Unbreak My Heart

by Melissa Walker

  I laughed.

  Clem: I was dreaming of the past … and my heart was beating fast

  He replied in, like, 0.4 seconds.

  Ethan: Jealous Guy, John Lennon

  Clem: You are so freaking good at this

  Clem: That’s an obscure song!

  Ethan: Nothing John Lennon ever did is obscure

  And this is something I liked about him too. We had this shared musical sensibility. Whenever he mentioned a song that I didn’t know, I instantly had to download it and listen, and I always ended up loving it. That’s just how we aligned. It felt special. Plus, he never once made an “Oh my darlin’ …” joke about my name, which was pretty much a first. You don’t have a name like Clementine without having that song sung at you at least three times a week.

  Clem: I’m still impressed

  Ethan: She’s so scared, so very frightened

  Clem: Vague … more?

  Ethan: Anything could happen … right here tonight

  Ethan: That’s all you get (not a lyric)

  Clem: Old song?

  Ethan: Yup

  Clem: Like oldie old or 90s old?

  Ethan: More like 80s

  Clem: Band?

  Ethan: Cheating, but ok—INXS

  Clem: No clue, don’t really know them.

  Ethan: It’s called Beautiful Girl

  My hands froze.

  Ethan: I’ll put it on your mix

  That’s when he told me he was making me a playlist of songs that reminded him of me. And the one I knew about was called—good Lord—“Beautiful Girl.” I downloaded it and fell in love within the first six notes.

  All I could think about was how much I wanted that playlist. I had never felt so excited and tingly and buzzy about a guy.

  I copied and pasted our back-and-forth messaging session into a doc, then put it in a folder that, for stealth’s sake, I called “Every Once in a While.” That’s the name of a country song that my mom always turned up the volume for in the car, and it makes me feel warm inside to hear it.

  That’s when I started planning a mix for him too. The first song on it? “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift. I was in deep.

  chapter fourteen

  We’re heading into the Mississippi River now, and Olive keeps mentioning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

  “Did you read that last summer in your advanced library program for kids with glasses?” I ask.

  She sticks out her tongue at me.

  I’m trying to read an outdated issue of Us Weekly that I picked up at the last dock deli, but once Olive starts in with the Huck Finn talk, she won’t leave me alone until I respond. “Do you think Huck and Jim were on this part of the river? Is this what they saw from the raft? Don’t you think it seems a lot bigger than it did in the book?” She gets on my nerves so much that finally, as we’re sitting above deck eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together and trying to direct Dad around the floating orange buoys that mark the dangerous parts of the river, I snap, “I get it! You’re smart. You’ve read Mark Twain and you’re only ten. Everyone on this boat knows!”

  Olive frowns. “I was just trying to have a discussion about a book we’ve both read,” she says. “Excuuuuuuse me!”

  It’s silent for a minute, and I take a bite of my sandwich.

  “Olive,” I say when I finish swallowing. “I’m sorry I shouted.”

  “That’s okay.” She’s already recovered and smiling again. “I know you’re just mad that I’m smarter than you are.”

  I give her a patronizing grin.

  “Clem?” she asks.

  “Livy?”

  “Do you think James looks like Huck Finn?”

  I laugh. “You never give up!”

  “Well, do you?” she asks. “Do you think he’s like Huck at all?”

  “Um, I guess I don’t really know. Did Huck have red hair?”

  “Not really,” says Olive. “But I think he has Huck’s pluck.”

  “Huck’s pluck?” I ask. “Where did you get that?”

  “My teacher, Mrs. Perry, told me I had Huck’s pluck,” she says. “I like the way it sounds. Besides, I do think he has pluck. Look!”

  I glance over to where Olive’s pointing behind me, and I see that Dreaming of Sylvia is just a few hundred feet in the distance.

  “Wow,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. They really are following our same route.

