Philip Siegel - The Break-Up Artist

“Hey, wait up.” No tears stain her face, but it’s lacking its usual glow. She seems exhausted.

“You’re here.”

“I came in late. I figured I had a good enough excuse.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

Neither of us believes it. I cock my eyebrows at her.

“I feel awful.”

Students stare at us as they enter lunch, and I want to hiss at them.

“I feel like I lost a part of myself,” she says quietly but firmly, knowing she can’t let herself give the audience a show.

“It’ll get better.”

“I don’t think it will,” she says. She glances at her and Steve’s homecoming picture in the trophy case. Blocking her view is another flyer taped to the glass. She skims the contents, soaking in the picture and caption.

She looks back at me.

I can see her brain working. My spine tightens, and I can’t move.

She laughs, almost on the verge of a giggle.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Some people need to get a life.” I’m unsure if she’s referring to the Break-Up Artist or the ones searching for her. But Huxley’s already moved on. “Do you want to eat lunch in my car today? We can listen to the radio.”

“That sounds perfect.”

But she doesn’t listen to me. Her eyes wander back to the flyer. She rips it off the glass and holds it millimeters from her face.

“Golden slippers,” she says, showing me. “See there? The black sheet is covering a mirror, but she didn’t cover the bottom. You can make out the golden slippers in the reflection. Those are the exact same ones that we got from Frances Glory.”

Huxley jerks her head up.

It just clicked.

She stares at me in confusion, in shock. “Rebecca?”

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can say. I’ve lied to her enough. I can’t do it anymore.

“Is this...? But you...”

“Yes...to everything.”

“You...break up couples?” Her eyes go wide. More clicking. “Were Steve and I...?” The flyer rustles in her shaking hands.

I nod yes. I should’ve known this day would come. I just assumed I’d be mad that I got caught, not mad at myself.

“It was before we became friends again. And then I couldn’t get out of it....” I stop myself. It’s just excuses.

“Why would you do this? Why do you want to break people up? That’s sick. You’re sick.”

My reasons might seem flimsy now, in the face of an upset victim, but they were reasons. “You don’t know what it’s like being single in this school.”

“This has always been your M.O. I remember how bent out of shape you got when I began dating Steve.”

“Shut up, Huxley.” I’m tired of getting talked down to by people who think they know better. “I didn’t care that you had a boyfriend. You ditched me and then treated me like crap.”

“And I apologized! I even gave you a makeover. This is how you repay me?” She holds up the flyer. Like vultures, a crowd gathers around us, but I can’t contain myself. These words have been waiting to come out for years.

“It was business. I became the Break-Up Artist because of people like you. Girls who treat other girls like they have some inoperable brain tumor just because they’re single.”

“You made yourself feel that way,” she says. And maybe she’s right on some level, but I’m not giving her any credit here. Huxley crumples up the flyer and throws it at my feet. “I’m going to get Steve back. I love him.”

“What’s going on?” Bari steps forward from the crowd.

Huxley holds the flyer next to my face for all to see. “I found the Break-Up Artist.”

Now that I’m in the center, I notice that crowds don’t gasp or buzz among each other at each development. They don’t say anything at all, like they’re watching a really good movie. (Movies...Ezra...ick.) They are riveted and won’t even blink.

“You’re the Break-Up Artist?” Bari steps forward from the crowd. Her blond roots are coming in, pushing the brown hair to her shoulders.

“Guilty,” Huxley says.

“I’m sorry.” I’m barely audible.

“No, you’re sorry you got caught,” Bari says. “How many couples have you destroyed? And for what, to make you feel better about being some pale, flat-chested, single bitch?” She points at the balled-up paper in her hand. “You are so messed up.” She pushes me against the trophy case. Her petite body is a firecracker dangerously close to being ignited.

Calista hangs back in the crowd, avoiding eye contact with me.

“How dare you come between Derek and me. What did we ever do to you?” Bari asks.

“Why don’t you ask your friend?” I say, my eyes darting to her former best friend. “I’m hired to break up couples.” Bari whips her head around at Calista, whose head turns the color of Craisins. It’s bad business to rat out my clients, but she started it.

“What are you talking about?” Bari says inches from my face.

“Was being with Derek really worth it? Did you even like being a brunette?”

