Heartbreaker Hanson

by Melanie Marks

I groaned. Of course she was devastated. He didn’t need to tell me that. I gulped. Feeling like my mouth was full of sandpaper, I squeezed my eyes shut. Poor Laurie.

  The tardy bell rang.

  Neither of us moved.

  “Brooke and Drew?—are you two joining us today?” our teacher asked us in Spanish, since though the bell rang Drew just stood silently staring into my eyes, his expression haunted, as though it had killed him to have to hurt Laurie like that—to finally let her go for real.

  I swallowed, slowly cutting my gaze from Drew’s stare to peek at our waiting teacher. Slowly I nodded to her, “Yeah I’m coming,” I whispered to her in Spanish, then wobbled to my seat, not really able to breathe.

  He broke up with Laurie! He really did it.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist, rocking back and forth.

  I quickly texted Laurie: “How are you?”

  I waited, rocking some more—back and forth, back and forth.

  “I’m at home,” she finally wrote back. “Sabrina gave me a ride. I was looking for you at lunch but couldn’t find you—anywhere!!”

  I was in the band room. I’m always in the band room. Why is it she never knew that? It never occurred to her—Brooke hangs out in the band room. It’s too geeky of a place for her to consider someone going to voluntarily—especially one of her friends.

  I quickly wrote: “Are you sick?”

  “Majorly.”

  Then she added after a pause, “I broke up with Drew.”

  I stared at her words.

  Finally I typed out slowly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, it was horrible. But final this time.”

  Then she added hesitantly after a moment, “You know it was really him that broke up with me—I know you know that. But don’t let that get around okay? To everyone else it was ‘mutual.’ aka: Me that did the breaking up. Okay?”

  I wrapped my arms around my waist.

  “Okay????”

  “Okay. Whatever you need.”

  “What I NEED was for him not to have done this to me. To have not turned into a stranger.”

  “Right. I’m so sorry, Laurie.”

  “Call me when you get home, okay? Right now I’m trying to get rid of Sabrina, then I’m going to take a nap watching “When Our Love Was Still Love.”

  I groaned. “Maybe you should watch a comedy?”

  ‘When Our Love Was Still Love’ could make anyone slit their wrist—even on a good day.

  “No, I need the camaraderie. Lesley practically dies of sadness—just like I’m doing.”

  “But she finds someone better at the end,” I quickly wrote.

  “No she doesn’t!!!”

  “Yes she does. They just didn’t add that into the movie, but she meets Zak Efron in the elevator on the way to her therapist’s office, they fall madly in love and she thinks to herself, ‘Just think, if Gordy hadn’t dumped me I would never be in Zak’s arms right now. Thank goodness Gordy dumped me!!’ That’s the real ending.”

  “Okay, well, I’d like to see that ending. Meanwhile, I’m going to cry/sleep through ‘When Our Love Was Still Love’ and wait for you to call.”

  “Okay … and eat lots of chocolate.”

  “Already doing that. Sabrina and I are eating brownie batter—of course Sabrina will probably puke hers up afterwards. After all, she’ll have to fit into her cheerleader uniform when she goes after Drew at the football game Friday night.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Sadly, she was probably right. Laurie doesn’t have the most loyal friends … or the wisest ones when it comes to diet.

  I quickly typed, “Hang in there, Laurie.”

  But then I felt sick, because I got a text from Drew, “Can we hang out after school? Please?”

  I thumped my forehead against my desk and groaned. After a long moment, I peeked over at Drew. Groan. He was watching me. Of course. From across the classroom, he sat with a tiny frown watching me bang my head from his question.

  His brow lowered as I quickly looked away from his stare. Confused sparks rushed through my body. It was so weird suddenly having so much power over Drew’s expressions—and apparent heart. The sensations it stirred inside me were confusing and convoluted. So mixed up. And messed up. Can’t lie: I felt a slight thrill from it—but it also made me feel guilty. As guilty as everything else in this messed up situation. Laurie was my friend. I wasn’t allowed to feel thrilled about her ex-boyfriend texting me, or him wanting to hang out with me, or him frowning and looking hurt when he caught me banging my head from his request.

