How to Break a Boy

by Laurie Devore

  It was such an old conversation, I don’t even know how it had gotten to the top of Adrienne’s recent messages.

  There are two more from me. One that’s some embarrassing story about hooking up with Ethan—I only told Adrienne because she was mad at me and I wanted her to let it go. And then another about how useless the cheerleaders were. It’s all framed very nicely to capture what a terrible person I am.

  I click onto the screenshot I was saving for last. Adrienne and Ethan. I’d read the most recent texts only yesterday.

  Adrienne: O’s simple. I just need to tell her the right thing and this fight between us will be over in a day. I can’t help you

  Ethan: I can’t believe you

  Adrienne: You don’t get it. She loves me. She tolerates you. And now there’s no reason to do that anymore

  Ethan: That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? For her to catch us

  Adrienne: Like you didn’t fucking want it too

  Ethan: I wanted her to stop hurting. Now we’ve ruined everything.

  Adrienne: Ethan

  Adrienne: Just meet me after practice tomorrow. Let’s talk.

  I drop my phone finally, letting it all burn through me. Feeling the betrayal as fresh as before, I can’t believe I let myself fall for her all over again. I was willing to let it go earlier, to admit to myself that this revenge idea was all a mistake, to start rebuilding. But this isn’t friendship. And I can’t let her have me back.

  I have to end this. I have to get away from it all.

  How?

  I lie back, staring up at the sun until everything in my line of vision blurs. Closing my eyes, bright spots are left dancing on my eyelids. I keep them closed for a while.

  My eyes clear out after a few minutes, and when I can see again, I reach into my pocket and extract the list of names. I turned the whole school upside down and blew everything to shit for Adrienne without her knowing anything, and I’m still a simpleton who can be pulled back in with a perfectly practiced string of words.

  Not this time.

  Something drops next to my head, making me blink away from the paper.

  “Here.”

  I glance up. Whit DuRant is standing beside me, glaring down, a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. I sit up and look back down to see he’s dropped my monogrammed ring onto the bleachers. There’s a bit of dried blood on the O.

  “What is that?” I ask, even though it’s obvious.

  He sighs as if looking at me were too much of a burden for him. “If you don’t want people to know that you lost your mind and destroyed school property, don’t leave your monogrammed ring in the midst of all the destruction. Are you an idiot?”

  Yes.

  I feel anger and hurt mingling on my face, and I can’t turn them off. Remorse fills his eyes and he tries again. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

  “I must be,” I cut him off. “An idiot.”

  “I wasn’t saying that,” he replies.

  “You did.”

  “Never mind.” He shrugs. “I thought you might want it back. Not that I care.” With that, he turns away, walking across the rest of the aisle and back up the stone staircase.

  “Wait a minute!” I call after him, leaping up and swiping the ring. I jog to catch up with him near the top of the stadium. He’s on his way back out to campus. I match him stride for stride.

  “You’re on the list,” I tell him, brandishing the paper forward. It’s right there: Whit DuRant. Salvation.

  He tears the paper from my hand and stops, looking it over. “What list?”

  I point at his name, right there in pencil. “The list of people who can tutor me for the SAT.”

  “What?” he asks, his eyes narrowing at the marks. A car drives by us in the back parking lot, slowing suspiciously as it passes before speeding off. “No,” he says, thrusting the paper back at me. “Absolutely not.”

  He starts walking away again, turning from the school to the baseball field in the distance. Behind the field is the school’s dilapidated putting green. That must be where he’s going. “Mr. Doolittle said you’d help.” I hurry after him.

  “No,” he repeats. “Ask Vera. Ask Steve. Ask anybody, I don’t care.”

  “Why not?” I demand.

  He gives me nothing in return, continuing doggedly ahead.

  “What, you don’t have time? You don’t like me? I’m too dumb, too pretty, too scandalous? What is it? You think you’re better than me?”

  He stops again, his eyes shifting to mine. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” I ask, circling in front of him so he can’t get past me. “Yes, what?”

