How to Heal a Broken Heart (3 page)

Chuck looks at me then as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Well uh… I mean, you know any friend of yours Chelsea...but um well…” he says, taking in my appearance.

“Don’t worry,” Chelsea assures him. “I’ll clean her up.”

Hey! Clean me up? What’s wrong with me? I mean, it’s a bowling ally, jeez.

Sure maybe I have let “myself go” a little like my little sister was all too eager to tell me, but no need to discuss it right in front of me.

Chuck nods, accepting this. “Okay, bring her with you whenever you work next for some training.”

Chelsea claps her hands together happily and reaches over to kiss Chuck on the cheek. “Thanks, Chuck, you’re the best!”

Then she jumps off the counter and grabs me by the hand. “Nice meeting you,” I call as she pulls me out the door.

“This is great,” she tells me, walking across the parking lot. “The pay is only eight dollars an hour but it’s under the table so they don’t take any taxes out. Like, he just pays you for your hours at the end of the night. Which I guess could kind of be against the law but whatever, a job is a job, right? Plus you get to keep all your tips.”

This whole situation is so strange to me. Less than two hours ago Chelsea was just another girl who I went to school with and now here she is helping me clean up the mess that it took me months to create.

“Why?” The words are out of my mouth before I can think about saying them.

She just looks at me, puzzled. “Why does he pay under the table? I don’t know. I would never ask him, it’s probably -- ”

I shake my head. “No, I mean why are you helping me? You barely know me.”

She shrugs. “Everyone needs help sometimes, even from people they don’t know that well.”

Then she opens the door and hops in her car. Right before she slams it shut she says, “Meet me at the mall tomorrow in front of Macy’s, ten o’clock.” And then she’s gone.

And so I get in my car, and I try to think about how I am going to possibly go to summer school and work for the next few months when all I really want to do is lay in my bed and not get up. How I am going to get up everyday and carry on when all I feel inside is sad? And then I place my head in my hands and for the second time that day I start to cry.

Sometimes you don’t start to get over something because you want to, but more because you have to. If it was up to me I would have stayed in bed all summer. I would have stayed there every day feeling sorry for myself, wondering where I went wrong.

But sometimes circumstances like summer school make you get up and make you carry on because that’s the thing about starting to move on; you have to MAKE yourself do things that used to come so easily. And while that’s painful, it’s a very small step in the right direction, because lets face it -- every marathon starts with an inch.

I think my mom was more excited about me going to the mall with Chelsea than I was. I mean, I know I hadn’t had any friends over in a while but jeez. She was kind of freaking out. When I first told her I was gong to the mall she had assumed I was going with Emily.

“Oh, this is wonderful!” she said, clapping her hands up and down and bouncing around the living room. “I just knew you two would work it out. You were way too close to let something as silly as a boy get in the way of your friendship!”

The words sting and my heart starts to hurt even more than it did before, which I didn’t even think was possible. Emily was my best friend before Rich came along. When I say best friend, I mean we did literally everything together. She knew everything about me and at first she was really happy for me that I had a boyfriend. But she started to hate him when she started to see he wasn’t exactly treating me well. Eventually I just started not calling her back. I didn’t want to deal with it. She was the only friend out of the girls I used to hang out with that I didn’t try to contact after me and Rich broke up.

Not because I didn’t care about her, but because I did. I cared about her the most out of all my friends and I knew deep down that she was probably the one hurt the most by what I did. I had no idea how to even begin to explain myself to her or what I could possibly say to make her understand. Sometimes as I was carrying on with things day to day I would wonder what she was doing, or what she would think if she could see me now. Somehow, I doubt she would be very impressed.

I shake my head. “No, Mom, not Emily.”

She pauses. “Oh. Well, who then?”

“Chelsea. You know her, her mom works at the school.”

My mom sighs “Of course! Chelsea! She’s a beautiful girl! Good for you, honey, good for you. Getting back out there.”

“Yes,” Megan says nodding from her spot on the carpet where she’s busy coloring. “Good for you, Stephanie. Getting out there is a wonderful step.”

I force a smile and start to slowly back out of the room. “Yeah, well, I should go.”

