The Romantics

by Leah Konen

  Anika looked down to her scuffed-up red Mary Janes, the ones she’d found in Goodwill the day Gael scored a faded Taxi Driver shirt. “I’m sorry.”

  The first thing: a thump and a shaking all over, like an earthquake only Gael could feel.

  The second thing: her eyes lifting to his in confirmation. Something so impossible it had occupied exactly zero percent of his mental space had actually happened, just like that.

  The third thing: people on the periphery, staring. Flashes of humans who had nothing to do with him and Anika. Devon Johnson. Mark Kaplan. Amberleigh Shotwell, reigning first-chair flute in band. He suddenly wondered how many of these people had known this was happening—it wasn’t as if Anika and Mason were exactly being discreet. Gael imagined them laughing at him over greasy cafeteria grilled cheese: stupid, starry-eyed Gael who didn’t have a clue what his girlfriend and best friend were doing behind his back.

  “You have to be kidding,” he said, his voice wavering and the first tear spilling down his cheek. Gael couldn’t believe she was doing this to him, especially after everything that had happened with his parents. It was like it was her personal mission to confirm his biggest fear: that love wasn’t real. How could it be if two people who’d seemed happy for his entire life suddenly weren’t?

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked, desperately praying that what he’d just witnessed was a brief moment of weakness, a fluke.

  Anika bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said. “A week, I guess.”

  A week? Anika and Mason had been doing who knows what for an entire week?

  Gael grabbed Anika’s shoulder, hanging on as if for dear life, and wrestled to get control of himself. “Look, you’re confused and freaked out by what I said. Maybe if we just talk about this. What do you say? We’ll ditch first period.” Gael had never ditched a period in his life. Anika had, though, when she had waited in line for Flaming Lips tickets.

  Anika always got what she wanted. And now she no longer wanted him.

  “No, Gael. I can’t.” She tried to shrug his hand off.

  Instead of letting go, Gael grabbed her other arm, desperately looking into her face. “Please.”

  For a second, there was sympathy in her dark brown eyes, and Anika almost looked like she was going to change her mind, like she suddenly realized that trading what she and Gael had for whatever the hell was going on with Mason was the stupidest thing in the world. Then a commanding “Excuse me!” broke the moment, the onlookers quickly dispersed, and Mrs. Channing materialized, looking at Gael sternly through frameless glasses. “Is there a problem here?”

  Gael let Anika go, surreptitiously wiped the moisture from his eyes, and shoved his wet hand in his jacket pocket, where he fingered a mini-pack of tissues that he hadn’t remembered putting there. (You’re welcome, Gael.)

  “Anika?” Mrs. Channing asked.

  Anika hesitated. She actually hesitated. “No,” she said finally. Meekly. Un-Anika-ly.

  Mrs. Channing turned to Gael. “Can I see you in my office, Gael?”

  “I have to go to class,” he said. His eyes flitted back to Anika.

  “I’ll write you a pass,” Mrs. Channing said. “Come on.”

  So Gael followed her down the hall, biting the insides of his cheeks to stop himself from falling apart in front of everyone.

  He glanced back at Anika, but instead of looking sympathetic, she was rushing to her first class without so much as a glance back.

  Anika had always marched to the beat of her own drum.

  Only now, she was marching away from him.

  a humiliating interlude in the guidance counselor’s office

  Hang in there! read a poster on Mrs. Channing’s wall, a stock image of an upside-down cat suspended on monkey bars. Next to it was a photo of a cat crumpled on the ground, white block letters over it: haynging n ther is overated.

  “Is everything okay with you, Gael?”

  Gael pressed his feet firmly into the dingy tiles of the tiny office and crumpled the tissue in his hand. His breathing was shaky. That morning, things had been so good—or as good as they could be, under the circumstances. He was a senior. He had a decent shot of getting accepted to UNC. He had Anika. He had Mason.

  Sure, he was hoping against hope that his parents would get their act together and his dad would move back in, but his relationship with Anika had distracted him from all that.

  It had distracted him from everything.

