the Art of Breaking Up

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “Joke about it.”

  He rubbed his hand over his chin. “I’m a self-deprecating guy, Norah.”

  “I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there.”

  “That’s probably because there is.” He looked at me and obviously saw he hadn’t placated me with his answers. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. So, in Year Eight, I was sitting in Computer Studies and I turned to Hollard and asked him if he thought I could be depressed. He looked at me, outright laughed, and told me there was no way I could be depressed. I didn’t take offence at it. I just realised I didn’t fit the mould.”

  “What mould?”

  “The one people have of depressed people. They think we’re incapable of smiling or living normal lives. That if we do, we can’t be depressed. Like we can’t get on with things while we’re kinda…drowning inside.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell me?” I asked and he nodded.

  “Pretty much.”

  Relief swept through me. “I thought you didn’t trust me enough…”

  He smiled at me warmly and sat up again to run his fingers over my temple. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Norah. I didn’t want to…burden you.”

  I saw it all now. The mask. The façade. The person he was in front of everyone at school. He wasn’t hiding because he was embarrassed. He wasn’t hiding because he didn’t trust people. He hid it because he cared. Because he valued other people’s comfort over his own. He hid it because people – like me – didn’t know what to do when they found out someone they knew had depression. Not when it was someone like Wade who, for all other intents and purposes, was an outgoing, happy guy. He didn’t want to make other people awkward or uncomfortable or feel bad by them knowing about him.

  “It’s not a burden,” I told him. “You’d never be a burden.”

  “Says the girl who reminds me how worthless I am on a near-daily basis.”

  I felt guilty for a whole other reason than usual and it was sort of refreshing. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  He waved a hand at me, dismissing my apology. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Is this you being self-deprecating again.”

  He threw me a rueful smirk. “Maybe.”

  I took his hand. “I am sorry. If I knew…”

  He squeezed my hand and shrugged. “Don’t be. I deserved a…fair amount of it. The rest just served as a distraction.”

  “I was under the impression I’ve only recently become a distraction.”

  He cupped my cheek in his hand. “Oh no. You’ve always been a distraction.”

  “The healthy or unhealthy kind?” I asked with a smile.

  He licked his lip like his smile was threatening to blossom even more. “Both?” he asked, as though he was checking if that was okay.

  My heart skipped a bit, causing a pleasant little hitch in my chest. I looked down. “I guess that’s okay…”

  His fingers trailed to my chin to tilt my face back to look at him. “You guess?”

  My hand ran up his chest slowly as I leant towards him. “I guess,” I teased.

  Wade’s nose dipped to my neck and I could feel the smile on his face against my cheek. “Well in that case, I feel it’s fine to inform you that you are incredibly distracting.”

  “Is that so?”

  I felt him nod. “Yes. You distract me at school. You distract me at soccer practise. You distract me when I’m not with you. You distract me when I am with you.” He punctuated each sentence with a kiss.

  “How terrible for you,” I laughed.

  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”

  I had an idea about what he could do about it, but suggesting it felt a little out of place after the conversation we’d just had. Then again, I was getting a crash course in distractions. Maybe what I was thinking wouldn’t be quite as unhealthy as something else.

  I placed a finger under his chin and brought his lips to mine to kiss him gently.

  The fact that kisses had the ability to communicate moods and feelings and questions would always amaze me. Like, you could tell what a person was feeling sometimes even when they didn’t know it themselves. A kiss felt wrong or right, depending on the person. They conveyed innate knowledge.

  At least, I hoped that when I kissed someone that I was conveying as many things as I was receiving. Based on Wade’s response, the appropriate message had indeed been conveyed.

  I felt him smile against my lips. “I meant it when I said that wasn’t a booty-text…”

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pressed my body against his as we kissed. “I know.”

  His hand ran up my leg to grip my hip softly but firmly. “And what if I wasn’t prepared?” he teased between kisses.

  “Don’t worry, I am.”

  He pulled away just enough to look at me with a smile. “Oh, really?”

  “What? There’s something wrong with the girl being prepared?”

  “Hell, no. It’s damn sexy. This,” he pointed to his face, “is pleasant surprise.”

  “Unless, of course, you’re not interested.”

  He shook his head and I laughed as he tipped me backwards and lay down with me. “Oh, I’m interested.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to check,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.

  “It doesn’t. You’re sure about this?”

  I nodded. I’d never been so sure about anything in a long time. “I’m sure.”

  The expression in his eyes softened and I saw the smile in them. “I’m glad.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was obvious now. The cracks in that easy arrogance. The imperfections in the cocky smile. The chinks in the lazy charm. His armour wasn’t perfect and, as facetious as I’d been in calling it armour, that was exactly what it was.

  Wade wore his personality like armour. But it didn’t just protect him. It protected everyone else as well. As I watched him go through the school the same as always, I realised how unfair on him that was. He shouldn’t have to be strong just because the rest of the world had a problem with mental health, and yet he was.