My mom has been totally supportive with my break up, or she’s tried to be, anyway. But the truth is that she has no idea how deep I was in with Rich or just how upset I really am. And I don’t like talking to her about it. I just like escaping.

“Wait! Let me give you some money,” she says, running to her purse.

“Oh no, it’s okay, Mom.”

“Don’t be silly, Stephanie, that’s what mothers do!” she tells me, beaming as she digs through her purse.

“Yes,” Megan says, still scribbling away. “That’s what mothers do, Stephanie.

Like if I wanted money for a new bike Mom would give it to me right away because that’s what mothers do right, Mom?”

My mom shoots Megan a look and Megan shrugs.

My mom smiles and hands me a wad of bills. I hesitate but reach out and take it then stuff it in my jeans pocket. I feel really guilty but at the same time kind of relieved because I obviously I couldn’t really afford any type of shopping trip with Chelsea today.

But she didn’t really give me a chance to explain that before jumping into her car and driving off.

“Thanks, Mom, really.” I tell her as I head out.

Once I get in the car I take the money out of my pocket and count it. One hundred dollars. My mom gave me one hundred dollars. I start to cry and I don’t stop until I’m pulling into a parking spot in front of Macy’s twenty minutes later.

“What about this?” Chelsea asks me, holding up a pink shirt covered with sparkles. We’re in Forever 21 digging through the clothes. Chelsea insists that if I’m going to be working with her I need to be a little more stylish. To be honest, it’s not that I don’t like these types of clothes, it’s just I never really thought I could pull them off. But with Chelsea’s help I’m starting to think maybe I can.

“Cute,” I tell her, grabbing it out of her hand. Forever 21 is like a hidden treasure that you had no idea even existed. Honestly they have the cutest clothes at the cheapest prices. Plus to top it off Chelsea’s friend Amber works here and gives Chelsea the employee discount for everything she buys. (Which I don’t really think Chelsea’s supposed to do, but she doesn’t seem too concerned about it so whatever.) Amber’s employee discount is for fifty percent off, so the clothes come out to cost next to nothing.

Which is good for me, considering I’m on a budget and all.

About an hour later, I emerge out of the store with five new tops, two skirts, and a pair of jeans. Which for eighty dollars is a total steal. I’m actually pretty excited to show my mom what I got. I know she will be excited.

“Do you have a flat iron?” Chelsea asks me as we walk through the mall.

“A flat iron?”

She nods. “You know, to make your hair straight?”

I search my mind. “I think, buried somewhere.”

She nods. “Dig it out and use it. And here.” She starts digging through her purse and emerges with a plastic bag filled with all different types of make up. “I went through my make up and picked out colors I thought would work for you. Do you need help putting it on or do you know how?”

I take the bag from her. “Um, I think I can figure it out.”

“Good.” she tells me squeezing my hand.

“Thanks Chelsea. For everything.”

She opens her mouth to speak but a pair of hands covers her eyes from behind before she can.

“Guess who?” The voice belongs to Evan Moralli. Next to him Andrew Collins is standing shaking his head, like knows this trick is lame.

Evan is a kid in our grade. He’s really nice, and pretty goofy if you ask me. I don’t think there’s a time when he isn’t laughing or trying to make people laugh. Evan isn’t one of the most popular kids in our school but he’s pretty up there in the group that Chelsea hangs out with.

Andrew is also in our grade, and he’s probably the most popular kid in our grade over all. I can’t say for sure but I’m almost positive it’s because he’s absolutely beautiful.

I’m not exaggerating, either. He has brown floppy hair and these really intense blue eyes and he must, like, live at the gym because he’s like totally muscular and the captain of at least three sports teams.

Evan and Andrew have been best friends for as long as I can remember. Which is why even though Andrew is definitely higher up on the social scale than Evan they’re still always together. I’ve seen at least four girls stop and stare at Andrew as they pass in the few seconds since the boys have been standing with us and I try to not roll my eyes.

Chelsea crosses her arms over her chest. “Evan, if you make me fall backwards again I swear to God. I’m wearing heels!”

Evan sighs and takes his hands off of her eyes. “How did you know it was me?”

