The Breakup Artist Read online

  “What if I told you I was out here getting ready to sneak a smoke?”

  “Not possible,” she said. “At least I totally don’t believe it if that’s what you’re trying to sell me.”

  “Yeah? How do you figure?” I asked.

  “Because you just said it yourself. You’re totally not a smoker,” she said. “Something tells me you’re not pulling a Breakfast Club where your parents made you smoke to be a real woman.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  She hit me with a look that said I’d clearly made a wrong step in this conversation, and I had no idea what the hell it was. I mean I had a pretty good idea it had something to do with movies since this girl seemed to have a movie obsession, but that was as far as it went.

  “It’s a movie thing, isn’t it?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes, but her smile told me she wasn’t all that upset with me. Not really.

  “It’s only one of the best examples of ‘80s teen cinema ever put to film,” she said. “Back when they still put movies to film and didn’t make everything digitally.”

  She said that like it was a bad thing. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why it mattered how people made a movie as long as the moving picture made it up to the big screen, but I also had a strong feeling that if I said something like that then I was going to get another weird look from Maddie.

  “I guess I never watched many of those movies,” I said.

  She got a far off look in her eyes as she sat back and looked up at the sky. “They’re the best. You have no idea what you’re missing out on.”

  “Oh yeah? How did you get exposed to all these movies?”

  I’d heard of people having nostalgia for the ‘80s, but usually they were born on or around the decade. Plus this girl seemed to feel something that went beyond nostalgia. She was talking about these movies like they were her Bible or something.

  Maybe they had been a Bible for a certain generation, but I figured that certain generation had graduated high school decades ago. It was weird hearing it from someone my age.

  Maddie shrugged. “My parents were really into all that stuff. My mom watched it on repeat. Said she fell in love with my dad watching movies with him years ago.”

  Huh. I guess that was a good enough reason to be so obsessed with movies. Not that I was interested in psychoanalyzing her. No, I was more interested in just spending time with her.

  It was that weird feeling you get when you want to be near someone and you’re willing to do just about anything to be near them. Including listening to that someone talk about old ‘80s movies.

  “Sounds pretty cool,” I said. “My mom told me about going to the movies with my dad, but it was mostly talking about making out with him in the back of the theaters back before they were renovated. She actually seemed sad when they changed the place up.”

  It was weird that she was sad. That was the closest I’d ever seen her come to acting like she liked my dad romantically. And it was a mental image I could’ve done without.

  “Ew,” Maddie said. “Your parents actually talked to you about making out in the theater? We kick people out when we catch them doing that.”

  I sighed. “Tell me about it. Steve insisted on sitting in the back of the theater on our date last weekend.”

  “I see,” she said.

  There was a sudden change to her voice. As though she wasn’t happy to hear about Steve. Weird. Why would she be like that?

  Sure she’d mentioned all that stuff about going out with a girl, but I still thought I’d heard her wrong. Not to mention it was hard of me to think of someone my age being like that because I’d never met someone my age who was out.

  Yes, yes, aside from myself. Which I was in denial about in this point in the story even if I was starting to have a sneaking suspicion about what was going on in my head.

  “It wouldn’t have lasted long,” she said. “We totally know people sneak around by going up to the top row. They send people in to check the theater and make sure there isn’t anyone doing exactly what your boyfriend wanted to do.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said, then put a hand over my mouth.

  That was getting awfully close to admitting I didn’t like the idea of sucking face with Steve in the back of the theater. I’m not sure why that seemed like a big deal admitting it to this girl, but it did.

  “I bet it was,” she said, then before I could really think about what she was saying she changed subjects on me again. “So you never did tell me what you were doing back here. You’re obviously not smoking, and you’re not making out with anyone so…”

  She trailed off. There was something about the way she looked at me that sent a shiver running down my spine. It was the sort of look that made me think she wouldn’t mind the idea of me making out with someone back here, and I suddenly had a few sort of unwanted thoughts about exactly who I could be making out with.

  I shook my head. Maybe it was that she had me frazzled talking about making out with people. Whatever it was, I suddenly blurted out the last thing I should’ve said considering it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Maybe part of me was thinking anything was better than thinking about the way she made me feel.

  “I was reading about the breakup artist.”

  11

  Falling

  Ashley Timmons says

  I get it. Some of you out there think I’m making all of this up. You’re saying there isn’t any person at our school named Maddie, let alone a girl with that name who works at the movie theater.

  Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe I’m changing names to protect the innocent? That maybe as soon as I saw how popular this was getting, before I even mentioned her thank you very much, I realized maybe she’d want some privacy?

  Did it ever occur to any of you neckbeards sitting in your parents’ basement griping about people who actually have a life that I wouldn’t want her to get the kind of attention I’m getting from you losers?

