Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak

by Adi Alsaid

  There was a loud crash on Leo’s side of the phone, then some rustling about. “Sorry, I dropped my phone. What was that?”

  The receipt was mostly smooth against my leg, so I crumpled it back up and tossed it over to my desk. Across the street, my showering neighbor shut off the water.

  “We had love, Leo. Whether it’s gone or not, that matters, doesn’t it? It’s an incredible facet of life and we should be able to dissect it. Share our experiences so that others can learn from them, or at least relate to them.” My voice felt small in my room. I wondered if I should have been writing all of this down. I could hear Jase still chatting with his buddies on his headset, though making a concerted effort to be quiet. Through the crack under the door, I could tell the hallway light was off, which meant my mom was getting ready for bed. She’d be in soon to say good-night and ask me for the millionth time what my plans were for tomorrow.

  “Um,” Leo said, because I was a raving lunatic.

  “What did you feel when—?” I asked, at the same exact moment that he said, “I’m pretty beat, I think I’m gonna go to—”

  “Sorry,” I said. “What was that?”

  Leo cleared his throat. “I, uh... I should let you go.”

  My neighbor turned off his bathroom light. Down on the street, a car zoomed past, then squealed on its brakes. Jase button mashed on the couch, the little clicks and clacks impossible to make quieter, and I thought about going to grab my laptop. It was still on the coffee table, I knew, a yellow light blinking slowly to show it was on but asleep. I wished I could say the same about my writing. It was still alive, still within me somewhere. It just needed to be opened up again.

  “Yeah,” I said, “you should. Sorry for calling.”

  Yet another pause. I could picture Leo, if he were in another time, tangling himself up in a phone cord, trying to come up with something good to say. “It’s...fine, Lu. It’s okay. I hope you’re okay.” One last pause, this one the briefest of them all. I thought maybe I could slip into that pause. Maybe I could wedge myself between the boy I loved and whatever hesitation had caused him to put us here. Then he said good-night and hung up.

  13

  STARGAZING

  The rest of the week passed by in a series of self-assurances that I still had time. It’s only Tuesday, I’d thought when hanging with Iris. Plenty of weekdays left, plus a few of those sweet, sweet weekenders thrown in as a bonus. I told Pete how the phone call with Leo had gone, then shoved down the memory of the conversation, even though Pete said I could still write about our relationship without interviewing him. I could unload myself on the page, he said.

  I shoved my empty notebook in his face and told him obviously I couldn’t.

  Wednesday I had work and then Mom, Jase, and I went over to my tita Marian’s in Queens for a family dinner. It was hard to brainstorm backup plans for my column in that situation, because my family is loud and talkative and we have a tendency to end up gathered around the piano singing show tunes. Which was always great, except it was the first time we’d done it since Leo and I broke up. Show tunes reminded me of Leo, the way he looked on stage, the way he’d close his eyes when belting a note. I used to sit in his room pretending to redo homework while he practiced his lines and songs. He’d catch me staring and blush, which was completely uncalled for, because every note he sang was perfect.

  At some point with my family, my cousin Cindy—who was living this awesome postcollegiate life in Brooklyn—asked me about how things were going at Misnomer. I almost answered honestly, but then Tita started playing a song from Aida on the piano and we all lost our collective minds belting out the lyrics. I was reminded how much my family loved Leo because he could belt along with us. Especially because my stupid aunt kept asking where he was.

  Thursday I tried to eavesdrop and find another Iris and Cal, but came away with only an exchange which was either a recruitment for a pyramid scheme or a pitch for a cult. My words were nowhere to be found. My deadline approached.

  By the end of my work shift, I was starting to get the feeling that I was just going to screw this up again, and that the screwup was almost entirely inevitable now. Even if I wanted to write about Cal and Iris against Iris’s wishes, nothing was coming. “You need to forget about these two lovebirds,” Pete said. He was throwing on a denim button-down over his black T-shirt as we walked out of the theater. “That’s the only thing that’s keeping you from writing.”