Andrew laughs and hits him in the arm. “It might be time for a new trick, bro.”

“No way!” Evan says. “That works on the ladies all the time.”

Chelsea laughs. “What are you guys doing here?”

Evan shrugs. “What, a couple guys can’t go out for a nice day of shopping together?”

“It was Evan’s idea,” Andrew tells us.

“It was not! It was mutual!”

“Not really. You totally texted me like, ‘yo let’s’ hit up Hollister today, I wanna shop.’”

Evan shoots him a nasty look. “I did not say SHOP. I wanted to go to the video game store!”

Andrew flips the Nike hat he has on around so that he’s wearing it backward.

“Yeah, but you definitely mentioned Hollister first.”

“NO. I DIDN’T,” Evan says and his face is starting to turn red now. Yikes.

Andrew pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I have the texts right here.”

Evan grabs Andrew’s phone out of his hand and holds it over the railing. “Say it was mutual! Say we both wanted to go!”

Andrew grins. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not going to drop my phone and you know it.”

“I will! I’ll really do it this time!” Evan chants, which makes me think they have been in this situation before. I’m starting to get a little nervous because people are for sure starting to look at us. But Andrew seems at ease, and it’s his phone, so whatever.

Chelsea rolls her eyes. “I swear you guys fight like you’re a couple. Come on, I want a pretzel.” She starts to walk off.

Evan pauses a second, looks after Chelsea, then throws Andrew’s phone at him and runs to catch up to her. “Wait, I want a pretzel!” he calls.

Andrew catches the phone with one hand and grins at me. “What’s up, Stephanie?”

Which completely takes me by surprise. I didn’t know Andrew knew I existed, let alone knew my name.

I shrug. “Just out for a day of shopping. It really was Chelsea’s idea, though.”

“Are you implying it was my idea and not Evan’s to go to the mall?” he asks me.

I fall into step beside him and we start to walk after Chelsea and Evan to the pretzel stand at the other end of the mall. “No,” I say. “I’m just saying he was willing to throw your phone off the second story of the mall to prove his point.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Oh please, he threatened to throw it out the window of our fourth period science class last month because I told him his favorite color used to be red not blue, and that was on the third floor.”

“Hey,” I tell him, “I’m not judging you. It’s none of my business if you love to shop, Andrew. It’s actually kind of cute if you ask me.”

Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m giving Andrew Collins shit right now. What has gotten into me? This is not like me at all. Am I flirting with him? No. No, I can’t be.

Right?

He laughs. “So the girl with the book has jokes now, huh?”

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. “The girl with the book?”

He nods. “Yeah, every time I see you, you always have your head buried in a book. Even walking down the hall, which I might add is a good way to trip or walk into somebody, both equally dangerous.”

I can’t believe he noticed that I always have a book. I didn’t think anyone noticed me period, let alone Andrew Collins. I erase the shock from my face and recover quickly.

“Tell you what, why don’t you let me worry about my safety and you worry about the safety of your phone?”

He nods. “Fair enough. I didn’t know you and Chelsea were friends.”

“We aren’t,” I say before I realize what I’m saying. “We...it’s complicated.”

He looks at me. “Yeah, most things are.”

And something about the way he says it makes me feel like he wants me to know he understands more than I think, which makes me uneasy.

“Hurry up you two!” Evan calls and then we’re hurrying to catch up to him and Chelsea.

“I was just telling Chelsea how I’m having people over tonight and you guys should come,” Evan says when I reach him.

“I’m down. What about you, Stephanie?” Chelsea asks, looking at me. And for a second I almost give in, I almost say yes, but I don’t. Because I don’t belong with these people, these aren’t my friends. I’m Chelsea’s charity case and the second I forget that is that second I will end up getting hurt again.

“I actually have plans tonight. Thanks, though,” I tell them.

They accept this and look toward the front of the line to get their pretzels, except for Andrew, who I can’t help but notice keeps his eyes on me for just a moment longer.

I clearly wanted to go to the party. I just wouldn’t let myself. I was too scared to get close to anyone again, even just friends. I felt deep down that the second I forgot my place with Chelsea and her friends was the second I would be reminded in a very negative way of just how little I fit in with them.