The Breakup Artist Page 4

  What I did to Thomas was nothing more than what he deserved, and Thomas, you really need to get out of my comments and stop trying to stir shit.

  Thomas deserved it. Steve didn’t. But I feel like it’s not entirely my fault. I mean it’s not like I’m the first gay person to date a totally straight person because I didn’t realize what was going on inside my head.

  I know there are some people out there who know. It’s like puberty hits and they get hit by a lightning bolt from the heavens that says “Hey! You’re totally into your best friend that you have those sleepovers with and this is going to totally make everything awkward until you eventually confess your feelings and probably get shot down in a really embarrassing way that just about every queer kid has to go through.”

  Well I never got that lightning bolt from the sky. Or the awkward sleepovers, for that matter. So I had to make a few mistakes before I realized who I was.

  When you get down to it, isn’t that what being a teenager is all about?

  So yes. I’m a bad person. What I did to Steve was bad. But at the same time it’s not like I’m the first person to do something like that. Which doesn’t make it okay, but at the same time I’d hoped people would be a little more understanding.

  Whatever. If you thought I was terrible with my last post about Steve then you’re really going to hate me after this one, but there’s really nothing for it but to get into the gritty details.

  So let’s get down to it and give the hater brigade more fuel for their flames.

  Today’s entry starts with the most awkward visit to a concession stand ever. And not because I was staring at the pretty girl the entire time.

  No, it was because the older guy, he looked like a manager, came over and started flirting with me big time even though I was standing right there with a guy who was obviously my boyfriend!

  I mean, can you believe the nerve? This guy was clearly in college and he was hitting on a girl who was obviously still in high school, even if I was in my junior year. Talk about a bit of an age difference.

  “So here are your skittles and M&Ms,” he said, then flashed a smile he probably thought was flirtatious and acted for all the world as though Steve didn’t exist. “These are on the house.”

  I wanted to let out a frustrated growl, and I wasn’t sure if that growl was because I was annoyed with this guy for being so forward, or if I was annoyed because he was hogging the register when I wanted that girl to come over and take care of us.

  I really wanted an excuse to talk to her.

  But she was over by the popcorn machine pretending she wasn’t listening in on this embarrassing conversation. If anything the fact that she was listening in only made it that much worse.

  The girl let out a snort and turned to look at me. She flashed those green eyes and I felt a twisting in my stomach that made no sense. I honestly didn’t recognize it for what it was because I’d never felt something like that for a guy, so how would I know what it felt like to fall head over heels for a girl?

  That was the kind of feeling I should’ve gotten when I looked at, say, my boyfriend who seemed perfectly happy to pimp me out for free skittles and M&Ms even though I’d already told him I was paying for this.

  I waited until we were walking away to turn on Steve.

  “Oh my God! Why didn’t you say something?”

  He hit me with an oblivious look. A look that I was used to. He didn’t seem to notice or care when other guys were hitting on me.

  Not that random guys hitting on me was something that happened all that often, but that had been so obvious that I was surprised he hadn’t tried to fight the guy or something.

  Then again I was the girl who’d just pushed him away when he tried to get close. Maybe he didn’t feel like I was worth fighting for, and given everything that’s happened since I suppose he was totally right.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. Then sighed. “I did something wrong. What did I do wrong this time?”

  I knew it wasn’t fair that I got so annoyed, but even the tone of his voice was annoying. As though he knew he’d done something and thought it was ridiculous that I’d be upset with him.

  “You didn’t see the way that guy was totally hitting on me?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Honestly I was looking at the girl at the popcorn machine.”

  I smacked him. A light smack, mind you, but enough to get his attention. Not like the kind of smack that would get us a starring appearance on Cops or anything.

  “Are you serious? You can’t just say things like that in front of your girlfriend!”

  Although to be honest I’d been checking out the girl too. It’s just that I wouldn’t say anything to my boyfriend about checking out another girl. Plus I figured it wasn’t the same when I was checking out a girl. I was a girl. It’s not like anything could happen there, right?

  Rivers in Egypt, man. Rivers in Egypt.

  I was standing there pretending to be happy to be on a date with Steve and meanwhile my sexuality was off having an adventure with a lion who was an obvious Christ allegory jumping on a lady who was overly fond of wearing white after Labor Day.

  “I don’t see why I should be so upset about another guy hitting on you if you don’t even act all that interested in me,” he said, some heat coming to his voice.

  My cheeks colored. I felt a little stab of shame at his words.

  So he’d noticed the way I was acting around him. He’d noticed I wasn’t all that interested in public displays of affection. And while I can look back on this story from my perspective now and feel bad for the guy, at the time all I felt was anger.

  “Come on,” I said. “The least you can do is enjoy your skittles and M&Ms if I’m going to be the one who buys them by batting my eyelashes and looking pretty.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t the best line. But I’m not telling this story to make myself look good. No, this is a story all about how I screwed up. How I went from being one of the most infamous people in our school to being one of the most hated people in our school.