  “I think I’m better than you.”

  The bottom falls out, the last of my pride crumpling somewhere at his feet. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  His gaze is intense, holding mine. This boy, this boy, who just has impressive hair and a killer golf swing, some boy who doesn’t matter at all, says he’s better than me. Where does he get off? What does he know about it? “I know that in less than twenty-four hours’ time, you fucked over the people you claim to be your two best friends.”

  I deflate. He watches me for a moment more, defeated girl with defeated eyes, and walks around me. “She fucked me first,” I say.

  But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care.

  No one does. Because what I did was worse.

  19

  LAST YEAR

  We sat around a table at the Rough House, the five of us, sipping soda out of straws. It was a perfect spring day, a breeze slicing through the beginning of the summer heat. A communal tub of fries sat in the middle of the table.

  “So, I’ve been thinking…,” Ethan began, and Coxie groaned.

  “That again?” He sighed.

  Ethan shook his head. “We need to start thinking about senior trip.”

  “We don’t do those in Buckley,” Adrienne told him. “We’re not like your fancy Charleston schools, Masters.”

  “Sounds like a party,” Coxie said, contemplating a fry. “I’m in.”

  “Not like a traditional senior trip,” Ethan went on. “I thought—and don’t laugh—something like a backpacking trip through Europe.”

  At that, Coxie burst out laughing, slapping his hand against the table through guffaws. The girl at the counter stared. “With whose money?” Coxie demanded.

  “Not all of us have moms who are criminal psychologists,” Adrienne said, grinning at Ethan with a nasty edge.

  Ethan’s face fell, his eyes going to the table as he shrugged. “Honey”—I touched Ethan’s arm lightly—“most of us can’t really afford something like that.”

  “Give her credit,” Coxie said, pointing at me. “She didn’t laugh.”

  Ethan lifted his eyes up to the spot where my hand rested against his arm, then up to my face. “What if you could?” he asked in a way that had graduation present written all over it.

  I bit into a fry, relishing the thought, leaning back on the chair’s two legs. But the whole time I could feel Adrienne watching me. Expecting me to say yes to what Ethan wanted, to prove that I couldn’t think for myself. Backpacking through Europe was everything I dreamed about, but I couldn’t stand the thought of her judgment. The thought that I couldn’t live up to her carefully crafted image of me. “I don’t know—don’t you think Europe is kind of obvious?” I asked.

  “Obvious?”

  “Everything about him is obvious,” Adrienne snapped, getting up from the table, leaving me wondering if I’d miscalculated and said the wrong thing. She slammed her just-vacated chair back in as Ethan rolled his eyes, and she walked over to the jukebox near the pool tables. Over Ethan’s shoulder, I saw her flipping through songs.

  “I don’t know,” I finally told him. “Wouldn’t it be cool to do somewhere like South America? Somewhere where we weren’t doing what everyone expected?”

  “Somewhere you could be dead,” Coxie interrupted, slurping his soda through a straw.

  “South Americ
a,” Ethan repeated. He grinned at me. “We’ll have to see what my mom thinks about that.”

  “What do you think?” With Adrienne out of earshot, I could save my opportunity here—to go to Europe or South America or, shit, just across the county line.

  He leaned forward. “I’d go anywhere with you.” He kissed me. Hard.

  I pulled away, my stomach churning uncomfortably even as my heart fluttered. Ethan tugged me one way, Adrienne another. I hated them fighting, but I hated even more the idea of them not. Adrienne insisting I was a bright star shining in the night with her, Ethan looking at me as if he kept expecting the sun to rise. No one had ever wanted me the way the two of them did. Looking back, I realize it finally made me feel important.

  Adrienne leaned against the jukebox, still flipping through nineties hits. Automatically, I rose and went to her. Nothing hurt like Adrienne dismissing you.

  “What’s up?” I asked, sidling in beside her. I put on a big fake frown. “Ethan got you down?”

