How to Break a Heart (27 page)

But Aunt Nora doesn’t look all that reassured. “I really think it’s time for you to enroll. I think you’ll do better with a regular routine.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He’d rather just enjoy this Little Naked Debbie.

But she’s waiting for some sort of reply.

“What about Mom?”

“She’s doing so much better,” Aunt Nora says. “We still need your help, but not like before. I really need you to seriously think about it.”

The truth is, he thinks about going back to school a lot. What it would be like to slip back into a sort-of-regular life. To go to classes and have a locker combination and wear a stupid P.E. uniform and eat the school’s version of orange-cheese nachos. To see familiar faces, and not just Mabry’s.

He pictures her face. He snorts a little, thinking of the ridiculously intense look she got when she ran up the down escalator for the first time—eyebrows low, nostrils flaring, feet flailing. Hilarious. That “meaningful gaze” she tried to re-create for him, the one that made her look like a pained clown. He only told her she looked like a dragon that time because it seemed, somehow, kinder.

“It’s not funny, Thad,” Aunt Nora says now.

He looks over at her. “Sorry, I know.”

“I really think school would be a good thing for you,” Aunt Nora says.

Yeah, if the coast ever
truly
clears and the window incident becomes just another unsolved and forgotten mystery, maybe going back to school wouldn’t be so bad at all.

yo descubro
tú descubres
ella descubre
nosotros descubrimos
ellos descubren

I
t’s Saturday, late afternoon, and I was due at Sirina’s fifteen minutes ago. The drawing from Nick’s meeting with the sketch artist should be ready, and we need to get started right away on the article that will run with it. But after a two-hour nap, I’m having trouble moving at all.

I finally roll, literally, out of bed and go downstairs for a glass of water. My mom and Stephen are on the couch in the living room watching something newsy, with Hunter at their feet. Stephen’s in his science-teacher clothes—khakis and a button-down shirt with a loosened bow tie—and my mom’s in her fleece sweatpants. His arm’s extended along the top of the couch, and her shoulder is practically in his armpit. I know they claim they love each other, but I guess I’m glad they’re not
really
in love—like, if they had romantic dinners, and I had to worry about barging in on them. Or if I caught them outside on the patio, making out in the breeze. Now
that
would be uncomfortable. Still, I feel a little sorry for them.

“Howdy-doo,” Stephen says when he sees me. He bends his arm up from the elbow, like he’s about to take his arm away from the couch rim, but doesn’t.

“Oh, hi, honey,” my mom adds.

“I’m just getting some water,” I tell them.

“Good ol’ H-two-O,” Stephen adds, unnecessarily.

I force a pleasant-enough smile and keep moving toward the kitchen. The doorbell rings and Hunter springs up, like all the predatory instincts that have been lazing around inside of him suddenly have some purpose. In three seconds, he’s run to the door and back twice, barking so loud that my mom has to resort to gesturing to me to answer the door.

And I do. And immediately want to retreat. Because while Hunter stops barking, I am feeling my own wild panic.

It is
Nicolás
.

My Love. Holding a pink rose. In a plastic tube.

And I look like I’ve been stowing away in someone’s attic for three weeks, like Elisabet. I am sleep-crusty and unbrushed, in penguin-patterned pajamas.
Please don’t let this be The Proposal,
I think.
Not here. Not now. Not like this.
But why else would he be here?

“Mabry?” he says my name like a question, and I’m tempted to announce that I’m just her twin, who actually
has
been stowed in the attic. For thirteen years. But that I’d be happy to get the real Mabry if he can wait twenty minutes, thirty minutes tops.

But he doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Sorry I didn’t call or text, I just wanted to talk to you in person.”

Oh, no! He is
so
going to ask me to the Cotillion, and I feel nothing but panic. This isn’t the moment I’ve been waiting for.
“Now?”
I ask. My voice sounds harsh—stripped of its fruity richness.

“Yeah.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “It probably can’t wait.”

My mom finally comes to find out who’s at the door. “Oh, hi, Nick,” she says. “Oh, a flower! Let’s put it in some water, Mabry.”

She invites him in. I try to sneak some of the sleep out of my eye. She leads us both into the kitchen. After she finds a narrow vase, she fills it up, puts the rose in, and leaves us there.

“Thanks for the rose,” I say.

“I would have gotten you that flower you said—”

“The king protea?”

“Yeah, that, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“It’s—pretty,” I say. I lean over to the flower and sniff it. It
does
smell like a Ding Dong.
Darn you, Thad.

I feel Nick’s eyes bearing into me.
Oh no. He really is going to do this while I stand here looking like a bedbug.
My eyes dart all around, from the counter to his non-Frankenstein hands, from the tile floor to his feet flat on the ground, from the oven to his minuscule ears.

My phone dings from the counter. It’s Sirina.
Where are you?

I feel a flutter of relief. “Nick, I’m sorry. I’ve really got to go.” And then I remember
why
I have to go. “Oh, how did it go with the sketch artist?”

