Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak

by Adi Alsaid

  “Yeah, I changed my flight,” Iris said. “We haven’t heard from you in a while.” I looked at Cal, wondering if he had somehow kept it a secret what I’d done, forgetting for a moment that he’d texted after my stupid kiss attempt and said there were no hard feelings.

  “Sorry,” I said lamely. “I just...” I let the statement peter out. I looked down at my lap, but their shadows were cast in my direction, so it was hard to pretend that they weren’t there anymore.

  “It’s okay. It’d be awkward, I get it. I almost didn’t come over here, but I wanted to say that I read your article,” Iris said. I could feel myself blushing right away. My heart was thumping in my chest, my hands sweaty right away. “It was really good. It felt weird to read about ourselves like that. I felt a little naked, equal parts proud and embarrassed.”

  I finally looked away from my lap, and through the space between the two of them I could see the cute boy laughing again, shaking his head a little. I kept my eyes on him. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry if I stuck my nose in your business too much.” Like, all the way in Cal’s face. “I got carried away.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Lu,” Cal said, speaking up for the first time. I didn’t have the guts to look up at his eyes.

  Over the past couple weeks, I’d thought of what would happen if I ran into them again. What I would say to them. Shame still crawled down my spine anytime I thought about them, but I still couldn’t help but fantasize about a redemption. I’d even fantasized about thanking them. If they hadn’t come along I might still be moping around about Leo, mired in writer’s block and swearing off love entirely.

  “I probably should,” I said. “I was inappropriate. And clingy. Then I aired out all your laundry for the world to see.”

  “At least it wasn’t the dirty laundry,” Iris said with a laugh. “You were pretty complimentary. Made us look more interesting than we really are.”

  I examined my fingernails, looked back at cute guy. He was looking at his phone, no longer laughing, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Anyway,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  We didn’t say anything for a few moments. It was hard to tell how much time had gone by. It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes. I was suddenly sweaty, like I had been all damn summer. So much for a refreshing day. I noticed Cal rub his thumb against Iris’s hand, tried not to dive into memories of his touch. “So, when’s the new breakup date?”

  Again, the thumb rub against the soft flesh Iris’s hand. I’d been avoiding thinking of Cal romantically at all, but it was hard not to want that. I forced myself to look up, see their faces when they answered. The sun was shining behind them turning them into more silhouettes than human faces. Seemed fitting, and I was glad to not see Cal’s eyes.

  “We’ve postponed it,” Cal said. It sounded like he was trying to restrain a smile. Behind him a cotton-candy cloud moved in the way of the sun, and then I could see his eyes clearly again. “Indefinitely.”

  “Really?”

  “After reading your article, how could I let go of what we have?” Iris said. She was definitely smiling. “If it goes sour, if we can’t survive the minefield of long distance, so be it. But we’re gonna try. We have you to thank for that.”

  Behind us, a woman shouted out something that could have been my name but was probably one of a million words that end with the same “oo” sound. I looked back, trying to hide the fact that tears were coming to my eyes again. I took a breath, gaining control of myself. When I faced them again, I noticed cute boy looking in our direction. I tried smiling at him, but his eyes flitted away, guilty at being caught.

  “I don’t know why that makes me feel good,” I said. “But it does. I’m happy for you guys. You really are...” I bit my lip. “I want to find a better word than special.”

  “Cheesy? Hopeless? Treacle? Naive?” Cal said.

  “Hey!” Iris said, letting go of his hand to smack him across the arm. “We’ll take special.”

  We shared a laugh, and I felt something within me relax. “I should be the ones thanking you anyway. You broke me out of my writer’s block funk.” I noticed my iced coffee sitting beside me, forgotten, sweating beads of condensation onto the bench. I picked it up and took a sip. “This is going to sound cheesy and treacle and naive, but seeing what you guys have let me hold on to romantic ideals. Maybe a little too much. But I think it’s better than the alternative. I want to believe that love can be special at this age. And you guys showed me that it can be. So, thanks.”

  Both of them were smiling now, and I could sense my cheeks blazing up to a fiery red. Iris fluffed her hair out, and Cal pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Well, we were gonna go meet up with friends for coffee,” Iris said. “You want to come with?”

  I considered it for a moment, before the smart part of my brain nudged the rest of me and suggested that maybe it wasn’t a great idea to dive back into obsessing over them. “I have to go to work,” I said, nodding with my head in a direction, even though I wasn’t entirely sure that it was the right direction for the theater.

  “Cool,” Iris said. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Cal said. “We can still be friends.”

  I chewed on my straw a moment. The cloud that had moved over the sun blew away, and the two of them turned into silhouettes again. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe someday.”

