The Heartbreakers (3 page)

Alexia Bass dipped a tortilla chip in mild salsa as
Best Week Ever
played on the TV. Christian Finnigan was her favorite commentator: 1) he was cute and 2) he was funny. Both were great qualities for a guy to possess.

At the next commercial break, she got off the couch to grab more tortilla chips but stopped when she heard her cell phone playing Beethoven's “Für Elise” in the den.

“Ohh!” she shouted to the empty house and ran in to grab her cell, hoping voice mail didn't pick up before she got there. How long had it been since her cell rang on a Friday night? She couldn't remember. That translated to
A Really Long Time.

“Hello?”

“What are you doing?” Kelly asked.

Alexia smiled, hearing her friend's voice. “Watching
Best Week Ever
.”

“Can I come over? With my Chunky Monkey?”

Alexia walked back into the living room and plopped down on the couch. “Chunky Monkey usually means you're upset. What's wrong?” There was an extended pause. “Kel?”

“It's Will. Kind of.”

Best Week Ever
came back on. Alexia dove for the DVR remote and paused it. “What happened?”

“How about if I come inside and tell you? I'm sitting in your driveway.”

Alexia went to the front window and pulled up the Roman blinds. Kelly's blue Honda Prelude sat in the driveway. She waved and hopped out of her car, tugging her jacket hood down to block her face from the onslaught of snow and wind. Clutching a brown paper bag to her chest with the other hand, she ran up to the porch.

Kelly had only been friends with Alexia, Raven, and Sydney since seventh grade. Lately, Alexia had been hanging out with Kelly more than the other girls because Raven and Sydney were more serious with their boyfriends.

It was weird, the genesis of friends. Alexia and Raven had been best friends since second grade. Sydney joined them two years later, when her parents moved from Hartford to Birch Falls. The three of them had a tight bond. Back then, Alexia never would have thought they'd eventually add another. Three friends had always seemed like a big enough group.

But then, Alexia met Kelly in seventh grade and invited her to join Sydney, Raven, and her for a night at the movies. Kelly had been a part of the group ever since. It certainly helped that Sydney had a huge crush on Drew, who was Kelly's best friend back then. Sydney
always
wanted to hang out at Kelly's house.

Sometimes when Alexia hung out with Kelly, she could
almost
forget that she was the only one of the four girls who didn't have a boyfriend. Kelly was crazily
in love with Will Daniels. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like Will was crazily in love with Kelly, which left her a lot more free time than a full-time boyfriend would.

Alexia flipped her cell closed and pulled the front door open.

Kelly brushed her hood aside and ran her hand down her strawberry-blonde locks. “I can come in, right?”

“If you promise to share your Monkey.”

“Deal,” Kelly said. She held up the paper sack. “I supply the Monkey, you supply the spoons?”

“Follow me, my dear.” Alexia walked to the kitchen, Kelly trailing behind, her wet boots squeaking on the cherrywood floor.

“Your parents here?” Kelly asked.

Alexia shook her head. “They're out of town for a seminar.”

“All weekend?”

“Yeah. They should be home on Sunday.” Alexia set her cell on the kitchen island and dug in the silverware drawer for two spoons. She handed one to Kelly when she heard Beethoven playing again.

Two phone calls in one night?

If you asked her an hour ago which was more likely, being struck by lightning or receiving two phone calls on a Friday night, she would have picked the lightning.

The cell phone screen said it was Sydney.

“Hello?”

“Lexy, you need any company?”

“Uh…” she looked across the kitchen island at Kelly. “Kelly's already here and she brought Monkey.”

“Oh, God, that sounds so perfect. We'll be there in five.”

Alexia said, “bye,” and hung up, realizing afterward that Sydney had said, “We.” Was she bringing Drew or something? Drew and Sydney sometimes hung out at Alexia's house, but not on Friday nights. They usually did their own thing.

“Syd's on her way,” Alexia said. “Looks like we'll need more spoons.”

Five minutes later, as promised, Sydney showed up, but with Raven, not Drew.

