dazed look on my face and I wondered how long I had been standing there, looking like a zombie.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, not quite sure what she had said to me only moments before.

  “I said, are you all right?” She looked slightly frightened now, as if I would suddenly slip into a coma and her medical training would be truly tested.

  “Oh yeah, I’m fine. I think I just need to lie down for a minute. Am I allowed to do that here?” My question had genuinely thrown her off balance. She eyed me with incredulity, though I had no idea why my request had seemed so outrageous. She pried her eyes away from me and began typing on her computer.

  “Name?” she asked mechanically.

  “Amelia Marie Bedford,” I recited, still dwelling on my options for my future. She clicked away on the keyboard, then looked up at me suspiciously.

  “You’re sixteen?” she asked, as if I might lie about my age. I thought women only did that when they turned thirty.

  “Yes,” I said, equally as suspicious of where she was going with this.

  “You’re a soph
omore?” I simply nodded my head this time, wondering why she was asking questions with such obvious answers. “And you’ve never been to the nurse’s office?” Ah. Now I knew where the suspicion was coming from.

  “I don’t get sick very often,” I said, figuring that would clear things up. The woman looked me up and down for a minute. I’m assuming she decided that if I hadn’t faked a headache in my whole high school and junior high career, I probably wouldn’t start now.

  “You can go ahead and lie on that bed there,” she finally said, pointing to something that I thought looked nothing like a bed. It was more like a long brown armrest with wax paper over it. “Would you like something for your head?” she asked, her tone much more hospitable now that she knew I wasn’t one of those students who came to the nurse’s office every day because they mysteriously developed a headache during P.E. and math.

  “No, I think I’ll be fine. I just need to rest for a moment,” I answered, keeping my tone sweet and believable. The truth was that I just needed time to think about what I was going to do with the new choices in front of me. I lay down on the “bed,” which made funny crinkling sounds when the wax paper stuff bent under my weight. I wondered if they just threw the paper away after someone sat on it. Surely the school wouldn’t waste paper like that when hundreds of sick kids have sat at my classroom desk. Nobody threw those away after every use.

  I let that tangent go, deciding to focus on the problems at hand. With my eyes closed and my arm resting lightly over my forehead, I went back over my options. Option 1: stay alone but quite within my comfort zone for the rest of my life. Option 2: drop my job, sink to everyone else’s level, and date a truly gorgeous and interesting boy. I guess saying that I’d be sinking to everyone else’s level was a bit arrogant of me. It wasn’t like I was above everyone else . . . I had just always thought of myself as separate from them, so to be just another part of the crowd was a less-than-desirable idea. However, I could comfort myself by thinking that if my only contact with the normal high school world was through a boyfriend, I still wasn’t really participating in the ridiculous high school stereotypes and primitive courting rituals. I could still maintain my individuality without being completely cut off. This could actually work.