  “Writer’s block is a thing, Pete.”

  “So is needless obsession with a distraction.” He brushed the hair from his eyes. “You need to go home or are we hanging out?” I cringed and avoided eye contact. “Social cues tell me I’m not going to like what you say next.”

  “Iris texted me. She wants to hang out. I’d totally invite you but I feel like this might solidify our friendship and I don’t want to ruin it with, like, a premature group hang.” A trio of people was strolling in front of us, unaware that they were blocking the sidewalk. I sped around them, balancing on the edge of the sidewalk. Pete and I hate getting stuck behind slow walkers, but I was also making a conscious decision to keep him from making direct eye contact with me.

  “Glad to see you’re taking my advice,” he said quietly. We headed toward Union Square, each swiping into an adjacent turnstile without saying much. We were taking separate lines so had to split up soon. It was not yet rush hour, and the station wasn’t overwhelmingly crowded. A cute guy walked past briskly, thumbs hooked into his jean pockets like a fashion model. Pete was quieter than usual, and though I could see something bugging him, I didn’t ask about it because (a) I was pretty sure I was to blame, and (b) Pete would speak his mind when he needed to.

  We stood there for a moment, avoiding eye contact. “Is this gonna be how it goes for the summer?” he asked finally.

  “Don’t be dramatic. I told you I’ll offer a group hang next time. You’ll like her.”

  Pete nodded twice, then looked down at his shoes. “I leave in August too, Lu. You know that.” Then he mumbled a bye and headed down the corridor toward the 1 train.

  “I said don’t be dramatic!” I shouted after him, eliciting stares from the fellow commuters not wearing headphones. “The quick departure after a sentimentally loaded statement is definitely a dramatic move!”

  Pete turned around as he walked on his heels, giving me a shrug before spinning again and continuing on his path. I watched him go, then found my train to go meet up with Iris.

  * * *

  Iris and I met up at Columbus Circle again, this time going into the Whole Foods to grab supplies for a picnic. “I don’t mean to be boring and repetitive,” she said, “I’m just gonna miss this park so much.”

  “I will grieve for you while you suffer in the terrible landscapes of Southern California.”

  “Fair point.”

  I let her lead the way around the store, picking out our snacks. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised after seeing where she lived and our adventures the other night, but she didn’t seem to pay much attention to the cost of things. A liter of kombucha, a tray of sushi, three mangoes, two varieties of organic kettle chips, some artisanal cheeses, a pound of sugar-free granola, about three other items with hyphenations in their descriptions.

  Part of why Leo had said he didn’t want to do long distance was the cost. Neither one of us had a ton of expendable money, even though we worked, and long distance meant more of it would go to trains or buses to visit each other. I’d wanted to oppose this reasoning and remind Leo that love was heaps more important than money, but I’d kind of seen his point. I’d needed a scholarship for my parents to even be able to afford NYU, and I had no idea how I’d visit Leo enough to see him as much as I would have wanted to. If, you know, we were still dating.

  Seeing Iris shop so indiscriminately made me think that she and Cal were maybe better suited to staying together if they ha
d chosen the long-distance route.

  “By the way, Cal’s going to meet up with us.”

  We were by the self-service spice station, where large containers of cardamom, star anise, and turmeric awaited for customers who went for that sort of thing in bulk. I said, “Cool,” and pretended to read some labels. A funny feeling coursed through my body, or more accurately, my stomach and chest. Writers are liars. Feelings don’t ever make it all the way down to your toes. I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was. Probably a mix of things, one of them definitely being guilt that I hadn’t brought Pete along. But who likes feeling guilty? I shoved that feeling down, making room for the slight thrill I was experiencing that I’d get to see Cal and Iris together.

  We paid for our snacks and went out to Columbus Circle to wait for Cal to arrive. I spotted him in the distance, wearing black pants, a maroon T-shirt, and carrying a black backpack. I realized that I hadn’t seen him in person since the day of their fight. I’d forgotten how cute he was, how I’d wanted Leo to walk in on us sitting together and feel a pang of jealousy.