  They nodded, and then we gave each other awkward hugs that still felt emotionally fulfilling, even if the physical aspect was a little more complicated than that. I didn’t stand up all the way, and tried to keep my body away from Cal’s, even though it felt good to be in his touch. I counted to three on both hugs, wondering if I was squeezing too hard or not enough. When the hugs were over it felt like they’d been entirely too long, and not nearly long enough. Then they took their leave, and I watched them cross the park, hands clasped back together.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, Pete asking what the hell was going on. I waited to respond until I couldn’t see Iris and Cal anymore, and even then I kept looking in the direction they’d walked off, trying to catch sight of them. Before I could respond to Pete, I felt a shadow pass over me. I looked up, and Cute Bench Boy was standing over me.

  “This is gonna sound weird,” he said. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Do you mind if I join you?”

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Since I’ve started writing, this book has been the one that has taken the longest to fully form. It couldn’t reach this final stage without the help of a ton of people. First of all, my agent, Pete Knapp, for guiding me to the heart of the story. To TS and the team at Inkyard Press, for giving Lu a home, and for continuing to give my writing a home. I’m lucky I get to keep doing this, and that’s thanks to the hard work of the editorial team, the publicity team, marketing, sales, design and many more. Thanks to all those who help make my books a reality.

  Thanks to the hundred people who filled out my survey on what teenage love feels like. Your answers helped remind me, as well as tap into experiences I did not have.

  Thanks to Laura for constant inspiration and for helping me leave behind a lot of the crappy things about love and breakups that I wrote about here.

  To Drea Walter, Leah Kreitz and Marianne Reyes for help with representation matters.

  To my family for their love and support and absurd group chat messages.

  And of course, to you. I get to do what I love to do because you have this book in your hands, and I’m very grateful for that.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid.

  Never Always Sometimes

  by Adi Alsaid

  PROLOGUE:

  THE LIST

  DAVE DROPPED HIS backpack by his feet and slid onto the bench that overlooked the harb
or at Morro Bay. He loved the view here: the ocean sprawling out like the future itself, interrupted only by the white tips of docked sailboats and the rusted railing people held on to watch the sunset. He loved how far away it felt from San Luis Obispo, even though it was only fifteen minutes away. Most of all, he loved when Julia would appear in his periphery mock-frowning, how she would keep her eyes on him, trying not to smile as she walked up, then she would slide in right next to him like there was nowhere else she belonged.

  “Hey, you goof. Sorry I’m late.”

  Dave looked up just as Julia was sitting down. She was wearing her usual: shorts, a plaid blue shirt over a tank top, the pair of flip-flops she loved so much that they were now made up of more duct tape than the original rubbery material. Her light brown hair was in a loose ponytail, two perfect strands looped around her ears. If the lights ever went out in her presence, Dave was pretty sure the brightness of her eyes would be more useful than a flashlight.

  “S’okay. How was hanging out with your mom this weekend?”

  “Greatest thing ever. Don’t get me wrong, the dads are awesome. But my mom is the coolest person alive.”

  ”Hyperbole foul,” Dave said.

  Julia crossed her legs at the ankles and looked around the harbor. “Did I miss anything interesting?”

  “There was a couple breaking up by the ice cream shop. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the girl was such a sad crier. I wanted to go give her a hug, but that might have been a little weird.”

  Julia gave him a smile and stole a sip from the bubble tea he’d been holding.

  “Tell me more about your mom. What makes her so cool?”

  “Everything,” Julia said. “She lives the kind of life that I didn’t even understand was an option. She once biked from Canada to Chile. On a bicycle. For, like, months. Other adults work from nine to five and then go home to watch TV. She bikes a whole continent.”

  “Huh,” Dave said, impressed. “That is pretty cool. How come she’s never come by before?”

  “She’s too busy being awesome,” Julia said. She glanced around for a little while, swirling the drink in her hand. Dave followed her gaze to a little boy riding his tricycle down the harbor, his parents walking calmly behind, beaming with pride. “So. High school tomorrow. Big day.”

  “Yup,” Dave said with a shrug, reaching for his tea back.

  He imagined what other kids might be doing in anticipation of starting high school. Picking out outfits, getting haircuts, quarreling with parents and siblings, texting each other messages that made more use of emoticons than proper punctuation.

  “Any thoughts? Concerns? Schemes?”

  “Oh, you know. Nothing specific to high school. Take over the world.”

  She scrunched her mouth to one side of her face, then looked straight at him, which always made Dave feel like he was either lucky or about to turn into a puddle. A lucky puddle, that’s what he’d felt like ever since he’d met Julia. “We’re still gonna be us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean...we’re kind of different from most people, right? We don’t do what everyone else does. We’re more likely to bike a continent than watch TV all afternoon.”

  “I guess so.”

  Julia drank from his bubble tea, aiming the fat straw at the dark spots of tapioca that settled on the bottom of the cup. When she’d sucked up a few and chewed on them thoughtfully, she looked down at the ground. “As long as we don’t get turned into something that looks more like high school, more like everybody else and less like us, I’ll be okay.”

  She glanced at him, then looked across the harbor at the bay, where the water was starting to take on the color of the sun.

  “So I’m not allowed to become the high school quarterback that dates the cheerleading captain?”