  “What’s the deal with him, O? Why does he think he’s better than the rest of us because he’s not from Buckley?” She didn’t look at me as she spoke. I felt the slight like a burn on every inch of my skin. This was what Adrienne did to lesser people, people who were nothing to her. I was supposed to be above that in her eyes.

  I leaned forward a little. “He doesn’t always get it.”

  She looked up at me finally, glaring. “He never gets it. He controls you, and it’s like you live for him. We’re your friends. Tell him to realize that.”

  Each cold word had me reeling. “He realizes it. Plus, you didn’t even hear him. He said he’d go to South America if that’s what I wanted to do.”

  She watched him over my shoulder. When I followed her gaze, he caught my eye and gave me an ironic wave.

  Adrienne slapped her hand against the jukebox, stealing my attention back. “I knew this would happen!”

  “What?” I asked, thinking I could calm her down. Actually believing for a second that I could fix this.

  “You. I knew as soon as you had a serious boyfriend, you’d be all wrapped up in your relationship.” She said the last word contemptuously, drawing out the syllables. “This hero worship is so typically you. You see someone who can get you what you want, whatever you think you’re lacking, and refuse to see everything else. Like you can’t even listen to the suggestion that your brother’s an alcoholic even though we all know he is, because he’s Ryan, and you’re Liv, and that’s how it is.”

  She wouldn’t look at me, and she’d used those words to cut me down to size like she was always doing to everyone else. In that moment, she turned on me. I bit my tongue, bit back tears.

  “Look around, O,” she said, moving in for the kill. “Claire and I are your best friends. We’re the only people who won’t let you down. And if there’s anyone you should go to South America with”—she finally picked a song, pressing the play button hard—“it should be me.”

  She was probably right.

  20

  It’s Friday—otherwise known as the day after. Claire cut school and won’t answer my calls. Mr. Doolittle has had her locker door completely removed and taken all of her stuff out of it. It’s particularly sick that it’s her they went after when she tends to mostly stand around Adrienne and me while we scheme, but I guess it was too easy to pass up.

  The wounds are still fresh and my phone buzzes constantly. People double-checking stories and making accusations and asking questions. I start responding to them all: I don’t know, was that before or after my brother died? and never get a response.

  The longer this goes on, the clearer it becomes how poorly conceived the whole plan was. Everything in Buckley has a life cycle. The way the math works is this—Adrienne has to convince exactly half the people she shit-talked that it was all a big misunderstanding. That keeps her in the loop on fresh gossip, party invites, etc. And eventually, since Buckley is such a small town and there are so few people, everyone else will see her enough that they will come around to her again. Because Adrienne is only ever exactly as irresistible as she chooses to be.

  She’s already started recon. I saw her switching desks to sit next to Elona Mabry during English today. They were laughing.

  I decide to avoid her for as long as possible while I think about what to do next.

  Mom packs my lunch every day—she’s never trusted the school district to adequately care for my nutritional needs—and we usually all eat out on the quad at the best table. Me and Ethan and Claire and Coxie and Adrienne and whoever else we’re feeling generous toward that day. Today, I pretend Mom forgot my lunch and go stand inside in the long lunch line, biting my cuticles as I wait. My eyes travel around the caf, searching out the ever-present drama in Buckley’s midst.

  Cate Roberts is sitting with Meghan Stanley’s crew. She used to hang out with Meisha Allen and her people, but now that she’s a cheerleader, I guess she’s got better things to do. She was always kind of a bitch anyway, and judging by the way she’s eyeing Meisha’s ex, a catfight of epic proportions could break out at any second.

  I can’t solve an algebra problem to save my life, but looking at all these people, I don’t need instructions or a manual to figure them out. It’s all right there, written on their faces. Whether they’re hurt or scared or superior. I have such an eye for it, Adrienne used to tell me to watch people for her. She wanted to know what they were up to. I’d know without having to ask.