  Normally, Gael took after his dad in the anxiety department—he always seemed to be worrying about something: whether he was taking the right number of AP classes; whether he was practicing his tenor sax enough; whether his little sister, Piper, would ever make friends her own age (she was just so smart and so uninterested in normal eight-year-old things); whether the occasional constellation of zits on his forehead made him wholly undateable. And on and on and on.

  But when he and Anika had finally started dating, it was like none of the stressful things mattered. Because even though it was arguably at the worst time of his life, even though it had only been just over a month since his parents had broken the still-difficult-to-comprehend news, he suddenly felt . . . good.

  His family might be falling apart, but Gael and Anika were just beginning.

  And now she’d dumped him.

  And he was somehow supposed to believe that it was all because of Mason? Mason, who’d been raiding their freezer for Bagel Bites since they were both Piper’s age. Mason, who routinely accompanied Gael to indie movies even though he was an action-and-shitty-dialogue sort of guy.

  Mason, who knew more than anyone how much his parents’ split had hurt him.

  “Gael?”

  “Everything is fine,” he stammered, scowling at the floor.

  “What was going on between you and Anika?”

  “We were just talking.” He spoke the words slowly. If he said too much, he’d lose it.

  “One sec,” Mrs. Channing said. She shuffled through the chaos of her desk—stacks of papers, two empty coffee cups patterned with caked lipstick. It was nice how Anika wore gloss instead, Gael thought automatically, before pushing it quickly away.

  Mrs. Channing opened her file cabinet, flipped through the bloated folders, then pushed two pamphlets across the desk.

  Pamphlet #1 Breaking Up and Breaking Down: Coping with the Highs and Lows of High School Romance

  Pamphlet #2 No Means No: A Primer on Relationships and Consent

  Gael stared in disbelief. “My mom’s a women’s studies professor at UNC,” he told her. “I know all about that no-means-no stuff. I just wanted to talk. She’s my girlfriend.”

  Mrs. Channing took a deep breath. “I know it’s hard, Gael, but it didn’t look like Anika wanted to talk.”

  Mrs. Channing didn’t get it. Gael was the ultimate respecter of women. He never ogled girls like Mason did, that shithead. He loved Anika.

  “Can I please go?” he asked. His voice cracked, midsentence.

  “Yes.” She scribbled a note for his teacher and set it on top of the pamphlets. “Off to class.”

  Gael grabbed the stack and moved for the door.

  “Oh, and Gael,” she called.

  “Yeah?”

  “It happens to all of us.”

  “What?”

  “A broken heart.”

  I watched in agony as Gael stomped out of her office, wadded up the papers in his hand—note for his teacher and all—tossed them into the trash, pushed through the front door of the building, and stepped out into the sun.

  the second-worst day of gael’s life, continued

  Gael spent the rest of the day hiding out in his car in the school parking lot, eating a half-full bag of stale chips he’d found in the glove compartment, moping as he flipped through fuzzy radio stations, and angrily picking off the crumpled petals of the stupid $6.99 bunch of carnations until the flowers were all destroyed.

  Gael had nowhere else to wallow. His mom was home, since she
didn’t teach her first class until 2:00 P.M., and she had a great bullshit detector. And the thought of sitting alone in his dad’s dingy apartment was even more depressing than this.

  As the hours rolled by, the faint buzz of each period’s bell drifted through the parking lot. Gael tried his best not to think about anything at all, but it was no use. He imagined Anika and Mason, sitting close in the cafeteria, their bodies touching as she ate sour-cream-and-onion Pringles, Mason shoving that gross rectangular cafeteria pizza into his mouth. He saw his classmates laughing as they spread the news that Gael had finally found out. His high school was just small enough that everyone knew everyone’s business, popular or not.

  He saw himself, shocked and shamed and trailing after the guidance counselor, the school’s official recipient of pity.

  Worse, he saw the truth, bold and blaring like the old-timey marquee at the Varsity Theater on Franklin: Anika wasn’t his anymore. Anika was hooking up with Mason now.

