Shannen Camp - The Breakup Artist

The deep thoughts were beginning to wear me out, so I quickly finished the dishes, trying to keep away thoughts about the meaning of life or the secret to immortality. Then I made my way to my bedroom to change. I looked through my closet to pick out what I’d wear to school that day and realized I didn’t have a job and could wear whatever I wanted. In fact, I could wear whatever I wanted for the rest of my life. I would actually have to develop a sense of style, which was a daunting task. After sixteen years of having no personality to speak of, I suddenly had to develop an entire persona. This was going to be difficult.

I looked through my many different styles of clothing and tried to find one that jumped out at me as being appealing. Nothing really seemed to grab my attention, sadly, and so in the end I wound up with blue jeans and a black tank top with my black and white canvas shoes. It was a boring selection, but it was all I could think of to wear. I tried to place this clothing choice into a category, but I couldn’t seem to pin it down. It was kind of a mixture between punk, artsy, and classical. Then again, I guess I didn’t need to attribute a label to myself to feel secure. I could just be Amelia and live with that.

I got to school about halfway through the lunch period, which was perfect, because some students would be streaming back in from the pizza place across the street by now. I made my way past the large statue of a knight in the main quad and over to the library where David was sitting, wearing blue jeans and a light blue, slightly distressed T-shirt. He grinned at me as I approached and, despite my best efforts to keep a straight face, I smiled back at him.

“Long time no see,” he said as I sat down next to him. “I wasn’t sure if you were hungry, but I didn’t really get anything for lunch since we just ate… did you want something?” I found it endearing that he thought of every little way to make me comfortable.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“So is this what you wear when you’re being yourself?” he asked, looking me over with approval.

“I’m not sure. It’s going to be an adjustment having to dress myself based on how I actually feel that day. I swear, it took me an hour to settle on jeans and a tank top.” I shook my head at the absurdity that something so normal and effortless seemed to be so difficult for me.

“Well, I think it looks great, but I was wondering, now that you don’t have to continually dye your hair anymore, what color do you think you’ll settle-oh… Nate’s coming over here,” David said, cutting himself off mid-sentence. I looked over toward the quad to see Nate striding over. I couldn’t read by his expression if he had already talked to Karen’s mom or not. To be completely honest, I had completely forgotten about the whole situation until that very moment. When he was within earshot, I tried to put on an encouraging smile, hoping he was coming to deliver good news.

“Hey Nate, what’s up?” I asked. A small smile was resting on his lips so I figured the news couldn’t be all bad.

“I talked to Karen’s mom last night. I know I was supposed to wait until today but I couldn’t. I just wanted to sort things out already and… well, I couldn’t help myself.” This report was nice to hear, but completely pointless until he actually told us how it went. Not wanting to deter him from his train of thought, though, I simply nodded encouragingly, willing him to continue. “She was really mad at first. I thought I’d completely messed things up, but after Karen calmed her down, we explained everything. We told her about all of the precautions we’d taken, about how Karen wouldn’t mind going back to being homeschooled if it meant we’d be able to stay together.” He stopped there, which was amazingly frustrating.

“And?” David and I asked in unison.

“And she said that as long as Karen agrees to be homeschooled and we run all dates by her first, she thinks it could be all right.” Nate seemed ecstatic with this news. It had apparently been quite an effort for him to keep the smile from his face while telling us the story so that he didn’t spoil the ending.

“That’s wonderful, Nate,” I said enthusiastically. The situation may still be a bit overbearing for my taste, but at least they were happy.

“I know!” he agreed wholeheartedly. “Thanks so much for helping,” he added sincerely. “I’ll have to remember to repay you someday,” he said as he turned to leave.

“Wait!” I said suddenly, remembering that I hadn’t actually broken them up. I fished my wallet out of my backpack and pulled out the fifty dollars Karen had given me. “Can you give this back to Karen?” I asked, holding the money out to Nate’s retreating form.

“I’ll repay the fifty dollars myself, and you keep that as a thank you from me. Besides, what you did for us is worth more money than that,” he conceded happily. And with that, he was gone, walking with a bounce in his step back to the cafeteria.

“Well, I’d say that was a nice way to end your career,” David said, looking at me.

“It is, isn’t it?” I hadn’t quite expected the end of my career to be such an easy transition. I’d always expected that I would miss something once it was over, that I’d feel empty or sad that the one constant in my life was no more. None of these feelings came, though. I felt completely at terms with my life and the changes it had taken for the better. I had David, I actually might have made friends with Nate and Karen, and everything was just fine. There was the problem of my mother and how she chose to spend her free time, but I suspected that I’d just have to accept that my mother and I would never understand each other. It was a sad reality, but it was one I could learn to live with.

David kissed me good-bye as the bell rang, and then I made my way to math. With only one class today, I actually felt like I might be able to handle the workload. Everything felt completely perfect. Too perfect. This should have been my first warning signal, but because I’d never experienced true happiness, I wasn’t anticipating a change of course. Real life throws you curve balls, and mine was coming fast. I was about to discover that in “normal” life, just when things start to look up and you become comfortable, things fall apart when you least expect it. Of course, being the social virgin that I was, I blissfully went about, enjoying my comfort zone, not knowing that the “falling apart” phase was lurking just around the corner.

I approached my locker after school, ready to deposit my math book and spend a lovely afternoon with David when I noticed a girl standing there. She wore stylish clothes that just reeked of designer labels. I suspected that she hadn’t spent less than $100 on jeans in her life. Her hair was dyed blonde in the way that actually made you wonder if it was dyed or natural. That color had definitely come from a salon and not from a bottle.

I approached the girl warily, sure she was there to give me a job, or maybe tell me that I’d been switched at birth and her incredibly rich parents had decided to take me back under their wing as their own, pay for my college, buy me a new car, and generally make my life easy. That wasn’t the case.

“Amelia Bedford?” she asked in a way that made her sound like a CSI agent trying to approach a murderer for questioning without scaring them off.

“Yes,” I answered apprehensively.

“I’m Rachel McKlintock,” she said, as if that name should mean a lot to me. It did ring a bell, of course. Everyone in school knew Rachel McKlintock’s parents were something like the fourth wealthiest people in the state. This was quite a feat in California, if you take into account that it’s where all the movie stars live. No one really knew why the McKlintocks had so much money, but that didn’t really matter. If you’re rich, you’re rich.