  But I had loved him forever, so the situation bit.

  Finally, I texted him back: “Drew, no. I can’t hang out with you after school. I have to go over to LAURIE’S after school. You know, my friend Laurie. She got dumped by her boyfriend today.”

  With a sidelong peek, I saw Drew frown, running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he read my text. Then it was his turn to thump his head. “Okay, yeah. I get it.”

  Then he texted more, “But will you go to the dance after the game with me Friday night?”

  I groaned, then quickly texted, “No!! You just SAID you get it—but you don’t. You DON’T get it. I can’t go to the dance with you, Drew. You broke my friend’s heart.”

  CHAPTER 23

  After school I did my duty. I went to Laurie’s and listened to her moan about Drew. I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. Didn’t have a clue. The whole time I was at her house I wondered if I should confess about my situation with Drew, or if that would just rub salt in her wounded heart.

  Actually, I knew the answer: It would be the salt thing. All the way.

  Laurie didn’t see me as competition—it would stab her ego to death if she learned I was. It would seriously destroy her. Well, more than she was already destroyed. And she was destroyed. She was a sobbing, hurting train-wreck. So, I kept my mouth shut and just let her talk and cry and moan. Because that’s what a friend does when a friend is hurting … right?

  I wasn’t sure. About any of this. Laurie wasn’t a friend to me like Rachel had been. With Rachel, I would have known what to do. How to act. How to help her. But face it, with Rachel I would have never been in this situation. Rachel would have known I liked Drew right from the beginning. She wouldn’t have asked me to help her “nab” him. She would have tried to help me nab him—way back years ago, and kept trying. She would have never put me in this situation I’m facing now—where I have to choose between friendship and the boy I have always wanted.

  So, I sat listening and comforting Laurie with all kinds of guilt washing through me.

  When I finally left Laurie’s it was late, and I was shaken. Well, it wasn’t really “late” but it was starting to get dark out, and I was “shaken” because I knew Laurie was hurting and so of course I couldn’t have Drew … but I wanted Drew. However, to be honest, mostly at the moment I just wanted my best friend back. With all my heart. I longed to talk to her about all this stuff—talk to her about anything. I missed Rachel so much.

  Practically in tears, I drove to the cemetery, then just stood in front of Rachel’s grave. I had so much I wanted to say to her. I just stood there a long time, staring at her grave, kind of saying a silent prayer to her, “I miss you,” I told her in my head. “I need my best friend. I feel alone.”

  Just then I heard a voice—soo gentle, as though not to scare me. You know, since I was standing alone in a dark cemetery and everything.

  The voice was tender and concerned with just the tiniest hint of teasing, “Not thinking about joining her, are you?”

  I jolted at the unexpected voice. Then jolted again when I saw who it was. Who had been silently watching me—Rider.

  I blinked at him, my lips parting slightly.

  He tilted his head, his voice still half-concerned, half-teasing, “You’re not … right?”

  “Uh … no. I mean, a little bit, maybe—but no.”

  He grins slightly, but it’s sympathetic.
Still his words are said around a playful grin, “That wasn’t very reassuring, Brooke. Now I’m going to have to watch you all night.” His eyes twinkle, “—just for your own safety.”

  He’s only kidding. Of course. He’s seems quite aware there is no need to take any sort of measures to keep me from offing myself. I can tell he’s enjoying this—getting to tease me … yet at the same time, he still seems the tiniest bit concerned. Just a teeny, tiny bit. But it’s keeping his voice really gentle, and his eyes tender—even as he’s teasing me. Like he knows I’m not going to off myself, yet I’m having a dangerously lousy moment, and maybe he feels my pain—I mean, he’s in the cemetery too. You don’t normally hang out here just to meet people. Not even Heartbreaker Hanson. It’s kind of a sad place, for sad people—grieving people.

  So, the tiniest pang goes through me.

  I know his mom died last year. As we stare at each other now, we both know this fact—that I know. I had sent him a sea-shell after she died—it was this “thing” we had back in kindergarten. I wouldn’t have sent it to him, but he sent me one when Rachel died, and it had made me cry bittersweet tears. I wonder if my shell to him did the same. I doubt it. After all, he’s Heartbreaker Hanson.

