Break It Up (4 page)

Twenty minutes
later, I’m stepping in the front door of my house, with its spacious front room that is a living and dining area that curves around the state of the art kitchen. Food is very central to my parents’ lives, what with my stepmother being a chef and my dad knowing hundreds of traditional recipes by heart.

The sun isn’t up yet, but the horizon’s all alight.

Jason, the Hollywood A-lister half my friends would sleep with given
any
opportunity, is seated on the couch with a phone still in his hand. “It just occurred to me,” he says, “that making a phone call at this hour might make Chloe paranoid.” He doesn’t even look up as he speaks.

“Because all the tabloids and even some of the real press say you’re having an affair?” I ask.

His shoulders go stiff and his gaze snaps to my face. He’s got deep blue eyes—the kind that look Photoshopped and fake. Not like Zach’s, which are paler with a dark blue ring around the edge of the iris.

“Kyra, listen—”

“The press got a mislead somewhere. I know, I know.” And I do know. Jason and I can read each other easily.

He’s not having an affair. He’d sooner impale himself on a rusty spoon than do anything that would hurt Chloe in any way. It’s too simplistic to say he worships the ground she walks on or that she’s the woman of his dreams. She’s the woman of his ideal reality, the woman he feels he would have met and married more easily if he hadn’t gone to Hollywood and had instead stayed in Albuquerque and become a lawyer like his parents. Then he’d have met her at some local mixer, fallen madly in love, and been able to court her like a normal person. As it was, when he met her, he had this huge entourage tailing him, and when he managed to get her aside for a private word, paparazzi took pictures of the whole encounter. I watched him rip himself to shreds trying to get her to take a chance on him.

One night, over a year ago, I sat in the back hallway of this house and eavesdropped on him in this very room, on this very couch, pouring his heart out to Jen. He’d confessed to Chloe that he loved her. The problem was, they weren’t even dating at the time and she’d politely shown him the door.

Now it’s like he still thinks he’s on borrowed time, like any moment she’ll come to her senses and realize that being married to Jason Vanderholt is every
other
woman’s fantasy, not hers.

I’m pretty sure she’s crazy about him, though. I can’t read her well, but she sticks around no matter how weird it all gets. I don’t know many women who’d sit reading science articles with a highlighter in one hand while their significant other made out with someone else in front of rolling cameras, but Chloe does it all the time.

“The tabloids wouldn’t get to her if she didn’t love you,” I point out.

“There’s that.”

“Come on, this is Chloe. She survived a murder attempt when she was eleven. You think the media can faze her?”

Jason nods. “Yes I do. The media can take down whole governments. One marriage is nothing.”

“Jason…”

Before I think of the right thing to say, he gets up and heads back to the guestroom, where Chloe is no doubt still sleeping. I’ve never been a Jason Vanderholt fan, as in someone who ever had pictures of him up on my wall or fantasized about kissing him, but I’d give anything to find a guy who likes me a tenth as much as he loves her.

A couple
of hours later, I’m in the kitchen with Chloe, drinking coffee. I’ve told her the whole story of last night, minus the part about Zach being a mega famous musician. I just said I was out with “friends” and fell asleep with “this guy.” “He’s going to hate me,” is how I finish it off.

“Then you can do better,” she says. “Forget about him. Sounds like a judgmental jerk. I mean, he fell asleep too. It’s not like this is all your fault.”

“You think so?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Morning,” says Jen, my stepmother, padding into the kitchen in her slippers and bathrobe.

“Morning,” says Chloe.

I roll my eyes. “Nice waiting in the hall to eavesdrop until we’re done talking about the juicy stuff.”

Jen cuffs me on the shoulder. “I love you.” She’s so enormous that her bathrobe doesn’t cover her pregnant belly. The belt is tied across an expanse of pink nightgown, and her ankles are like tree trunks, which makes me feel extra guilty.

“Love you too,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I fell asleep. I totally would’ve been home by midnight. It was an accident.”

Jen winks at Chloe as she reaches for a coffee mug.

Chloe grabs a bowl of cereal and eats it quickly before heading out the door.

Jen takes her time with her half cup of coffee—which is all she’s allowed per day while pregnant—and scrutinizes me. “You all right?” she asks.