  Anika, his girlfriend, was hooking up with the guy he’d known since he was seven: the guy who, in fourth grade, had suffered through two weeks without recess for punching a kid who’d called Gael a dork; the guy who frequently said that as adults, he and Gael would marry twin models, buy houses next door to each other, and have an obscenely large home theater system for Gael’s movies and Mason’s video games.

  That guy.

  By the time 3:15 rolled around and the school’s final bell rang, students eagerly flooding the parking lot, Gael’s sadness had morphed into full-fledged anger. Before he could change his mind, he whipped the car door open and slammed it bitterly behind him, heading as quickly as he could to the band room.

  High school marching band was its own little microcosm of the world. More a study in sociology than in woodwinds and brass: There were the band geeks, pimply and a tad too greasy, making out with one another every chance they got. There were the no-nonsense go-getters, eager to fill a line on their college applications, marching without rhythm or passion. There was the percussion section, hipsters-to-be whose arms would be full of tattoos in a few years’ time. And there were the tuba players, chunky and asexual, as if they were slowly morphing into their instrument of choice.

  Gael had always thought of himself and Anika and Mason as separate from these stereotypes. Mason was a blue-eyed drummer, sure, but he still spent most of his time with Gael and Anika. Gael joined because his love of old movies had led to a love of movie soundtracks and a love of tenor sax. And Anika was different from Amberleigh Shotwell’s harem of mean-girl flute players, with their sheets of long hair forming a shiny wall that said, Don’t talk to us. We shouldn’t even be in marching band. Anika would never make someone feel like she didn’t want them around, in band or otherwise. She always knew how to fill the space between people, instantly putting them at ease, whether through obsessively quoting Firefly or by complimenting them in genuine, unique ways, like when she’d told Jenna her new bangs made her look like a “posh librarian.” Anika made people feel like they mattered.

  It was one of the many reasons Gael had fallen for her. Why he felt that their love was actually real. He and Anika had been a legit band couple, sure, but they weren’t the same as those greasy PDA-mongers in front of their instrument lockers before practice. Their relationship was classy, like a Wes Anderson movie, or a Mumford & Sons song, the kind of love you couldn’t scoff at. The kind of love he never imagined could go away.

  And now apparently it already had.

  (I can’t help but interject here. Everyone thinks their romance is classy AF. No one sits there comparing their coupledom to the stuff of Lifetime movies. And no one thinks it will go away because, if you did, you’d never take a chance. Luckily, the human heart is not that logical.)

  Gael walked over to where his sax was stored. Nearby, Amberleigh made a sad face, looking at him with her bottom lip puffed out.

  “Have you seen Mason?” he asked.

  Amberleigh shook her head, and he turned away before she could deliver any more pity. Practice didn’t officially start until 3:30. Most kids used the fifteen minutes beforehand to talk with friends, but sometimes, Gael and Anika had gone to her car and held hands across the bucket seats, his thumb circling hers in a kind of dance that was more erotic than the crap Mason watched on his laptop. They’d blast classic rock, lean the seats way back, and just look at each other . . .

  The vision disappeared instantly as Anika and Mason walked into the band room together, hand in freaking hand.

  Their faces looked surprised, and for a second, Gael thought they’d turn away, but Anika seemed determined not to avoid him. She let go of Mason’s hand and plastered on the stupidest, fakest smile. Mason trailed behind her.

  “Uhh, hey,” she said. “I didn’t see you in English.”

  “Hey?” Gael asked. “All you have to say is ‘hey’?”

  Anika bit her lip. “I guess this is a little awkward. I know you want to talk. I just wanted to wait until you’d calmed down . . .”

  “And you think I’m calm now?” Gael yelled. The band room was almost full, though Mr. Potter hadn’t arrived. Everyone was staring, but Gael didn’t care. He turned to Anika. “You cheated on me with my best friend.”

  Anika’s eyes got watery. She looked at Mason, but his eyes shifted quickly around the room, then down to his oversized feet, avoiding both of them.