  But then his face goes kind of blotchy for a moment. “Thanks for the shell,” he says. “—and the note. It meant a lot.”

  I have to look away, since I suddenly, inexplicitly, have tears in my eyes and my heart is in my throat.

  “Thanks for your shell too,” I whisper once I can manage words.

  He clears his throat, but his voice still comes out husky, “Sorry I didn’t write a note.”

  The shell from him had touched me beyond words. If he would have added actual words—no. My heart would have broke all over again.

  I shook my head, trying to brush off his apology about the note. “The shell meant a lot to me, Rider. Thank you.”

  If he hadn’t sent it to me, I would have never dared send one to him when his mom died. I would have ached and longed to do it—but I wouldn’t have dared, believing he wouldn’t have cared, or remembered. When Rachel died and I got his, I had bawled. It’s funny, but I’d blocked that out of my mind this past year—that he had sent me that truly touching gift—that heartwarming sea-shell that was so dear and meant so much.

  Rider cleared his throat again, “Listen, can we go somewhere and talk for a while?” His voice had been hesitant, but now it takes on his normal teasing, “I mean, since I’m now on duty—suicide-watch.”

  I roll my eyes and grunt. “I don’t need to be watched.”

  His grin grows, “I beg to differ.”

  He’s flirting!

  Right now. In a cemetery.

  Of course the guy will flirt anywhere. He’s had so much practice, he can’t help himself.

  “Look, just let me make sure you’re okay … okay? I’ll take you to get a milkshake—a chocolate-banana milkshake, your favorite. If you turn me down, that will be a true sign that you are not alright and I’ll be forced to do some type of intervention—something way more dramatic than a milkshake. You don’t want that, do you Kindergarten Girlfriend?”

  I’m shocked beyond belief that he remembers that my favorite milkshake flavor is chocolate-banana. Not even my own mom remembers that. She always gets me chocolate-marshmallow and says it all proud, “That’s your favorite right?”

  No. It’s not, Mom. It’s nice and all. But not my favorite.

  Yet Rider remembers.

  He’s making me feel all warm and gooey tonight, what with his sea-shell reminder, and now this. And it sure doesn’t hurt that his eyes keep being on me like that—all sweet and concerned, yet at the same time kind of longing and hungry. (Mmmm.)

  And …

  Since I had just been (in my head, and heart) asking my best friend to give me guidance in my present situation—you know, with Laurie and Drew—I take this moment as a sign and thank Rachel (in my head).

  I’d needed a distraction from my thoughts of Drew.

  Rider is definitely a distraction.

  CHAPTER 24

  I reluctantly let Rider take me out for a milkshake at this place called, “Slugger’s.” It’s a fifty’s style restaurant that is popular with the kids from our high school—and coincidently the only place you can get a chocolate-banana milkshake.

  … but I soon got the feeling Rider brought me to the restaurant simply because he likes a girl that works here. Her name is Daisy Turner. She’s a cheerleader at our school and just as an FYI: she refused to wait on him, though he requested her to be our waitress multiple times.

  “Come on, Daisy,” he said every time she passed our table.

  She would reply, “Drop dead,” every time, and once she even flipped him off.

  He had only grinned about it, then turned back to me with a sheepish smirk, “She seems to hate me, huh?”

  “Kind of,” I admitted. But I couldn’t help grinning back at him, since it was quite OBVIOUS she hated him. Big time.

  His grin grew, “I don’t get it—I try to be nice to her. She won’t even give me a chance to talk to her.”

  I smirked, “Well, obviously she already knows about you.”

  He tilted his head. “Okay, go on with that,” he says, sounding more than a little curious. But of course he has to already know. He has to.

  I shrug. “You’re a heartbreaker.” Then I add, “—everyone knows.”

  He quirks his brow. “I didn’t know.”

  “Riiight,” I say as I take another sip of my yummy milkshake.