  Believe me, I’ve been dealing with that attention for a few days and I don’t like it. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone somebody I have such strong feelings for.

  You all can keep on trying to figure out who Maddie is at the theater. Maybe I changed some of that information too. Did you ever think of that?

  Anyone who thinks there’s actually an unfinished theater at the mall theater complex that shows pirated movies deserves to go on a wild goose chase. If you didn’t realize I was full of shit when you read that just by counting the number of theaters and comparing it to the number showing movies inside then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

  The point is, assholes, I’m what you might call an unreliable narrator. At least when it comes to any identifying information you bunch of vultures might use to identify Maddie, which totally isn’t even her name if you haven’t figured that out yet.

  So sorry, not sorry at all. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, and you’re going to have to get used to the fact that I’m lying about some of the small details while trying to get the broad strokes right.

  Now, on to the story.

  I winced as soon as the words left my mouth. Idiot. Why would I bring my after school activities up?

  Maybe I was being too paranoid. Maybe there wasn’t any worry about this girl figuring out that me and the breakup artist were one and the same.

  But I couldn’t help but think that talking about it would be enough to make her suspicious. That’s how worried I was after seeing everything people were saying about me online. After seeing how many people were trying to figure out exactly who the hell I was.

  Let’s just say it wasn’t a comforting feeling knowing there were so many people out there who were out for my blood.

  Though at that moment looking over at her I knew what I wanted more than anything was to have her nearby. It was something that was so different from anything I’d felt with Steve, and I was starting to maybe admit some thin
gs to myself that I’d been unwilling to admit up to this point.

  Even if that meant maybe accidentally revealing my secret life.

  “The breakup artist?” she asked.

  I arched an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard about the breakup artist?”

  “Who is he?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth and was about to correct her, but stopped myself. God it would be a really stupid thing to start correcting her and admit that the breakup artist was a girl. That would be the same as admitting that I was the breakup artist.

  It would at least signal to anyone paying attention that I maybe knew more than the general public, and something told me it wouldn’t take Sherlock or Columbo to catch a slip like that.

  “It’s not important,” I said.

  “No,” she said, a hint of amusement coming to her voice. “You’ve got my attention now. What’s a breakup artist? What does that even mean?”

  I sighed. Opened my phone to show her what I’d been reading and thought better of it. After all, I had all sorts of notes hidden on my phone about jobs I’d pulled.

  I didn’t think she was going to go rogue and start flipping through apps on my phone, but all she’d have to do was a little double tap on the home button and that would bring up all the stuff I’d had open recently, and I couldn’t remember if my notes was one of those things.

  “If you pull out your own phone and look up breakup artist on AnonBoards you’ll hear all about it,” I said.

  “So secretive,” she said, reaching out and elbowing me in the side. Which tickled just enough that I jumped, but I have to admit I really liked the contact.

  “I’m not being secretive,” I said.

  “You totally are,” she said.

  She stared at me. Her eyes gleamed with amusement.

  “You keep your secrets then,” she said. “But I’m onto you.”

  We settled into a comfortable silence where she didn’t pull out her phone and immediately start looking up info about the breakup artist. Weird, but I wasn’t going to knock it. I could do without being a slave to my reputation for a little while.

  It was a nice silence. Silences around Steve were always stressful. I was always worried he was going to interrupt that silence by trying to stick his tongue down my throat.

  Not exactly something that made for pleasant silences. Then again the idea of spending more time with him than I had to was never exactly a pleasant prospect.

  Looking back on it now I realize we basically had one of those relationships where you have two people who couldn’t be more different from each other. Two people who wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for some X factor that kept them with each other.

  In my experience typically that X factor was that the two people couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. They were so busy getting hot and heavy that they never stopped to think about how they didn’t have anything in common and couldn’t stand to be with each other when they weren’t sucking face.

  The problem with me and Steve was we were together, all right, but there wasn’t even that enjoyment of sucking face.

  But I’m sure he’s a very good kisser, and any of you ladies out there who are interested in him shouldn’t take my word that he’s bad at all that hetero sexy time stuff or anything.

  Like I said, I was a closet case who wasn’t willing to admit that I was a closet case. I was pushing him away for all the wrong reasons, and I know he’s going to make some girl very happy.

  Hopefully a girl with a high libido who can keep up with him.

  Scratch that. A girl with a high libido who’s into guys. Because it turns out I have one myself. I was just using it on the wrong target.

  I’m getting away from the story though. More particularly Maddie sitting next to me in that comfortable silence that she decided to shatter with the last question I wanted to answer.

  “So come on,” she said, a hint of pushing coming to her voice.

  “Come on?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Yeah! You’re going to tell me all about this breakup artist!”

  I nearly choked. She was still on this? Seriously?