  That didn’t stop Gael from saying what he had to. He turned to Mason. “And you just abandoned the entire bro code for a hook up? You could have any girl you wanted! Why did it have to be my girlfriend?”

  Mason sighed but didn’t look up to face him.

  Anika dabbed at the corner of her eye but at least had the decency to look at him. She sniffled. “We just want you to know that your friendship is really important to us, Gael.”

  Us.

  Us?

  Us!!?&!!?@%!!?

  Gael’s hands drew into fists at his sides, and his stomach clenched. Being cheated on was bad enough, but the two of them didn’t even show an ounce of genuine remorse.

  Then, before he realized what he was doing, Gael punched his former best friend with all his might—straight in his stupid face, the one girls always seemed to find so endearing. Mason fell back into a mishmash of music stands, breaking his fall, clanking dramatically as they fell to the ground.

  Gael’s eyes were on the verge of tears, his body hot, his head throbbing. He vaguely sensed lots of yelling and people rushing around him, but he could hardly tell what was going on.

  Gael ran, and he didn’t stop until he was out of the band room, in the daylight, and far enough from school so no one could see.

  His breathing got heavy as awful visions filled his head—Mason holding Anika’s hand, kissing her lips, hugging her, undressing her, laughing with her, smiling with her, having everything with her that Gael would never, ever have again.

  throwback to the best day of gael’s life

  For Gael, it hadn’t been hard to choose the day to Beat All Days.

  It had been one of those weirdly cool afternoons in August, the last Saturday before the start of senior year. Nothing to do but waste time and luxuriate in the final weekend of summer.

  Since June, he and the usual suspects had spent most Saturdays at Jenna Carey’s. Jenna was Anika’s longtime BFF, and she had a pool. But this Saturday, it had been too cold for swimming. Gael thought about that sometimes, how if it had been ninety degrees, they’d have gone to Jenna’s pool, and maybe he and Anika never would have become he and Anika.

  They didn’t go to Jenna’s that day—instead, everyone walked down Franklin Street to load up on donuts at Krispy Kreme.

  Franklin was a mishmash of bookstores, yummy food (late night and otherwise), and shops hawking everything from thrifty hipster wares to UNC gear to preppy woven belts that the frat boys always wore. Historic buildings and brick sidewalks gave it that throwback downtown feel, while music joints, tattoo shops, and seedy bars reminded you that it was, indeed
, a college drag.

  They parked themselves on the steps of the Chapel Hill post office, which offered a perfect view of the UNC campus, with its columned brick buildings, sweeping lawns, and masses of trees whose leaves had yet to turn. It was the kind of campus you saw in TV shows about college, the kind that made you want to wear a sweatshirt with felt letters.

  When they were done with their donuts and had gotten most of the flaky sugar off their lips, Anika asked if anyone wanted to go to the “Life of a Star” show at the Morehead Planetarium, which was just across the street.

  One by one, everyone bailed. Mason said he had to head to his grandmother’s for an early dinner; Jenna said paying to look at fake stars sounded “next-level boring”; and Danny Lee, who was Gael’s best friend besides Mason and who’d recently started dating Jenna, nodded in new-boyfriend agreement. Gael—who, despite following IFLScience on Facebook, did not really know much about a star’s life span or about science in general—still knew better than to pass up a precious hour and a half alone with Anika and said, “Sure.”

  When it was just the two of them, Gael and Anika headed toward the planetarium, walking past the bench nestled under a towering oak tree where, legend had it, if you shared a kiss, it meant you were destined to get married.

  (Fun fact: Most people who kiss on that bench do not get married. I would know.)

  The planetarium was all domed and majestic like something out of a movie; Gael hadn’t been there since he was a kid on a field trip. A sign outside said the next show was at 3:30. They were just in time, one of the many factors that fell in his favor that day. When the box office girl asked, “Y’all together?” Gael awkwardly said “yes” before either of them had a chance to really think about it.

  Rows of tightly packed seats lined the walls of the circular room, and they chose two in the back. The tiny seats were smaller than the ones on an airplane, the kind that press you up against the person sitting next to you.