I can smell the sweat off her, how badly she wants to lunge at me, and I am terrified. I can do catty and underhanded fighting, just nothing involving my fists.

“It’s better than what you are,” she says.

My heart speeds up, about to leap out of my body. Fear swallows me whole.

“Leave her alone!”

Val pushes Bari off me. She shields me from her and the rest of school. Her swishing blond hair flicks me in the face, but I’ll take that over Bari’s fist any day.

“She’s not the Break-Up Artist. So stop the witch hunt,” Val says.

“She already confessed,” Bari says. “Some friend you got there.”

Val turns around, and I have to watch her get her spirit crushed yet again. “Becca?”

I don’t say anything. What can I say except the truth, and that won’t help.

“I think this is a big misunderstanding. She’s my friend. She wouldn’t do this.” Val pleads my case to the school, but it’s useless. What defense do I have? I wanted to help people; but really I wanted to help them get revenge, help make others as unhappy as they were.

“Are you sure about that?” Huxley asks her.

“Yes, I’m sure!” Val says with absolute conviction.

“Why don’t you ask her what she’s been doing with Ezra?”

Every kid in the hall gawks at me, mesmerized. I am an overturned car on the highway, and they are crossing their fingers for a gas leak and explosion.

Val turns to me. She hesitates a moment before asking. “What is she talking about?”

I shut my eyes.

“Becca, what is she talking about?”

“It seems Rebecca got awfully close to your boyfriend. A little too close.”

Val’s eyes go wide with hurt and horror, and I can’t take how defenseless she looks.

“Wow, you’re a backstabber and a home wrecker!” Bari says. “Have you killed any orphans lately?”

I squeeze my eyelids as tightly as I can.

“Rebecca, I am disgusted with you on so many levels. How many innocent relationships have you ruined just to make yourself feel better?”

“I hate you,” Val says. Her voice cracks with a sob.

I open my eyes. Flecks of white fill my vision. I’m squeezed against the trophy case, my personal space a distant memory.

“What’s going on here?” Ms. Hardwick pushes through students. Bari turns her way, and that’s my cue.

I free myself from her manicured clutches and race down the hall, ignoring the teacher calling my name. Tears fly off my face. I charge through the front doors to the parking lot, get in my car and drive off.

For the next two days, I stay home from school. On day one, I convince my mom that I have a bad cold. That night, I call Val’s house and practically beg her mom to put Val on. To my surprise, Val doesn’t hang up, and it takes me a few seconds to start talking.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I say back, completing the most awkward greeting in the known universe. Val stays quiet. I have to lead this. I started it.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Sorry because you kissed Ezra?” I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Sorry because I lost my best friend.” Knowing that it’s come to this, that it’s come to me saying that, straining to salvage this friendship or risk losing Val forever, causes me to tear up.

“We’re still together. Not even you throwing yourself at him could break us apart.”

“What? Throwing myself at him?” True, I kissed him first. But what about the notes, the freaking pebbles at my window? Apparently, Ezra has been teaching a class in revisionist history. “It’s not like that, Val. I can explain.”

“I’ll pass,” she says, so cold, like a cult member. “Some friend you are.”

She’s gone full-on zombie.

“Ezra’s taking me on a Starlight Cruise Friday night to celebrate our relationship renaissance. We’re stronger than ev—”

I hang up.

By day two, after I’ve received enough vicious emails and phone calls from my classmates, my mom doesn’t put up a fight and tells the school that I have strep throat. In exchange for my truancy, I spill the details about being the Break-Up Artist. I know my mom must want to yell at me for doing something so mean and then demand I see a shrink for some heavy psychoanalysis, but to her credit, she doesn’t interrupt me. She listens attentively, her hands cupped on her lap. She hides her disappointment and withholds her judgment. That makes me talk more, about Ezra and Val. No gasps from her. I wish I had known my mom would be such a good listener. I would have come to her with other issues instead of Diane.

On day three, I sit at the breakfast nook eating cereal at 2:00 p.m. Some milk dribbles off the spoon onto my sweatshirt, but I don’t bother wiping it off. My mom comes out of her alteration studio and massages her hands. They are cramped from a long day of sewing, from day after day of dealing with demanding customers. All so she can provide me with a pleasant, comfortable life, one which I have just destroyed. I’m daughter of the year.