I text her back.
On my way!

But Sirina’s text comes quickly.
Hurry up. Urgent.

I look back up at him.

“Well, you’ll see. You better go.”

“Yeah, Sirina’s nagging me like crazy,” I say.

I walk him to the door and we say good-bye. He still looks at me in this strange, almost sad way. I feel bad that I’ve rushed him off, but I don’t want the memory of my Cotillion proposal to be ruined by nap breath and sleep boogers. I really don’t.

I text her.
Sorry! Be there ASAP.

I expect her to text me something like,
You’re a pain in the toe knuckle sometimes, you know that?
But instead I get one that says,
Just get here now.

Sirina’s mom lets me inside and tells me Sirina’s waiting in her room upstairs. When I open the door, she looks up from the computer. “You’re finally here.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I say. “Nick stopped by out of the blue.”

Her eyes narrow. “
Did
he now?”

“Yeah.” I flop down on her bed. “He was acting a little bizarre, though. I think he was going to ask me to the Cotillion, but I kind of panicked.”

“He came over
today
? To ask you to
the Cotillion
?” She’s acting like it’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard.

I tuck my chin back. “I think so. But I kind of freaked. I mean, I was still in my pajamas!”

“And let me get this straight. He didn’t mention
this
?”

She angles the computer toward me. On the screen is a drawing of a brawny, bald man with a gold hoop earring.

“That looks like Mr. Clean,” I say.

“Exactly!” Sirina says, her nostrils flaring. “So apparently Mr. Clean is the culprit who broke the window. Imagine that!”

“What are you talking about?” I say, shifting to the edge of her bed and sitting up. “Nick said the guy was kind of thin, and had brown hair, brown eyes—”

She’s just staring at me.

“What?” I ask. “You mean he changed his story?”

“Well, that’s what it looks like, doesn’t it? This is the description he gave to the sketch artist!”

“Who is this sketch artist, anyway?”

She shakes her head. “Listen to you—you’re doubting a professional when you should be doubting your boyfriend!”

“He’s
not
my boyfriend!”

“Oh, right, Mabry. Let’s just stop pretending that’s not what you really want.
I
know it,
you
know it, and if
Thad
doesn’t know it, then he’s dumber than I ever could have thought.”

I’m stunned. I think the last time she talked so harshly to me was in sixth grade, when, for like three and a half hours, I believed Hannah Coates when she told me that Sirina said Emily Wong was her best friend.

She breathes in sharply through her nose and lets it out of her mouth with a throaty hissing sound. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking at me with eyes that have lost their usual spark. “I’m just so stressed. I’m sorry, Mabry.”

Even though there are little pings of pain still darting around in my body, I know she means it.

“It’s okay.”

“I mean, this makes no sense. He didn’t say anything to you about this?”

“No—” I say, but now I wonder. Is this what he wanted to talk about? Not the Cotillion at all? Was the rose just some sort of apology?

She shakes her head. “This
really
makes no sense.”

“Is this”—I know the answer before I even get the question out of my mouth—“going to affect the YoJo?”

“Yeah, you think? I mean, he changed his story! That means something’s not true. This series is dead. And what else do we really have to write about? Goat shows and bake sales?” She laughs in a not-funny way.

“Maybe something else will happen.”

“As big as this? By the deadline?”

“We have a month.”

“And we’ve waited almost
two years
for something of this magnitude.” She shakes her head. “No way. I have to figure out what’s going on. I’ve got to talk to him about this.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I offer.

“No. I think it should be me,” she says, giving me a look that says
You’ve had your turn
. “Sorry, Mabry, but I know where your heart is. I know you’d want to believe anything he says.”

Where my heart is? What’s she talking about?
I
don’t even know where it is anymore. Sometimes it feels lost somewhere in my body—hiding in all the thoughts in my head—and sometimes it feels like it’s taken over every cell I have. I feel it beating in my toes and fingers. I feel it swelling up into my throat. Sometimes it overwhelms me, and I feel like I could have five hearts, like Glenda or Dylan. And sometimes I wonder if I have a real heart at all, or if it’s just some kind of fancy pump system fueled by gorgeous boys and made-up stuff on TV.

And right now, it feels like it’s shriveling up a little, like a worm on the sidewalk that forgot to wiggle home after the rain.

Her mom asks me to stay for dinner, but I just want to go home. Sirina’s been huffing about the article, and has even tried to call Nick. When he didn’t pick up the phone, she said to me, “Great. Now he’s going to be running down the halls to avoid
me
.”

Instead of writing the article, we end up writing a totally
blah
story that Mrs. Neidelman hounded us about—one that neither one of us could care less about.

Before I leave, she apologizes again for being so snippy with me. Again, I tell her it’s okay. But I wonder if it is. I mean, if we can’t enter the article, is it kind of my fault in some way? Was I blinded by my own agenda? And is it all backfiring now?