  Something had changed between us. Something more than the obvious physicality.

  After the weekend, my guilt had ramped up.

  I knew I should feel bad about just hanging out with Wade, let alone having sex with him. And I did. But I was torn by what I felt for him. The way things were so simple and easy with him, the way he made me feel when we were together or just messaging each other. It was starting to overshadow my guilt.

  There was a very large part of me that was starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just come clean with Lisa about everything. It was becoming difficult to keep telling myself that whatever Wade and I were doing was nothing serious. I might not have been planning our wedding or anything, but it was becoming harder to deny that there was something very similar to potential between me and Wade.

  The only sensible thing to do would be to tell Lisa.

  I had to tell Lisa.

  I had no other choice.

  I was resolved to tell Lisa. To come clean. To stop hiding.

  All that was left was to muster up the courage and work out the best time – and way – to do it.

  “Matt asked Lisa out!” Erin said as they dropped beside me at lunch.

  I looked at Lisa with a huge smile, feeling all my guilt wash away like the news had been a beautiful rain shower. That solved a hell of a lot of problems on my end. If Lisa was officially going out with Matt, then my news about Wade was going to be barely a blip on her radar. The timing was perfect.

  “Awesome!” I cheered.

  “I didn’t say yes,” Lisa said.

  My internal parade came to a screeching halt and the sky was starting to look a little grey overhead.

  “What?” I asked, looking to Erin like somehow she’d tell me the opposite was actually true.

  “I just…don’t know if I’m ready for
a proper relationship,” Lisa told me with a shrug.

  “It’s been two years,” I reminded her, feeling the guilt slither back out of the muck and back over my body.

  She nodded. “I know. But…” She sighed. “I’m just not ready.”

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God!

  I didn’t know what was worse; that I was hooking up with Wade behind her back or that, two freaking years later, she was still using him as an excuse not to go out with her perfect guy.

  There was no way I could tell her about me and Wade now!

  My internal parade was officially rained out. Floats were starting to live up to their name and float away on a torrential stream.

  But I couldn’t show any of that. I was the best friend. Support was my purpose. Support with a healthy dose of reality check maybe, but first and foremost support. So, I’d have to back her up on this. After all, no one could dictate whether you were ready for a relationship except you.

  So, I just nodded. “Okay. Okay. That’s okay. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. How did Matt take it?”

  “Disturbingly well,” Lisa said.

  “And that’s a bad thing…why?”

  “Apparently a guy who’s too well adjusted is a worry?” Erin said, finishing with a shrug like she was asking me to tell her why that was or even whether it was actually true.

  I didn’t know why that was. I was hooking up with a guy who was so far from being well-adjusted in some ways but so close to it in others that I couldn’t have said what was better.

  “What did he say?” I asked, looking between them. “Did he say anything?”

  Lisa sighed. “He said that was fine. He smiled and said that was fine. Then just said that, if and-or whenever I was ready, he’d be into revisiting the idea of a date if I was. I actually contemplated just saying yes after that.”

  “Well,” I started, wondering what the supportive friend would say. “If you’re not ready, though…?”

  “Yeah. I know. I made the right choice. But, something about that level of thoughtfulness… You know…?”

  “Boy’s got game,” I said appreciatively.

  She grinned. “He does. I’m sure some other girl will appreciate it.”

  I felt like screaming.

  Yelling at the top of my lungs.

  Maybe in her face.

  That, or face palming.

  Here was her perfect guy, proved even further by him accepting and encouraging her wishes, and she was… She wasn’t oblivious because Matt had made it pretty clear that he liked her. But she was wilfully holding onto Wade like a lifeline.

  What I was feeling wasn’t jealousy. Wade had made it perfectly clear what he thought about anything happening between him and Lisa, and her feelings for him were definitely not holding me back from enjoying ALL of Wade.

  What I was feeling was frustration. I realised my hope that Lisa could get over Wade was a bit more impatient now. I was man enough to admit that. I knew I didn’t just want her to get over him for her anymore; I wanted her to get over him for me now as well. Not just to make me feel less guilty about what I was doing.

  But then I had to wonder why else it was.

  Was it possible that I wanted something more with Wade after all?

  Was it possible I at least wanted what I felt was the option to have something more with Wade?

  As it stood, it seemed impossible.

  I had to remind myself that Lisa wasn’t the only reason it was impossible.

  Neither Wade nor I wanted anything more. We were just giving each other some comfort in a time of need. It was the equivalent of Lisa and I having Girls’ Night and eating too much junk food, just different.

  I looked up and saw Wade with his friends on the other side of the Common Room.