  Then I remembered that Iris had no idea I’d met Cal already. I hadn’t ever confessed the fact that I’d eavesdropped on them, and of course I hadn’t ever mentioned our encounter on the bench. I had no reason to.

  When he got closer Iris pointed him out and waved, and he smiled at us, then narrowed his eyes at me as he approached. I cringed, kind of hoping he wouldn’t recognize me. “Oh my God!” he said immediately. “Bench Girl!”

  I narrowed my eyes the same way he did, knowing I should probably just act natural. Problem is, my natural state is human, and human beings are weird. I pretended to search the files of my mind for recognition of his face. Finally, an Academy Award–deserving ten seconds later, I snapped my fingers and widened my eyes. “Holy shit!”

  I turned to Iris, who had this confused smile on her face, then back to Cal. “This is so weird! Like, super weird. So incredibly weird I can’t believe the improbability of this occurrence of events!”

  “Um, what’s happening?”

  “Is this Lu?” Cal asked, pointing at me. “We sat on a bench together one day. I rambled about paintball teams.”

  Iris smiled and rolled her eyes. “Damn it, did you tell everyone about that analogy?”

  “It’s a great analogy,” Cal rebutted. Then he looked at me and shook his head. “Even if it turned out to be not entirely true.” His grin got bigger for a moment, and then he looked over at Iris and down at the ground.

  I wasn’t sure where to look so I turned to the French baguette I’d bought as part of my picnic and crinkled its brown paper bag, “Small world, huh?”

  Iris had a few follow-up questions about our conversation at the park, which made me briefly panic at the possibility that the two of them could uncover the fact that I’d eavesdropped, but she was quickly sated and Cal soon changed the subject, the matter apparently put to rest way more easily than I could have anticipated.

  We dodged a few joggers, heading toward one of the large grassy fields in the park. We picked a spot shaded by a tree, and then Cal unfurled a plaid blanket from his backpack, kicked off his shoes and used them as anchors against the wind. Meanwhile, Iris set out the spread of food she’d bought at Whole Foods, neatly arranging everything on the blanket as if preparing it for a professional photo shoot. We did all snap a few compulsory pics for social media, although in the end none of us posted them. I wonder about those pictures sometimes, the stockade we each have backed up online or on laptops, thousands of pictures of the minutiae of life. Someday, will I see all those forgotten selfies of me and Leo? Will that serve a purpose beyond nostalgia? Or are they just taking up digital space on some unseen server, never to be reexamined, and definitely not reexamined in any meaningful way?

  Iris ran off to collect a few wildflowers from the edge of the field, leaving me and Cal alone for the first time since the bench. We made brief eye contact when she left, and I realized that he had beautifully dark eyes. As someone who’s been told my whole life by societal representations of beauty that light-colored eyes are the only ones that can be beautiful, I have a deep appreciation for brown eyes that raise a middle finger to those beauty standards and simply slay with their beauty. Leo had eyes like that, and Cal did too, framed by dark lashes that almost made it look like he had eyeliner on.

  “She likes a certain aesthetic to her pics,” Cal said with a shrug, looking away from me to watch his girlfriend. He smiled after saying it, a smile clearly caused by Iris.

  “Weird, the aesthetic I usually go for is not-good-enough-at-taking-pictures-to-be-allowed-to-share-pictures.”

  He laughed that laugh again, the one from the bench, the one that was like rising bread. “That’s right,” he said, snapping his fingers, “you’re funny. I’d forgotten that.”

  “Um,” I said, because you can’t simultaneously confess to a near stranger that you really want to be thought of as funny yet be stricken by the constant insecurities that you’re not at all.

  “By the way, I’ve been doing that thing more often. The one I said I wanted to,” Cal said.

  I blinked at him like he had suddenly switched to a different language, one based on entirely different phonetics than any I’d heard in my life.

  “The French tourists,” he elaborated. “I’ve been trying to help people in small ways like that ever since we talked. Nothing crazy. Gave a homeless guy a pair of shoes, carried a lady’s bags for a couple blocks. That’s it.” He scrunched his face up, as if he were embarrassed by this confession. “Both times, I thought of you.”