Sydney shuffled into the kitchen in terry cloth pants and a hooded sweatshirt. Her messy ponytail bobbed behind her. Her eyes were glassy, lids heavy with exhaustion.

Raven, too, looked…different. Her usual caramel complexion was closer to a milky latte and there was a permanent scowl on her Angelina Jolie lips.

“Something wrong?” Alexia asked.

Raven grabbed a spoon and took a seat in the breakfast nook with Kelly. “Tell them,” she said to Sydney, then took a spoonful of ice cream.

Sydney sat down, too, and Alexia took the seat next to her.

“Drew and I got into a fight.”

“A fatal fight,” Raven said.

Kelly gasped. “He broke up with you?”

“Not really,” Sydney argued. “I mean, we'll make up tomorrow and everything will be fine.”

Raven shrugged, cleaning her spoon off. “Well, Caleb
did
break up with me.”

Alexia frowned. “What?”

She got another scoop of ice cream. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“This is really weird,” Kelly said, heaping her spoon with ice cream. “Will sort of broke up with me, too. Not that we were together in the first place. It's just…it's over.”

Alexia looked around the table. Sydney's eyes and nose were red from crying. Kelly shoveled more Chunky Monkey in her mouth than Ben & Jerry could have ever hoped for. Raven avoided eye contact, probably hoping that her stoic expression masked the real heartbreak she felt at being dumped.

Their boyfriends had broken up with them all on the same night.

“Maybe lightning did strike,” Alexia muttered.

An hour later, the Chunky Monkey was gone and all four girls were in the living room. The TV played a commercial for a Hallmark Valentine's Day teddy bear. Raven groaned and flipped the channel to Fuse. “It's a dumb holiday,” she muttered as she settled back into the crook of the couch.

Sydney sat at the other end of the couch hugging an Asian throw pillow to her chest. Her knees were drawn close as if she was trying to fold into herself. She sucked in several sharp breaths, almost choking herself with them. Fat tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. “I just can't believe he went to the party without me.”

Raven pulled the rubber band from her ponytail and shook her hair out. Long, ink-black waves covered her shoulders. Alexia had always been jealous of Raven's hair.

“If it makes you feel better,” Raven said, “he didn't appear to be with anyone.”

But Sydney just cried more and Alexia reached over to the end table to grab another wad of tissue.

“I shouldn't have let him leave.”

Alexia crossed her legs beneath her as she sat on the couch. “Begging for him to reconsider would have been bad. You would have regretted giving him that much power over you.”

While Alexia sympathized with Sydney—with all three girls—she couldn't relate because she'd never had a boyfriend. Let alone one that stuck around for two years. It wasn't for a lack of good looks. She had a heart-shaped face, wide, caramel-colored eyes, and vivid red hair.

All three of her best friends said she was a rare beauty. She was just too shy to show it off. Maybe they were right, but while physical attributes were easy to change, introverted tendencies were not.

Having no boyfriend was like getting picked last in gym class. She felt like such a loser. And feeling like a loser only made her shier.

Sydney grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, which was red and raw from too much wiping. “I wish there was some quick fix to all of this. We've been fighting so much lately. I just want the feeling I had when we first got together. You know? That good feeling?”

Alexia shook her head. She had no clue what Sydney was talking about, but she could take a guess at what the answer should be. “Your relationship will never be the same way it was when you guys were a new couple.”

“Why not?”

“It just won't.”

Raven picked at some split ends. “You could get a new guy.”

Sydney shook her head. “I don't need a new guy.”

Kelly said, “I think Will has a new girl already. That really skinny girl, Brittany?”

Raven groaned. “She's taking AP English and all those other college-level classes.” She threw aside the lock of hair she'd been picking at. “How do you know he's with her?”

Kelly shrugged and then rubbed her stomach as if she felt sick. Probably she ate too much ice cream. “He's going out with her on Valentine's Day.”

Sydney wiped at her face again, the tears slowing now. “Are you serious?”

