How to Break a Heart (32 page)

“Well, Saturday’s—” I’m not ready for this. Not at all. “Okay, Saturday’s fine.”

I should feel elated, but instead I feel like disappointment, in human form.

I know this sounds strange, but here’s what the whole situation makes me think about: pâté. Duck liver pâté.

When I was little, my mom took me to a party. She let me dress up for the occasion—I wore a sparkly pink dress with a tutu skirt, even a tiara. I was excited to meet fancy, beautiful people and eat fancy, beautiful food. There was one particularly glamorous and stunning woman named Victoria who I couldn’t take my eyes off. She was graceful and willowy; everything on her shone and sparkled, from her glittery toenails to her diamond earrings. She ate with tiny little nibbles, her chewing barely visible. And when she spoke, her voice was like a song that I wanted to sing along to. And she just
loved
, just
adored,
the duck liver pâté.

I wanted some of that duck liver pâté.

I wanted it
bad
.

I had the sense that I wasn’t supposed to have any—it was clearly the somber color of grown-up food, and not the brightly packaged and colored foods that are usually given to children—but while everyone engaged in party chitchat, I went up to the little table and scooped some on my plate, along with a cracker, like Victoria had done. Then I snuck under the table and, though it reminded me of Hunter’s poops, I smeared some of this special stuff onto the cracker and put it into my mouth, so sure I had to love it, like Victoria did.

But here’s the thing. It was awful. So very, very awful. It tasted like—no surprise—the word
liver
itself—mushy and brown and stinky. It tasted so bad I had to spit it out right there on the wood floor under the table. A little pet wiener dog came to my rescue, wolfing down the evidence.

It was weird. I knew that it was something I should appreciate, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t expected it to taste like birthday cake or mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, but I
had
expected it to be something I could at least manage to swallow. But all I had was a bad taste in my mouth.

Yes, this is a little like that moment. Nick is about to ask me to the Cotillion. He likes me. A lot. He’s brought me flowers, made me jewelry, and now he’s taking me to an actual dinner! I should feel victorious.
Triumphant. Appreciative.
But somehow this moment feels a lot like duck liver pâté. I’ve got another bad taste in my mouth.

M
abry is sitting at a table in the food court already, a textbook and a notebook open in front of her. “Hey, Bean Breath,” she says when she sees Thad.

“Hey,” he says, and adds on, lamely, “Onion Head. Are you doing homework?”

“I got here early.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he says. “But
why
are you here so early?”

“Can we not talk about it?”

“Yeah, sure.” He feels like it’s a strange thing for
her
to say, but he also feels hungry. Very hungry. He slides his skateboard under the table and pulls some money out of his pocket. “Want a taco?”

Mabry gives him a crooked smile and picks up a balled-up wrapper. “Already had one. With two packages of hot sauce. It was that kind of a day.”

He grins. “You really
are
learning, my cricket.”

“Grasshopper,” she says.

He leaves his skateboard under the table, goes to the Macho Nacho stand, and orders a burrito.

“Anything else?” the man behind the counter asks.

Thad looks over his shoulder at Mabry. She’s leaning on her elbows, just staring at the table—something’s not right. He orders her a side of chips and guac.

He brings the food to the table. “I thought you could use this,” he says, setting the guacamole down in front of her.

“Thanks.” She looks up at him, surprised.

He feels some heat rise to his face, so he says, “Well, go ahead, eat! It wasn’t
free
.”

She takes the lid off the guacamole container. “Guess what?”

“Chicken butt,” he says, taking a huge bite of burrito. It annoys him when she starts a conversation this way; he always wants to come up with something extraordinarily funny in response, but he usually falls flat.

“Sirina asked this guy Kipper to the Cotillion.”

He lets his mouth drop open, despite its fullness. “No way!” He can’t help feeling amused.
Jeez
, is he turning into a girl now that Mabry is his only friend?