  As though he could feel me watching, he looked up. The big, wide smile on his face dropped and I saw those chinks. It wasn’t that his smile wavered. It was like just after I’d found out about my parents and I’d felt like I could see real life layered over what life was supposed to be. That was how I saw Wade now; he had layers. The top ones weren’t quite so shallow as I’d first thought, and the bottom ones weren’t quite as simple as I thought either. Which was to say nothing of the sheer amount in between.

  Something unsaid passed between us and I couldn’t help sparing him a small smile. He returned it and then the moment was over and he was back to whatever his friends were up to, and I went back to mine.

  Later that day, I got a surprising message from him.

  Wade

  Two years ago, I met my bio dad and he rejected me all over again. I didn’t take it well.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t feel all that awkward. I just didn’t know how to reply. He neither wanted nor needed my pity. The line between pity and sympathy was another of those fine ones I had trouble navigating.

  It took me the rest of the day to reply to him.

  Norah

  That sucks, but thanks for telling me.

  Wade

  Still not a burden?

  Norah

  still not a burden.

  When I saw him heading home that afternoon, he gave me a small, appreciative smile of thanks. He looked more relieved than I thought he should have, but I understood why. At least, I thought I understood why.

  Just like I was avoiding telling Lisa about my parents for fear of how much we’d have to talk about it, Wade had been glad he could share his problems without having to talk about them before he was ready.

  After all the times he’d let me do the same, it felt good to be able to reciprocate.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It took all my strength not to ask Wade questions about his admission.

  How did his dad reject him?

  What did he mean by again?

  Was that the cause of his mental health stuff or did it exacerbate what was already going on?

  But it wasn’t my place, especially when I could empathise with why maybe he wasn’t just throwing all the information at me at once. Maybe he never would. I made myself be okay with that. Knowing it wasn’t from a lack of trust went a long way to helping me with that.

  On Thursday, as was apparently becoming the norm, we went to Maccas, then ended up in the park down the road from my house.

  “What makes your mum so okay with you being out at all hours of the night?” I asked him.

  “Huh?” he asked, like his mind had been on something else as we lay on the grass, staring at the stars.

  “Well, does she care that you’re out all the time?”

  We were close enough that I felt him shrug. “I think so.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Mum and I have a…weird relationship.”

  I could deal with him not clarifying a lot of things. That, I was going to need to know more about though.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, it was just us for ages, right. Before my step-dad came along. So, we’ve always kinda been more friends than mother and son. We…went through similar shit together. That formed a bond I guess not everyone has with their mum. It seems normal to me, but apparently it’s weird. It also means she’s a little more lenient, I s’pose? She might not like me out or drinking or whatever, but as long as she knows where I am…she doesn’t stop me.”

  “And your step-dad?”

  “He’s got boundary issues.”

  “What?”

  “Oh,” he laughed. “No. Nothing weird. Like, he doesn’t know where the boundary between parent or interloper is…so he kinda errs on the side of keeping his nose out of things between me and Mum. Sometimes I feel like he doesn’t care, you know. But logically I know that’s not true.”

  “Well, at least you know he cares,” I said grumpily, pulling myself to sitting.

  “Have you thought about talking to them?” he asked.

  “What?”
/>   “Your parents. Have you thought about just talking to them? Telling them you know? Having a conversation about it? How it’s affecting you and shit?”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, telling me to deal with my shit when you won’t deal with your own!” I snapped.

  It wasn’t totally fair, but the idea of talking to my parents annoyed me so I lashed out.

  He sat up next to me. “Nothing gives a person instant, intimate knowledge of a topic like denying it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why do you think I know you’ve got to deal with it? Why do you think I want you to deal with it? For the pure and simple reason I don’t want to see you become me. I don’t want you to feel the way I do. I tell you to deal with your shit, Norah, because I won’t deal with mine.”

  “My parents are getting divorced, Wade. I really don’t see how that’s–”

  “It’s not like you’re the first,” he said and that shut me up. “At least you’ll still have both your parents. You’ll split your time and get to see them whenever you want. They’ll both still be there for you. You won’t be left wondering if one of them is going to keep any of the promises they make. You won’t see the look of devastating pity on your second grade – second grade! – teacher’s face when you tell her that your dad’s coming to visit for real this time because even she knows he’s not coming! He’s never coming!”

  Wade was breathing heavily and I didn’t blame him. That was…a lot. I didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to say something – to do something – but I just didn’t know what would help.

  He took a breath. “I’ve been dealing with some pretty severe depression and anxiety for…a few years now. They’ve had me medicated for the last four years and I see my shrink at least monthly now. I have abandonment issues that make me a shallow arsehole when it comes to girls. I drink too much and hook up with whoever because it goes some way to distract me from the overwhelming sense of hopelessness and just shittiness I feel constantly.”

  I decided that it wasn’t the time to latch on to ‘hook up with whoever’ being an insult to me. This admission was bigger than me picking holes in it for my own self-esteem.