Alexia wanted to feel for Kelly, too, but her sort-of-boyfriend was worthless. They all thought so, but the only one honest enough to speak her mind was Sydney, which lessened the overall effect.

“Will”—Sydney always said his name like it was a piece of spinach stuck between her teeth—“is a total jerk. Not to mention he's a sucky class president.”

That had nothing to do with the breakup, but Sydney hated that Will was technically in charge of the student council because he was the senior class president. She always used that against him as if it was a bad character trait.

Kelly curled into a ball on the other couch. Her usually clear, peachy-toned skin looked splotchy.

Maybe it was time for Alexia to back Sydney up. She ran through Will's imperfections. “Now you don't have to put up with his whining. ‘I ordered this with ketchup. Not mayonnaise. What, do you want to give me a heart attack?'”

This made them all laugh, even Kelly, who usually defended Will against everything.

“I wish I were you right now,” Kelly said, giving Alexia a serious stare.

“Why?”

“Because you're happy and not nursing a broken heart.”

“Second that,” Sydney said. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“Lucky? To never have had a boyfriend?” Alexia raised her eyebrows in question. “I think I'd rather be heartbroken and know what love felt like rather than always wondering.”

Raven dug in her bag and pulled out her iPod. “I'm not even sure I loved Caleb—and I'm still heartbroken. A boyfriend is no guarantee.”

Sydney shrugged. “Love is great. But heartbreak sucks.” She slouched farther into the couch.

“You guys!” Alexia said. “Have you forgotten that women cannot be defined by their men? You're letting your state of mind suffer because of something a guy did to you. You need to stop.”

“It isn't…that…easy,” Kelly said, sniffing.

“No. It isn't,” Sydney agreed. “And I need a coping mechanism.”

Alexia's parents were both psychologists, so she knew that term well. When she was seven and her tabby cat, Gypsy, ran away, her parents told her to make a coping list. When she got sad about Gypsy being gone, instead of dwelling on it, she played with the dog. Instead of laying her head in Gypsy's old cat bed and crying, she donated the bed to a pet charity. And when she saw a cat, she stayed away for a while, until she got over Gypsy, because playing with another cat would just make her miss her cat even more.

Thinking of the coping list gave her an idea.

“Wait here a sec,” she said and got up. She went into the den and rummaged through a few desk drawers searching for the candles her mother always stored. She wanted to help her best friends with their heartbreak. It'd been so long since they were all together like this.

Their boyfriends took up all of their free time. In the last six months, Alexia had felt like they were all drifting apart. Maybe the breakups were a good thing. She wouldn't tell them that, but as she went back into the living room, she grew excited that maybe, just maybe, three breakups would create a whole new bond of friendship.

A rekindling of
best
friends.

Alexia lit the four candles she'd found and, within a few seconds, the melting wax threw a vanilla scent around the four girls. With the TV and ceiling light off, the living room glowed and the waving candle flames cast odd shadows around the group as they settled in on the floor.

“So what, exactly, are we doing?” Raven asked.

Alexia folded her notebook open and poised her pen over the blank page. “When I was little, my parents had me make a coping list when I lost my cat. I thought it might help you guys cope with your breakups if we made a coping list. Or more like a code to follow.”

Raven didn't look so convinced. “I don't know.”

“I can barely cut three hundred calories a day,” Kelly said. “How am I going to follow a code?”

Sydney brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I'm not even sure I know what's going on with me and Drew.”

“Well, if you guys make up tomorrow,” Alexia said, “then you don't need to follow the code. But it might help Kelly and Raven.”

Kelly shrugged. “It's worth a try. Who better to advise us than the daughter of psychologists?”

Raven blew a long breath out past her lips. “All right, you got me there. But if this gets hokey, I reserve the right to extricate myself.” She held up her iPod to illustrate her point.

“That's fine,” Alexia said. Raven was usually hard to convince. Alexia was just glad she was there at all. She glanced down at her blank notebook. “Rule number one…”

We hereby instate the following code to ensure that we will never be hurt by a boy again—for today we become Women of The Code.