  “I’ll get the binoculars,” says Olive. Before I can stop her, she’s going down through the hatch and into Dad’s nav station. She’s back in a minute and hands me a big black case.

  “You spy on him,” I say. “You’re the one who cares so much about what he’s doing.”

  “You don’t like him, Clem?” asks Olive. “I think he’s really fun.”

  She smiles, and I swear I almost see a hint of a blush. I’m about to tease her, but then I remember how awful that can be when you’re first starting to like boys. So I refrain.

  The binoculars cover almost all of Olive’s face, and she leans on her elbows to help her balance as we hit some waves. I snap a phone pic of her because she looks so silly. A bit of spray comes up onto the boat and she has to pause to wipe off the glass lenses, but finally she gets a good long look.

  Then she giggles.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

  “I’m not. But if you’re going to have, like, reactions to what’s going on, of course I’m curious.”

  Olive smiles at me like she knows something. I turn halfheartedly back to my magazine.

  “He’s whistling,” she says after a minute.

  “You can’t hear that from here,” I say.

  “I can tell. His lips are pursed and he’s snapping his fingers every once in a while.”

  “Let me see that,” I say. And then I add, “It sounds ridiculous,” so Olive doesn’t think I’m interested in watching James.

  She’s right. He is whistling. And he gets this huge grin on his face in between whistling sessions. Has this guy ever known a dark day?

  I hand the binoculars back to Olive.

  “It appears that you’re right,” I say. “He is whistling.”

  “He could make you happy,” says Olive.

  “What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just mean that you’re sad and he’s not, and when he’s around—even through binoculars—you smile more,” says my sister.

  “I do not.”

  “You do too,” she says. “It’s almost like the old you.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t laugh at a guy who’s whistling to himself like a freak?” I sound meaner than I want to. I pick up my magazine. “Put the binoculars back in the nav station before Dad sees they’re gone,” I say to Olive.

  She pauses and stares at me for a minute before disappearing dutifully down the hatch.

  I look back at Dreaming of Sylvia and see James, a tiny little stick figure dancing around on the deck. I used to be happy like that. Didn’t I?

  chapter fifteen

  Dear Amanda,

  I didn’t realize that, sometimes, even if a situation is getting out of control, it happens slowly, in these really small moments. And even if what’s happening is wrong, it can feel like it’s right.

  I got so wrapped up in the fact that something was happening. Someone was into me. I didn’t have to be boring old Clem all the time. I had a secret.

  I crumple up the paper and add it to the wad of trashed Letters to Amanda in my bottom drawer.

  “Don’t you guys think that show about those people in the sixties who drink all the time and treat women like crap is weird?” said Amanda at lunch one day. “I mean, it’s kind of glorifying that behavior, in a way.”

  And I guess she had a point or whatever, but it was more like a class topic than something fun to discuss at lunch when your brain is allowed to be off for a minute.

  Ethan nodded halfheart
edly and kissed her cheek.

  I said, “Yeah, true.”

  I was eating a leftover slice of pizza with mushrooms on it. “Mushrooms are so emotionally satisfying,” I said.

  Ethan’s face lit up. “YES! I’ve always thought that. It’s something about their consistency and how they’re both soft and a little rubbery but also meaty in a way, right?”

  I smiled. That was exactly what I meant. “Like how a portobello can sub in for a burger. I mean, seriously, that is a major move by a vegetable.”

  “I know!” Ethan said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, today I’ll just top your salad, but maybe tomorrow I’ll stick myself between a bun and be your main meal.’”

  “Very versatile.” I nod. “And international! I mean, give me some Japanese shiitakes in broth, please.”

  “Medicinal, too,” said Ethan, leaning forward over the table. “Did you know that mushrooms are anti-inflammatory and have antiviral properties?”

  “I did not know that, but I’m not surprised,” I said. “They’re kind of food superheroes.”

  Then I glanced at the rest of the table and saw that they were staring at us in silence. For a moment it had been just me and Ethan and mushroom talk.