  It’s not like I’m going to try and put on airs or make myself look good. No lipstick on this pig, thank you very much.

  We moved into the theater and I was annoyed to discover that it was empty. I guess everything was annoying me today. I was in an annoyed mood.

  And of course Steve went right for the back. I’ll give you one guess as to why he went right for the back.

  “Do we have to?” I asked. “What’s the point of going to see a movie at the theater if you sit all the way in the back where the screen looks smaller than your TV in a living room?”

  “Come on Ashley,” he said, a certain pleading coming to his voice as he looked up to the exact spot he had in mind.

  I knew exactly what spot he had in mind, and exactly why he had that spot in mind. A seat right in the middle and right under the projection booth. Where anyone working up there wouldn’t be able to look down and see what we were doing in the dark theater.

  Yeah, the back of the theater meant fewer prying eyes. Fewer prying eyes meant he could paw at me and try to get me to make out with him back there in the dark.

  Which, to be perfectly honest, was a perfectly reasonable expectation from a guy who was in a dark abandoned movie theater with his girlfriend. It’s just that I wasn’t interested in another frustrating movie where I didn’t get to watch whatever boring action flick he dragged me to because I was busy starring in my own little indie horror flick titled “The Beast with 1000 Hands.”

  He hit me with an irritated look. And I felt so bad about how I’d acted earlier that I finally sighed and gave in.

  I knew on some level that guilt being the overarching theme of us getting hot and heavy wasn’t a good thing, but what can I say?

  This isn’t a story about a relationship that was all happy and wonderful. At least it’s not one of those stories about a relationship with a guy. It’s a story about a person who made money on the side breaking people up
and royally screwed up the one good thing that had happened to her because of that.

  So I found myself sitting in the back. And sure enough Steve tilted his recliner back right away.

  I left mine up. I didn’t want to encourage him, but no sooner had he realized that I had no intention of pulling my own seat back than he reached over and hit a button on my seat. Which had the added effect of nearly knocking over the skittles I’d just opened. Damn it.

  “Watch out,” I hissed.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m just trying to get into the mood here. Can you blame a guy?”

  Yes. Actually I could totally blame a guy. But I wasn’t going to say anything out loud. So I did what I always did when he pulled this on a date. I sat there and stewed.

  Not that I had to sit there for too long. No, no sooner had the long advertisements at the front of the movie ended than he put an arm around me pulling me closer. I felt his hot breath on my ear and I tensed.

  Here we went again.

  “Come on Steve,” I said. “Do we really have to do this right now. I mean…”

  “Come on baby,” he whispered. “You know I just want to have a little bit of fun. All we have to do is…”

  Thankfully he was interrupted by a couple walking in and turning to walk up into the stadium seats. Which meant they could totally see us and what Steve was doing.

  I froze. I felt like a deer in the proverbial headlights. The movie screen would be illuminating us, of course, and so they could see me trying my best to watch the previews while Steve was leaning in and doing his best to stick his tongue down my ear, or whatever the hell it was he’d been doing.

  “Steve,” I hissed.

  Steve sighed and let out a growl. As though it was somehow my fault that someone else walked into the damn theater. But the people walking up the stairs did get him to pull away. For now.

  It was another couple who looked like they were in high school, but I didn’t recognize them. Which meant they probably went to one of the other schools in town.

  No sooner had they sat down than Steve was on me again.

  I turned to give him a quick kiss. But his hand snaked around my head and tried to pull me in to make out with me. Before I knew what was happening his mouth was moving along my lips. I guess it’d been a vain hope that a quick kiss would satisfy him.

  “Steve,” I growled, but of course opening my mouth only meant opening it to the attack he was launching on me. His tongue pressed into my mouth and then I guess we were making out whether I wanted it or not.

  I went along with it. After all, wasn’t I supposed to enjoy this? Wasn’t this the kind of thing every girl dreamed of? Spending a little time in the back of a movie theater with her boyfriend?

  Then his hands started to roam and I really got annoyed. Again, hindsight is 20/20. The fact that I was more annoyed than excited by his hands roaming probably should have told me everything I needed to know about my sexuality.

  “Steve,” I said. “We’re in public.”

  Though of course it came out as more of a muffled mumble because my lips were pressed up against his and everything I said went straight into his mouth. He seemed to take that to mean I was enjoying whatever he was doing and he only got… more enthusiastic.

  My God. Was he really that oblivious? Did he really not realize I wasn’t enjoying a moment of this?

  Finally I had enough and pushed him away.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked, raising my voice because the movie had started, though I hadn’t noticed because I’d been so busy trying to fight him off. “What made you think that was okay? We’re in a theater!”

  “Come on. It’s dark and it’s not like anyone would see us and…”

  I crossed my arms. Looked at the screen.