“Yep,” she says. “I had
no
idea. Zip. Zero.”

“Seriously?”

“None.” She looks down at the table. “That’s one of the reasons she won’t talk to me anymore.”

“Dude, what do you mean she won’t she talk to you anymore?”

“Like I said, can we not talk about it?”

“Yeah, no problem.” He feels sad for her, and he knows he should say something, but he has no idea what. He can’t say Sirina’s a
wipe
, like Nick, because it’s just not true. He can’t say Sirina will get over it, whatever it is, because he’s not sure that’s true, either.

He watches her scoop some guacamole onto a chip, but she doesn’t put it in her mouth. He puts three dry chips in his own mouth and swallows hard.

He clears his throat and tries to make his voice a little jokey. “So what about Nick? When are you going to—?” He swipes his hand across his throat.

She looks up at him quickly, and back down at the table. She presses her finger against the table grate, mindlessly.

Her silence makes him want to stop eating.

“He asked me to meet him at Schatzi’s on Saturday night,” she finally says, without looking at Thad. “I think he’s going to ask me then.”

And you’re going to tell him no, right?
He wants to ask, but can’t bring himself to do it. There’s something about the way she’s acting that he doesn’t like.

She breathes out heavily. “I had no idea how hard this heartbreaking stuff would be.”

His stomach churns slightly. He can’t help but wonder,
You’re still going with me, aren’t you?
He studies her, but she’s staring into her guacamole. He feels pinpricks under his skin. He takes a sip of his Dr Pepper.

She pushes the guacamole across the table. “Here, you have it. I can’t eat.”

“Nah, I’m okay,” he says.

Her head snaps up. “You’re refusing guacamole?”

He just shrugs. “Sorry. I guess I’m sick of it.”

“Sick of it? No, don’t be sorry,” she says, a smile starting. “It gives me hope.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hope that maybe we won’t end up right back here in the food court on the night of the Cotillion.”

Oh. Okay. Everything’s okay.
He feels suddenly starved of oxygen, and takes in a long breath. His face softens with relief.

“Seriously,” she says. “Now I can finally see if you actually exist outside of this mall, or if you’ll evaporate once you leave the food court.”

“Now
that
would be worth a YoJo,” Thad jokes.

She tries to stomp on his foot, but her own foot hits his skateboard, under the table.

“Oh!” she says suddenly. Her eyes widen. “I found your skateboard.”

He smirks. “Um, hey, Sherlock, it’s not lost, I just
stashed it
under the table.”

“Not this one, dummy. Your dad’s.”

He blinks.
Am I hearing her correctly?

She continues. “The one you lost.”

He feels her words swirl around his head like a random sentence that has to be diagramed.
Dad’s. Skateboard. Lost.
“You found—what?
Where
?
”

“Yeah, you know, your dad’s skateboard. You told us you’d lost it, that first day Sirina and I saw you here.” She gives him a confused smile. “Anyway, Officer Dirk has it. I found it under his desk—that’s a whole
other
story. Your last name was written on it. I told him it was probably yours, but he was like,
Get out of my office this exact second
.”

Where is it now?
he wants to ask, but he’s suddenly too exhausted to talk. He feels dizzy. He looks around for something fixed, something not moving, to stare at. But everywhere he looks, he sees motion. Feet walking. Escalators moving. Wheels rolling. Nothing is still.

“Thad? Why are you acting so weird?”

He tries to steady himself by fixing his eyes on the grout line between two tiles on the floor. Something straight, linear. Stable. Simple. The opposite of
everything
right now.

Mabry keeps talking. “I was hoping he would just give it to me and I could try to skate it over. ’Course I’d probably fall flat on my face.”

“
Ride
, you mean.”

“Huh?”

Annoyance creeps into his voice. “You
ride
a skateboard. You don’t skate it.”

“Oh, okay then, whatever,” she says, like she’s getting irritated. “
Ride
. What’s up with you?”