  “Fungi nerds,” said Henry, turning back to his sandwich.

  Amanda smiled at us happily. The guys she’d dated before didn’t really fit in with our friends. They were nice and everything, but just not guys I’d talk to for long periods of time. Ethan seemed different already.

  When the bell rang, Ethan asked Amanda if she was free on Friday to go to Red Water, this indie film festival–winning movie that I’d been dying to see.

  I laughed a little bit, anticipating her response.

  “Or maybe the new Kate Hudson?” she said. “It’s playing right downtown.”

  “Sure,” said Ethan, and I gave him a sympathetic glance.

  Amanda saw. “You know, I’m not into the emo-indie stuff—you should go with Clem.”

  I froze mid–Dr Pepper can toss.

  “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your shared supergeekdom,” said Amanda. “Maybe there’ll even be a scene with mushrooms in it!”

  I studied her face for a moment, but all I could see was a sunny smile and total ease.

  “You up for it, Clem?” asked Ethan. “I hate going to movies alone.”

  He picked me up in his mom’s Pontiac—I needed a ride, I’d told Ethan, and he didn’t hesitate to offer.

  I got in and we smiled, and it was like, should we hug or something?, but we didn’t, we just sat there, and then he said, “Awkward,” and I laughed, and he started to drive and it felt okay again.

  “Have you ever played the song game?” I asked him. We were heading out of my neighborhood, winding down the back road to the highway.

  “The song game?”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “The song game is when you pick a radio station or shuffle your music, and then you tell the universe that the next song that comes on is how someone else feels about you.”

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “I’m bad at explaining.” We were listening to this classic rock station and “Under My Thumb” by the Rolling Stones was playing.

  I tried to clarify. “Okay, so for example, the next song that comes on the radio will express how you feel about me.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “This game is intense.”

  He smiled and rubbed his hands on the steering wheel. “Make it a good one, DJ!”

  I laughed as the DJ came on to announce the next track.

  When “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick came on, I got goose bumps and stared straight ahead at the road.

  Even Ethan seemed lost for a way to lighten the moment as the lyrics went on and on … “I’d love you to love me.”

  “Wow, that game really works,” he said after a minute. He said it quietly, and I could tell he wasn’t entirely joking.

  I looked over at him and smiled, knowing then that we were getting close to crossing a line. I’d played the song game with all of my friends before. But if I got that song for, like, Aaron or Henry, they probably would have made some crude joke about wanting to get in my pants, and we would have laughed about it. It wouldn’t have meant anything. This felt different.

  Because the movie we were seeing was an artsy one, we had to drive half an hour out of town to this classic old theater that only shows those kinds of movies. You know, the ones that get nominated for awards but that don’t really play at the stadium-seating, crazy-big screen places.

  “I love this theater,” I said as I got out of the car.

  “It’s amazing,” said Ethan. “Look at the marquee!”

  “I know.” The title of the movie was up in these huge three-foot-high letters, and the stars’ names were listed underneath, like you’d see in some old Hollywood scene. “That’s my favorite thing about this place. Well, aside from the real butter they serve on the popcorn.”

  “No way,” said Ethan, his eyes lighting up.

  “Totally,” I said. “We can share a large.”

  “Awesome.” And then, just like that, he took my hand in his. He held it for a beat before he dropped it and looked at me. His expression seemed wistful.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay.” I went straight up to the ticket box so he couldn’t see my face getting red.

  We did share popcorn, but we got separate sodas. He wanted Sprite, but I’m strictly a Dr Pepper girl. We didn’t talk about the fact that he had essentially held my hand, but I could tell it was hanging there in the air, filling the spaces between our shared laughter at the movie—which was excellent—and the times when our fingers would brush against each other in the popcorn bag.