  “Brooke, I didn’t know,” he says, sounding dead serious. He bites his bottom lip, then lowers his brow, “Who all thinks this?”

  I shrug again. “Everyone. Well, all the girls. They’ll still date you, but they go into it knowing ahead of time to hold on to their hearts, because they know if you get a hold of it, you’ll break it. It’s even written on the schools’ bathroom walls, ‘If you want your heart broken, give it to Rider Hanson.’ In fact, there is even a poem written about it up on the third floor’s bathroom wall near the math wing, something like, ‘If you want your heart broken and treated like a toy, give it to Rider-Boy.’”

  Rider sits back looking stunned. But then he puts a hand over his heart, and says around a self-mocking smile, “I’m injured.”

  He gives me a playful peek, “If I give you five bucks would you erase it?”

  “No way. Girls need to be warned. Besides, it was written in permanent ink—just like the pain you caused the poor girl: it’s written on her heart, forever.”

  He gives me this look, like I’m nuts. And adorable. Then he gives me a lazy grin, “Did you write it?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Busted.

  I try to keep a straight face, “I can neither confirm nor deny that information. The things written in the girls’ bathroom stays in the girls’ bathroom.”

  His grin quirks, “And yet you told me what’s in the girls’ bathroom.”

  I raise my eyebrows, “And I’ll probably be shot for it. Like you said, I’m on suicide-watch. Maybe it’s just a ploy to get the job done without me having to put out effort. Now I can just sit back and wait for the girls’ bathroom mafia to come get me. I’m lazy that way.”

  His smile quirks, “Or maybe you’re trying to tell me something?—I hurt you? … by not giving you enough attention? Last week—the first day of school, you kind of growled that I pissed you off by not leering at you sooner.”

  My jaw drops. “That is so not what I was mad about!”

  He grins, pleased that I’m actually opening up about it. “Okay, so what were you mad about?”

  “No. I’m not even going to go into it with you—it will just make me mad again, and right now I’m feeling happy, so don’t blow it.”

  His grin sparks, though it’s just teasing, “My company is making you happy?”

  “No, this milkshake is. You had a good idea, thank you. And as repayment, I was trying to help you out with Miss Drop-Dead-Chee
rleader-Waitress-Chick.”

  “Oh, is that her official name?”

  “For you it is. I was just telling you what was on the bathroom walls to let you know what you’re up against. If you want to get to Miss Cheerleader’s heart you’re going to have to somehow convince her you’re not a heartbreaker.” I sit back and grin smugly, “Good luck with that.”

  He gives me a quizzical look, but then changes the subject, “Why were you so sad tonight?—earlier? Before my magical milkshake?”

  My heart falls. I so don’t like the change of subject.

  He bites his (gorgeous) bottom lip slightly as he watches me, seeming to negotiate his inexplicable knowledge before putting it out there and wrenching my heart. “I thought you’d be happy,” he says finally. “Your dream guy is available now—you can be the quarterback’s girlfriend without feeling guilty.”

  I slink in my seat. “Not feel guilty? He just dumped my friend—I can’t go out with him.”

  He grunts. “She’s not your friend. She wouldn’t do the same for you—you know that.”

  It’s unnerving that he knows so much about me. And my life. I mean, like I said, we haven’t actually civilly communicated with each other since kindergarten.

  He leans across the table towards me, kind of confidential-like, “Look, quarterback doesn’t deserve you, but I know you like him a lot. You stare at him like there are hearts coming out of your eyeballs. He looks at you that way too. If you want him, he’s yours. You shouldn’t let a selfish, self-centered sort-of friend get in your way. She wouldn’t do the same for you, and she’s not worth losing your heart’s desire over.” He stares into my eyes, “Just go for it.”

  I quickly look away, since suddenly—for a crazy moment—he’s my heart’s desire. Well, the him from back in kindergarten.

  I clear my throat. “We—we should go. It’s getting late.”

  He gives me another quizzical look, but then Miss Cheerleader/Waitress sashays by with someone’s order.

  “Daisy,” he calls to her again.

  She flips him off—again.

  He puts his hand over his heart and gives me another playful smirk. “I’m wounded.”