  Of all the reactions I could have possibly had, I somehow smiled at this. “Really?” I looked down at my legs, then reached outside the breadth of the blanket and ripped a few blades of grass from the ground. “Why?”

  Cal shook his head. He was sitting with his legs up and crossed, his arms wrapped around his knees. “I’m not sure. I guess because you were there when I thought of it?”

  A few moments later, Iris returned with a handful of daisies, arranging them expertly around our spread. We took a few more pics, Iris on a fancy digital camera, then started to eat. The park was busy for a weekday, lots of picnickers and shirtless dudes playing Frisbee, a few women in bikinis taking advantage of the last few minutes of afternoon sun.

  Iris said that she’d invited Cal along because she liked hanging out with me, and thought Cal would too. That she liked sharing joys with him.

  “You guys are so direct,” I said, popping a piece of sushi into my mouth with my fingers, since we’d forgotten to grab an extra pair of chopsticks. “Do you always just say what you mean? How do you function in society doing that?”

  They both laughed, not taking offense to my comment. “I told you she was funny,” Iris said, raising her eyebrows at Cal.

  “You didn’t lie.” He reached over to rip off a chunk of baguette, pairing it with one of the soft cheeses Iris had brought and a little bit of rose petal jam. “I don’t know. Being direct just feels good most of the time. A little uncomfortable sometimes, maybe, but even on the other side of that, there’s relief.”

  “I can’t be direct unless I’m making a joke,” I said.

  “Not true,” Cal retorted immediately. “You just did it.” He turned over his shoulder as a neon yellow Frisbee landed a few feet away. A tanned white guy with absurdly square pecs jogged up and grabbed it from the grass, flashing a smile at us. “Try it again.”

  I groaned, then tore a few more blades of grass, twisting them into one thick strand in my fingers. A tightness spread in my chest, which I interpreted as my body not being down for this direct ride stuff. They fell silent though, waiting for me to speak.

  A few weeks after I started at Misnomer, before Leo and I started dating, I asked Hafsah for some tips on interviewing, since I was afraid every article would be just me ruminating repetitively on unrequited love. />
  “People are jacks-in-the-box, awaiting the chance to spring,” she’d said. “You keep winding that crank.”

  “Ugh, is that really the plural of jack-in-the-box? It’s gross,” I’d responded.

  I ripped my grassy braid into shreds, tossing them into the breeze, pretending I was still thinking. The sun had dipped beyond the horizon, causing the tanners to start to gather their things. Dozens of orange reflections glimmered in the windows of Midtown. “Cal, don’t be like that. If she doesn’t want to—”

  “I’m jealous of the time you have together before breaking up,” I said. A pause after, not just because I couldn’t believe I’d brought myself to say it, but because I’m a goddamn pro and I know that letting the confession sink in might lead them to retaliate. Screw my deadline and my writer’s block, screw Pete’s advice, screw writing about Leo. This was the story I wanted. I shrugged at Iris, then looked at Cal, wondering how much Iris had told him about my article. “You guys have chosen momentary happiness, and I’m jealous of whatever it was that allowed you to do that. A lot of people would be.”

  Another Frisbee whizzed by us. This time a light-skinned black guy with sparse curls on his chest and a white bandanna tucked into his yellow shorts jogged past us, offering a smiling “sorry” before tossing the disk back across the field.

  “See?” Cal said. “Feels good, right?”

  Iris didn’t say anything, her eyes following the black guy’s light jog back toward his friends.

  “A little bit,” I said, watching Iris, waiting for her expression to change. She kept her gaze distant until Cal changed the subject, turning the conversation toward his plans to do as little as possible over the summer, before college and adulthood came around to drown him in responsibilities and the need to pretend to be busy. Iris snapped out of her daze and scooted a little closer to Cal, saying that she was going to walk as much of the city as she could manage before California beat her into its sedentary lifestyle.