“Well, that kinda”—his voice comes out strained and slow; he feels tight with anxiety—“sucks.”

“What? I thought you’d be happy.”

He shakes his head. He knows he’s coming across all wrong, like he’s mad at her. He
is
upset, but he realizes now it’s not so much about getting caught anymore—it’s about letting her down. If they have the skateboard, they picked it up at the crime scene. If they picked it up, they might know he’s the one who broke the window. Now they’ll never let him enroll in school, much less go to that dance. He’ll have to miss it, and worse, she will, too. Unless—

“Collins?”

“What?” She looks at him like he’s a human puzzle.

He takes a breath. He practically has to squeeze the words out. “About the dance.”

“The Cotillion?” Her voice breaks.

“Uh, yeah,” he says. He takes a breath. “I think you
should
go with Nick.”

“Oh. My. God,”
she says. “Are you seriously flaking on me?

“No, I’m not—”

“I can’t
believe
this.”

“Collins!” he says louder. She’s getting the entirely wrong impression. “I need you to listen to me for a second—”

“I should have seen—”

“I mean it,” he cuts her off. He listens to her exhale with frustration, and he tries to breathe normally himself. “Okay, first, I
do
want to go with you, but here’s the thing. I don’t think the school’s going to let me.”

“What? Why not?”

“You know how you found my skateboard?”

“Yeah?”

“And you told Officer Dirk it was mine?”

“Well,
yeah
?”

“Well, he’s probably had it since I punched out that window, okay? Like, waiting for me to confess or something.”

“You?
You
punched out that window? You’re the one?” She seems baffled. “But why would you
do
that?”

So he tells her.

It had seemed like a good idea. The last time he’d set foot in Hubert C. Frost was when he was in elementary school and the class took a bus over to see the middle-school band’s holiday performance. It was enough to put an end to his childhood dream of playing the drums.

But that day, weeks ago, facing the nerve-racking expectation that he’d be going to school—regular school—soon, he thought he’d go check it out again. This time, on his own terms. Walk the halls, learn the math wing from the language labs, see where the cafeteria was, where his locker might be. Maybe lurk a little—from a distance—see if there were any recognizable faces. With his navy-blue sweatshirt on, and the hood up over his head, he could pass for any other eighth grader. He could be practically anonymous, nearly invisible. The thought filled him with a sense of freedom. Of relief.

When he’d gone in through one of the back doors, school had been out for about twenty minutes. It was like after a long day of being traipsed through, the building itself was taking a little break from the hectic pace of the school day. Lights were turned off, breezes came through open windows, voices in the hall were lively and at ease.

“Check me out!” He’d overheard a voice from another nearby hall. Then laughter.

He’d peeked around the corner, down the hall. He squinted. Was that Nick Wainwright? And Abe Mahal? He thought so. They were there with another guy he didn’t recognize. The guys were all fake fighting, throwing air punches and ducking, basically taking advantage of the empty hallways. It looked kind of fun.

“Watch this!” Nick had spun around, kicking in the air. He fell on his hip, got up and dusted off his jeans, and accepted being laughed at.

“
Nice
moves,” Abe had joked.

“Hi-
yah
!” the other guy had called out, and tried the spin-kick himself. But he’d accidentally spun a little too much and kicked a little too much, and got Abe right in the crotch.

Abe had crumpled to the ground, clutching his jeans.

“Wow, sorry, dude,” the kid said, while everyone else laughed.

“Hey, Abe, you okay, man?” Nick had asked, his face looking like it was trying to decide between amusement and concern.

From the ground, Abe had groaned, “Nick, man, I don’t think I can walk anymore.”

Nick had turned to the spin-kicker. “What are you trying to do? Get him enrolled in the Special Olympics?” And then, to Abe, Nick said, “Hey, don’t worry. We’re right here next to the handicapped elevators, so I can wheel you in, like some sort of freak.”