  On the ride home, we changed the radio to one of those “eighties, nineties, and today” stations, and we played the song game two more times. Once for how Amanda felt about Ethan (we got “Romeo and Juliet” by Taylor Swift, which made me squirm, it was so sickly lovey) and once for how my camp boyfriend Steve felt about me (we got “Beat It” by Michael Jackson, which made us both laugh).

  “I guess he’s over you,” said Ethan. “Hard as that is to imagine.”

  I know I should have been mad at him for saying things like that, for making the air between us full of that delicious kind of awkward all the time.

  But I loved the way Ethan made me feel.

  “Do we think ranch dressing drizzled over popcorn is tasty or gross?”

  “Tasty.” I held out the bowl so Amanda could administer creamy white goodness.

  She paused. “It might make it soggy.”

  “Drizzle,” I said.

  Very carefully, she moved the bottle over the popcorn bowl.

  Olive wandered into the kitchen. “Sick!”

  “What did I tell you?” I asked Olive.

  Her eyes went wide. “To be quiet if I wanted to hang out with you guys.”

  “Right.”

  She frowned and I ruffled her hair. I was actually glad to have her around that night.

  “Want me to pop you a separate batch, Livy?” asked Amanda.

  “Yes, please,” said my sister.

  Amanda grabbed another microwavable sack out of the cabinet.

  “Not everyone has our exotic tastes, Clem,” she said, smiling over her shoulder as she pressed the “Popcorn” setting.

  I grinned and took a handful of ranch-covered popcorn.

  “Verdict?” asked Amanda.

  I held up my messy fingers. “We should probably invest in flavored salt,” I said. “It’s drier.”

  Amanda laughed and handed me a paper towel.

  The night after I went to the movies with Ethan, Amanda and I were preparing to watch an old favorite, The Little Mermaid, in the den. Olive pulled a beanbag chair out from her room and settled onto the floor.

  Usually I’m not that into having my little sister around for sleepovers, but I was afraid of being alone with Amanda that night.

&nb
sp; Besides, it was sort of a throwback evening for us. We hadn’t had a sleepover sleepover, like with popcorn and Disney movies and BFF secrets, since sixth grade. The thing was, I didn’t really want to do the BFF-secrets part. Because now I had my own secret, one that I had to admit to myself: I liked Ethan.

  But that night was about me and Amanda. I thought it might stop the weird swirl of thoughts I was having about Ethan.

  When Ariel’s best song came on, Amanda stood up and held the remote in front of her like a microphone.

  “Look at this stuff … isn’t it neat?” she sang along. “Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?”

  I stood and chimed in. Olive looked at us like we were nuts, but Amanda and I finished out the whole song, belting into our awful high ranges (meaning just raising the volume) for the final lines.

  Then we collapsed onto the couch giggling.

  “I think we should audition for a singing show,” said Amanda, trying to straighten her grin.

  I shook my head, stifling a laugh. “It really wouldn’t be fair to the other contestants.”

  Olive rolled her eyes and we settled down again, sipping our sodas through bendy straws and eating our ever-more-soggy popcorn. Everything felt right.

  By the time Ariel was on land with Prince Eric, Olive was asleep. I let her doze, and when the credits rolled, I woke her up and walked her sleepy self to bed.

  “I’ll get this,” said Amanda, gathering a tray with the popcorn bowl and our glasses. She must have put them in the kitchen and then gone to my room, because when I got there after tucking in Olive, Amanda was staring at the bulletin board over my desk.

  “What’s this for?” she asked.

  She was fingering the list of songs I had planned for Ethan’s playlist. It was pinned up to the board because I’d been brainstorming in history class and I wanted to remember to download the music to my desktop. How could I have just left it up there?

  Did her voice sound suspicious? No. I was being paranoid. It was just a song list, not anything she could read into.

  “‘Girl from the North Country,’ ‘Skinny Love,’ ‘Last Goodbye’!” She laughed loudly, her eyes wide. “These are your favorites. You’re totally in love with someone! Who is it?”