  With Ethan, though, I didn’t see anything. Not in his face or his gestures or any other part of him. Maybe I didn’t want to.

  “What do you want?” the old cafeteria lady asks me.

  I frown at the options. “Mac and cheese.” She plops a scoop onto a cracked ceramic plate and hands it over the glass. I smile or grimace or whatever, slide down the line, and pay my bit. As I turn around and hold my tray in front of me, I survey the scene. I can pretty much sit wherever I want and no one will question me, even if they hate me. Comes with power in this school. But there’s no one I want interrogating me about Ethan or Adrienne or whatever other trouble I’ve gotten myself into.

  Most of the cafeteria’s filled with long tables, but up near the front, where it smells really awful, are a couple small circular ones. Sitting alone at the one closest to the cash register is Vera Drake. I watch her for half a minute before going over to her table and plopping down in a seat.

  “You mind if I join?” I ask, cracking open my Diet Coke top. She looks up from her salad and stares. Hard. Says nothing. It’s really weird. People around us start staring, too. I dig into my macaroni and cheese like I don’t care.

  When I glance up, I catch Whit DuRant watching me from the next table over. He averts his eyes. I try to think of something to say to him, but I can’t come up with anything.

  “You know him?” I ask, gesturing with my fork at Whit.

  Vera follows the line of my fork, then turns back to me. Her eyes are wide, as if she’s not quite sure who I’m talking to. “Whit,” she finally says.

  “Yeah.” I stab a piece of macaroni.

  “He’s fine,” she mumbles. Fine—what a completely apt word to describe such a nonentity. Polished and smart and boring and fine. Still, that’s not exactly what I was asking.

  “Do you think he’d, like, do something bad to me? If he had the chance?”

  Vera’s wide eyes go wider, but she doesn’t say anything. I didn’t really want her to anyway.

  Anna Talbert walks by. She stops and leans down toward the table. “Paying penance, O?” she asks nastily.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  She laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turns away. “Right,” she calls as she walks off.

  I sigh and reach out for my Diet Coke, catching a glimpse of Vera’s notebook. It’s covered in bright, colorful pictures, masterfully collaged together. “Is that Venice?” I ask, pointing to one.

  She reaches out and pulls the notebook to her protectively
. “I like the pictures,” she tells me.

  “I know.” I stretch out over the table, tugging the notebook back over to my side of the table. “I just want to look. My brother and I used to talk about going to Venice.” I scan the pictures, touching them with my fingers. “These are great. Do you collect them?” Without thinking about it, I flip the notebook open.

  Right to a picture of Ethan.

  It’s from the first newspaper of the semester. He’s at football practice, taking a break, laughing with the guys, the camera catching his eye. It’s a moment of pure happiness. The thought that he can feel that happy and alive anywhere and anytime after what he did to me turns my stomach. “Oh.” Slowly, I close the notebook and slide it back over to Vera.

  After a moment, she blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

  She’s looking at me as if I may jump across the table at her at any second. I almost laugh, it’s so ridiculous. “Your problem’s not with me, Vera. You’ll want to take it up with Adrienne.” I don’t know why it’s suddenly so easy to say out loud. Something has snapped, I realize, sitting here with Vera, and I just don’t care who I’m pretending to be anymore. It’s been building for a while, I guess, but I’m ready to let that girl go. Maybe it’s because before, I at least had reasons to go through the motions. Not anymore. Before, I was a picture of control—over my life and my boyfriend and this whole fucking embarrassment of a school. But what part of that was real? What of that was me—the me I always thought I’d be? The me my brother and Claire loved and maybe even, at some point, Ethan.

  Why had I given in to this narrative?

  “Hey, Vera. Are you okay?”

  I jump at the voice and swing around to find Whit DuRant right there behind me, towering over my shoulder like a cartoon hero.

  She nods, and I truly begin to believe I am the Big Bad Wolf.

  Whit checks his watch. “Do you have a little bit of time so we can talk about our assignment for biology?” he asks her.