  “I’m going to throw up this bubble tea right in your face.”

  He bumped her lightly with his shoulder, thrilled as always at the weight of her next to him, the warmth of her skin beneath the plaid shirt. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You couldn’t be a cliché if you tried.”

  Julia smiled at that, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. She grabbed the bottom of the bench with her hands and leaned forward a little, stretching, and the brown tress slipped back in front of her face. She kicked at the backpack by his feet. “You have any paper in there? I have an idea.”

  The Nevers

  or

  Dave and Julia’s Guide to an Original High School Experience

  1. Never be recognized by your lunch spot. Keep moving.

  2. Never run for prom king/queen, student body president, or any other position that would have its own page in the yearbook.

  3. Never attend a party at the Kapoor brothers’ house. (Or any party where the invite is just the word “BEER.”)

  4. Definitely never host a “BEER” party while parent(s) is/are out of town.

  5. Never dye your hair a color found in a rainbow.

  6. Never streak, skinny dip, or do anything else that could result in a viral nude pic.

  7. Never hook up with a teacher. (Substitute teachers are acceptable.)

  8. Never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school.

  9. Never go on an epic “life-changing” road trip.

  10. Never date your best friend.

  ALMOST

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  THE KIDS WALKING past Dave seemed to be in some other universe. They moved too quickly, they were too animated, they talked too loudly. They held on to their backpacks too tightly, checked themselves in tiny mirrors hanging on the inside of their lockers too often, acted as if everything mattered too much. Dave knew the truth: Nothing mattered. Nothing but the fact that when school was out for the day, he and Julia were going to spend the afternoon at Morro Bay.

  No one had told him that March of senior year would feel like it was made of Jell-O. After he’d received his acceptance letter from UCLA, high school had morphed into something he could basically see through. When, two days later, Julia received her congratulations from UCSB, only an hour up the coastline, the whole world took on brighter notes, like the simple primary colors of Jell-O flavors. They giggled constantly.

  Julia’s head appeared by his side, leaning against the locker next to his. It was strange how he could see her every day and still be surprised by how it felt to have her near. She knocked her head against the locker softly and combed her hair behind her ear. “It’s like time has ceased to advance. I swear I’ve been in Marroney’s class for a decade. I can’t believe it’s only lunch.”

  “There is nothing in here I care about,” Dave announced into his locker. He reached into a crumpled heap of papers on top of a history textbook he hadn’t pulled out in weeks and grabbed a single, ripped page. “Apparently, I got a C on an art assignment last year.” He showed the drawing to Julia: a single palm tree growing out of a tiny half moon of an island in the middle of a turquoise ocean.

  “Don’t show UCLA that. They’ll pull your scholarship.”

  Dave crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it at a nearby garbage can. It careened off the edge and rolled back to his feet. He picked it up and shoved it back into the locker. “Any notable Marroney moments today?”

  “I can’t even remember,” Julia said, moving aside to make room for Dave’s locker neighbor. “The whole day has barely registered.” She put her head on Dave’s shoulder and let out a sigh. “I think he ate a piece of chalk.”

  It was pleasant torture, how casually she could touch him. Dave kept exploring the wasteland of his locker, tossing out a moldy, half-eaten bagel, occasionally unfolding a sheet of paper with mild curiosity, trying not to move too much so that Julia wouldn’t either. He made a pile of papers to throw out and a much smaller one of things to keep. So far, the small pile contain
ed two in-class notes from Julia and a short story he’d read in AP English.

  “Still on for the harbor today?”

  “It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane,” Julia said, pulling away. “Come on, why are we still here? I’m starving. Marroney didn’t offer me any of his chalk.”

  “I do not care about any of this,” Dave repeated. Liberated by the absence of her touch, he walked over to the trash can and dragged it toward his locker, then proceeded to shovel in the entirety of the contents except for the books. A USB memory stick was wrapped inside a candy wrapper, covered in chocolate, and he tossed that, too. A few sheets remained tucked into the corners, some ripped pieces stuck under the heavy history textbook.

  But something caught his eye. One paper folded so neatly that for a second he thought it may have been a note he’d saved from his mom. She’d died when he was nine, and though he’d learned to live with that, he still treated the things she left behind like relics. But when he unfolded the sheet and realized what he was holding, a smile spread his lips. Dave’s eyes went down the list to number eight: Never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school.

  He looked at Julia, recalling the day they’d made the list, suddenly flushed with warmth at the thought that nothing had come between them in four years. She was holding on to her backpack’s straps, starting to get impatient. Everything about Julia was beautiful to him, but it was the side of her face that he loved the most. The slope of her neck, the slight jut of her chin, how the blue in her eyes popped. Her ears, which were the cutest ears on the planet, or maybe the only cute ones ever crafted.

  “David Nathaniel O’Flannery, why are we still here?”

  “How have we been best friends for this long and you still don’t know my full name?”

  “I know most of your initials. Can we go, please?”