  “I’m watching this movie. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t maul me while I’m trying to watch this movie,” I said. “There’s a time and a place.”

  “There’s never a time and a place with you,” he muttered.

  I turned and glared at him, though I’m not sure why I was glaring. It’s not like it was entirely fair for me to be glaring at the poor guy.

  No, it was time to do more than glare.

  6

  Meet Cute

  Ashley Timmons says

  And now we come down to it. The moment of truth. The moment that led me to write this post. All these posts. The moment that changed my life forever.

  Of course we are just in high school. Who knows. In the grand scheme of things maybe it isn’t such a big deal, but it feels like a big deal to me now. Even if it didn’t feel like so much of a big deal at the time.

  That’s the funny thing about life-changing events. They can come along and completely change your life and you have no idea that anything changed. It can be something as simple as getting frustrated with your boyfriend when he tries to get a little too handsy.

  Or something as simple as looking across a movie theater lobby and seeing a pair of pretty green eyes at the concession stand looking at you.

  Everyone always talks about true love like it’s some thunderbolt from the sky or something ridiculous like that. You hear people telling stories about how they looked at the person they’re eventually going to marry and they knew.

  I always thought that was bullshit that people made up after the fact to make their perfect love seem like more than it was.

  Of course that was back when I didn’t feel anything for my boyfriend and the only example of “true love” I had was my parents. I was inclined to think anyone who said they were in love was lying through their teeth.

  Like it’s funny how everybody always finds their soulmate in the same town they grow up in. Or at college. There’s always such a geographical constraint to the whole soulmate thing in a wide world that has seven billion people and counting, is what I’m saying. It seems improbable.

  But I’m getting away from the story and the important stuff. The good stuff, as some of you are starting to call it in the comments.

  The moment that changed my life didn’t feel like a lightning bolt from the heavens when it happened, and I think that’s what it’s like more often than not. Your life just changes, and you don’t even realize it until well after it happened and everything has played out.

  I stood and let out an annoyed noise. I tended to do that a lot around Steve these days.

  “You know what, I can’t do this right now,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I’m going to sit here and enjoy my movie and my free M&Ms. Maybe you can go out and flirt with that manager. You seemed to like him.”

  My eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe you’d even insinuate that. That asshole hits on me, you don’t do anything, and now you’re acting like it was my fault?”

  Steve shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”

  This time my frustrated growl was really more of a frustrated scream. It was loud enough that the couple down near the front turned to look at me. I blushed as I realized they’d been down there making out and I’d just interrupted their fun.

  It looks like Steve wasn’t the only one who had that idea when he came to the theater today.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “You can call me if you ever decide you want to stop being an asshole!”

  Hey, what can I say? It wasn’t exactly the greatest parting shot in the history of parting shots, but I was annoyed and frustrated and not exactly thinking straight. So that was the best I could come up with.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll get more action from this movie than I’ll ever get from you!”

  I looked down to the other couple. They were really staring now. Obviously we were making a spectacle of ourselves, and I was really glad this wasn’t happening in the evening when there’d be more people to see the blowup.

  Or maybe the blowup wouldn’t have happened if this was an evening showing because I wouldn’t want to cause a scene in front of so many people.

  I didn’t mind now, though. The after
noon showing meant I didn’t have to suffer in silence. So I wheeled around and stormed down the stairs. I didn’t even care that I’d left my candy behind.

  He could enjoy that candy. I didn’t want anything I’d gotten from that idiot concession stand creeper!

  I ran out of the theater and leaned against the wall. Closed my eyes. Forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths.

  I was so angry, and I didn’t like that anger was the strongest emotion I ever felt when it came to my boyfriend. I was supposed to feel passion. I was supposed to feel…

  Something.

  “Bad date?”

  The voice was soft. Feminine. And it sent a chill running down my spine.

  I opened my eyes. Found myself looking at the pretty girl with the green eyes. She stood in front of me wielding one of those weird plastic sweeper things they used at restaurants and stores and I guess movie theaters. I’d never actually figured out how the things worked because I’d never had occasion to use one myself.

  I found myself smiling. I wasn’t sure why. I certainly didn’t have anything to smile about. But there was something disarming about this girl and the way she looked at me that made me want to smile.

  “You could say that,” I said.

  “I’ve been there,” she said. “This one time I thought I had something lined up with a girl I’d been chatting with and then when she shows up she brought her best friend along. A guy. Who turned out to be her boyfriend. I’m sure you know how that goes.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. I had no idea how that went. I had no conception of a world where you talked to someone and agreed to go on a date and then they showed up with their boyfriend.

  And wait a minute. She had a date lined up with a girl? Surely she meant she had a friendly get together with a girl and she showed up with her boyfriend who was a third wheel or something.

  Yeah, I must have heard her wrong.

  But she was smiling at me and I felt like smiling back at her. There was something about her smile that made me want to return the gesture.