Shannen Camp - The Breakup Artist

“Excuse me?” I asked, with as much venom in my voice as I could muster.

“Blane already has a new girlfriend, and Claire broke up with me a few minutes ago.” I blinked up at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying. My clients had been taken care of, which meant that I hadn’t failed, but this boy was still threatening to ruin my career. When I really looked closely at David to size up how much of a threat he posed, I noticed that he had completely changed. He was no longer wearing his jock attire, but a black T-shirt and jeans. Even his hair seemed to be a bit messier as it hung in his eyes. It was almost as if this boy were doing my job in exact reverse. He even dressed to fit the part he was playing.

So this whole thing was real. He knew where I came when I wasn’t working. He knew that my wardrobe matched my clients’. He knew everything. So what had the date been about? Was he trying to get some great confession out of me? And had the purpose of the kiss been to simply make me doubt my career choice? Or maybe the kiss was just a perk for him for his year of hard work. I scowled at him now and stood up so we were almost equal, though he was a bit taller than me, even in the heels. I had to remember to keep my emotions under control. If he knew the kiss was still bothering me so much, then he would think he had won. He’d think he had some power over me. With this in mind, I pushed back any feelings that short, intimate experience had brought on and set my jaw stubbornly.

“Listen. I don’t take kindly to threats. If you don’t like my business, that’s not my problem. And quite frankly, how I choose to make money is none of your business, so what gives you the right to come in here and screw with everything?” I felt like I’d burst into flames at any moment with the fiery heat of the anger I was feeling. At first my blow up had been about pride and fear of losing my job, but now that I had taken a moment to step back and really assess the situation, I could see that David was pulling rank where he had none.

“Amelia, the well-being of others is everyone’s business,” he answered calmly. What was he now, the guardian angel of high school flings? I’d had enough of this boy.

“Yeah, David, thanks for the infomercial, but I don’t have to listen to this.” I began walking away when he yelled out to me again.

“I don’t want things to get messy. If you’ll just stop this, I won’t bother you anymore. But if you take on more clients I’ll be forced to interject. Today was nothing,” he added as an afterthought. I turned around and walked back to him, not quite ready to give up the fight yet.

“Why do you care so much? None of this has anything to do with you. I don’t understand why you’re making this into such a big deal. It’s just high school.” I stared at him, waiting for an answer because frankly, I was curious to know why a career choice that had nothing to do with him would be so offensive.

“Honestly?” he asked.

“Obviously,” I answered snidely.

“I’d started hearing about you from friends. They had all been in the same situation and didn’t realize until later that they had been dumped by proxy.” He gave me a reproachful look here but I said nothing, so he went on. “Once I realized that all of these different people were talking about the same girl, I decided to track you down. At first I was offended for my friends that they hadn’t been given an explanation for the relationship termination from the horse’s mouth, but after I watched you for a while I became… fascinated.”

His brows came together in a hard line and the same look of confusion that I’d seen on the doorstep returned. I gave a small shiver as flashbacks of Saturday night’s little scene replayed in my mind. Yet again, I had to remind myself to focus.

“Why would someone dedicate their time in high school to doing the one thing people in high school are desperate to avoid? And then I thought that surely you were doing it for some outrageous price.” I looked down at this, feeling a bit guilty that he knew I had been paid to break up with him. It must have been an awkward thing to find out.

“But fifty dollars, Amelia?” He sounded almost disappointed. “If you’re going to be such a sleaze bag, at least charge more.”

Whoa, I must have missed something in that conversation. I tried to quickly replay everything he’d just said but couldn’t seem to find where he suddenly thought I was the one being ripped off.

“I thought you didn’t like how I made money,” I hurriedly pointed out.

“I don’t like it or condone it in any way, but if you’re going to sell your soul, at least make sure the devil isn’t ripping you off.” He said this all so matter-of-factly that I was beginning to wonder if he was actually a breakup artist also and he was just trying to scare me out of his territory. It wasn’t so hard to believe.

“Anyway, we’re digressing. What I’m trying to say is that I want to help you,” he concluded, as if that statement made all the sense in the world.

“By destroying my one way of paying for college?” I asked sarcastically.

“Not your business. I want to burn your business to the ground. And I will. I want to help you .” For some odd reason he thought putting the emphasis on different words made his point more clear. He might as well just emphasize every word for all the difference it made. I shook my head at him, showing that I still wasn’t following whatever it was he was trying to say. He hesitated for a moment, which I found scary. Mr. Big Mouth didn’t know how to put whatever it was he was trying to express into a fully formed sentence. “Are your parents still together?” he asked finally.

I let out a deep sigh of annoyance. So that’s where this was going. He figured that I must be some poor, emotionally scarred girl who was so messed up inside that the only way she could comfort herself was by ruining other people’s relationships. That had to make perfect sense, right? Because who would actually do my line of work if they weren’t some kind of sadist?

“This has nothing to do with my parents,” I said darkly, implying that he should simply drop it before I shoved my granola bar down his throat. He nodded his head slowly in a superior way that made me sick. He thought he’d really hit something now. I wondered secretly if he had some sort of timer going so that he could charge me by the minute for this psychology session. “My home life, like my job, is none of your business. So back off.” I glared at him, my blue eyes burning holes into his green ones for as long as I could without blinking. He went longer. Of course. Anything that could possibly be annoying, this boy could do.

“Amelia, I want to help you get over whatever it is,” he began, before I silenced him with a raise of my hand.

“I’m not a news story, David. I’m really sorry you need fuel for your writing, but it’s not me.” And with that I left for class, even though I still had a good ten minutes before the bell rang. I must admit though, the look of shock on his face as I walked away actually made the whole argument worth it. I had no idea why he was so surprised by my words, but honestly, right at that moment, I didn’t care.

I knew David would probably try to follow me to class so I went the one place I could-the girl’s bathroom. Once I was locked safely in a stall, I sat on the tank of the toilet and let my forehead rest on my knees as a hot tear slid down my cheek.

I’d been asked by many school counselors how I felt about my father disappearing. Obviously it wasn’t a big deal to me, but none of them seemed to believe that. They always told me it had to have some sort of deep psychological impact on my life that would manifest itself unconsciously in my actions, and I always waved away their suspicions with a laugh. Yet here David was, making-what I’m sure he thought-was a pretty obvious connection. A girl who ends relationships as a job must have divorced parents who don’t have enough time to pay attention to her. This was simply a way of getting some attention. At least that’s what he thought.