  “Why are you so curious?” I asked.

  “It’s simple,” she said. “I figure anything that’s making you this uncomfortable has to be an interesting story!”

  Huh. I suppose there was a certain convoluted logic to that. I was encouraging her by acting like this was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

  “So what you’re telling me is you’re taking the younger sibling approach to this conversation? If it irritates me it has to be something worth pestering me about?”

  “Pretty much!” she said. “Why? Does that bother you?”

  “I’m an only child, so I can’t say I’m used to it, but it’s not bothering me that much,” I lied.

  We settled into another one of those silences, but this time around it wasn’t the comfortable silence of before. No, I had a sneaking feeling she was going to keep asking me about this.

  I sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Nope! I could read about it online, but it’s so much more fun to bother you!”

  “Fine,” I said. “The breakup artist breaks people up. And people aren’t happy about it.”

  “Damn,” she said. “This sounds like real good stuff!”

  I very nearly growled. This was not “good stuff.” This was my life, and I didn’t want to talk about it when I was already dealing with the frustration of knowing there was a good chunk of the student population at our school and at some of the other schools in the area who were out for my blood.

  “So that's it?” she asked. Her tone said it was an anticlimax.

  “I wish. You have all these people online who are upset at this person who supposedly breaks people up,” I said. “But if you ask me they’re doing good work.”

  “Really? Good work?” she asked.

  “Well yeah! It seems to me there are a lot of people out there who need to be broken up and they aren’t willing to admit it.”

  Maddie nodded and looked like she was really getting into this, and I had to admit her enthusiasm was infectious. Here was somebody who was acting like she agreed with me. She wasn’t at all like Sandra or Carrie or even Valerie who seemed so dead set on figuring out the identity of the breakup artist.

  Boy would Val be surprised if she found out. And that’s not just a thought I had in the moment. She really was surprised when she found out.

  Realizing the breakup artist was her friend didn’t stop her from trying to ruin my life, of course.

  Hi Valerie. I know you’re reading this and probably steamed that this little site is getting more hits in a couple of days than your stupid school newspaper blog ever did in a year.

  That big reveal is still a long way off as far as these updates are concerned, though. So if you’re waiting on the drama, you’ll just have to wait a little longer.

  “I mean, people are upset because Thomas and Kylie broke up, but he was cheating on her. Why would she wanted to stay in a relationship with that jerk if he was cheating on her?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Maddie said. “I know I’d be upset if a guy was doing that to me. Not that I’ve ever had occasion for a guy to do that to me…”

  I suddenly realized that her hand was awfully close to mine. Like she was pressing up against my leg. I swallowed. Wondered if there was something to that. Because there was certainly something to the thrill running up my spine.

  The touch was uninvited, but it felt pretty good.

  “Right,” I said. “The point is if there really is someone out there doing something like that, like they’re out there doing a bunch of research on these couples and figuring out if they deserve to be broken up and then breaking them up if they decide it needs to be done, then they’re doing good work. My parents are a prime example of what happens when people stay together long past the expiration date on their relationship.”


  “Oh totally,” Maddie said. “So when were you going to make the same decision about your boyfriend Steve? Or were you going to stay unhappy with him for as long as your parents have stayed together?”

  Okay. Not what I was expecting.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  I was surprised at how quick and violent my reaction was. I felt like I got this girl. I enjoyed being around her, and then with a two words she’d gone and screwed it all up.

  Or maybe I'd screwed it up by going zero to sixty on the nasty scale. I put a hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged, and I found myself wondering why I was the one apologizing. After all, she was the one who’d just insulted my relationship with Steve.

  Then again hadn’t one of the girls insulted me earlier too? Said she was surprised I wasn’t complaining considering I’d been on a date with Steve this weekend? Was I the only person who didn’t want to admit I was completely miserable around him?

  Maddie was making me examine some things that I honestly didn’t feel like examining. Some things that made me pretty uncomfortable.

  And the fact that it was coming from this girl that I found myself kind of attracted to…

  Wait, attracted to? Where the hell had that thought come from? Only it felt right.

  I wanted to be around her. I enjoyed talking with her. I felt a heat that started down in the pit of my stomach every time I looked at her.

  I’d been so excited when I saw her standing there smiling down at me. It was nice to have someone to share what had been a pretty bad moment leaning against the uncomfortable gym wall.

  Was that attraction? I didn't know. I knew that heat was something I wasn’t used to, and it sure as heck felt like the stuff they always talked about in the movies.

  But what she was saying…

  Well, her talking about my relationship with Steve being a sham coupled with that attraction, I can admit that’s what it was with the benefit of hindsight, was a little too much for me.

  I stood. Brushed myself off. I also grimaced. The grass was wet, and now my ass was wet. Great. I was going to have to go straight home after this.