Right then, my father steps around the corner, wearing his faded denim work clothes. He’s a foreman of a construction company. Lucky for me, he doesn’t scowl. He just smiles in that way that makes his mustache curve up at the edges and gets his own cup of coffee.

“Okay.” I face both of them, the counter at my back, the coffeemaker hissing and dribbling its dark brew into the carafe to my right. The sun’s up, but its light is still pale and anemic as it slants in through the front windows. “So, about last night.”

“Mmm-hmm?” My father doesn’t even seem all that uptight. He just sips his cup of coffee and drops a couple slices of bread in the toaster.

“Those guys I was out with?”

“You said friends, not guys.” My father’s eyes twinkle as he pretends to scold me. It’s weird. Why isn’t he on the verge of going ballistic?

“It was Triple Cross. The band. Their assistant called and invited me out to dinner, so I went with Marissa and Brandy and I was talking to Zach Wechsler in his room when I fell asleep.”

“That sounds like a wild night,” says Jen. She doesn’t look all that angry either. The two of them smile at me as if this is all some kind of joke.

That is messed up.

“How am I not grounded right now?” I say.

“You didn’t lie to us,” says my father. “If we wanted to know every single last person you were out with, we should have asked. You let us know your phone might die. If we’d wanted you home right at midnight, we knew we could have called Marissa or Brandy.”

“I still did something dumb.”

“Mistakes happen,” says Jen. “And that’s a pretty funny one, if you think about it.”

“Why do you guys believe me?”

“Because you tell us the truth these days.” Jen puts her empty coffee mug down and shrugs. “It’s not like we were lying when we said that if you only would tell us the truth, we’d cut you more slack.”

“And you’re eighteen,” my father says. “So legally, you can be out as late as you want.”

This is totally and completely bizarre. I am not the kind of person adults trust, especially not my own parents. I’ve done so many stupid things that it’s a wonder they haven’t locked me in a tower somewhere.

“Kyra,” says Jen, “are you actually mad at us for not reaming you out?” She starts to laugh.

“It’s
weird
,” I insist.

“It’s the new normal, sweetie,” says my father. He spreads some jam on his toast, gives me a peck on the forehead, hugs Jen, and then heads for the back door.

And just like that, my face-off with them is over. Nobody screamed. Nobody cried. It’s just
weird
.

Later that
afternoon, after a long morning nap, my phone rings with a number I don’t recognize. “Hello?” I answer it. I hold it to my ear with one hand and clutch the handle of the refrigerator door with the other. I’m starving, as I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch.

“Hey.” It’s a male voice.

“Um… hi?”

“How’re you?”

“Sorry, but who is this?”

“It’s Ben.”

“Yeah, what do you want?” I jibe. Because this is totally how I talk to rocker sex gods. Apparently.

“Hello to you too.”

“Thanks for walking me to my car last night.”

“You’re welcome. And now you have my number. If you ever need it.”

“Right,” I say. Surely this is a joke.

“Later.”

“Later.” I hang up. I really need more caffeine. I have no idea what just happened there.

However…
something occured to me. I dive for the caller ID box next to our landline. My call from late last night is logged—with Zach’s phone number.

The etiquette in this situation is to delete the call record and leave it at that, but instead I copy the number into my phone under the name “Brad Sego,” my lab partner in ninth grade chemistry. I suggested doing this for Jason, but he always shot me down, no matter how amusing the names were I came up with. He still doesn’t trust me because he has a memory, unlike my parents.

I delete the number from the caller ID and slip my phone into my pocket. I know better than to use it. Really, I do.

I should not be taking my phone back out of my pocket and bringing up Zach’s number, and I should
definitely
not open up a text message to him. This is not allowed. I’m breaking the cardinal rules of celebrity. Try to be “friends” with a famous person and you will get kicked to the curb. They’ll block your phone and you’ll
never
get invited to do anything with them ever again. I’m an acquaintance, nothing more. Maybe that’s what I want, though. It’d prevent another night like last night.

“It was nice to meet you,” I type.

I hit send.

Three hours
later, my phone pings.

Brad Sego:
It was nice to meet you too. Hope you got home all right?

A reply? I take a deep breath. He’s just being friendly, which is
torture
.

The right thing to do is to say yes and
not text again
. Drop it. Let it be over.

Kyra:
Yes. I’m really sorry I fell asleep on your bed.

Because I am an
idiot
and am having word vomit issues—even through a text interface.

I don’t get a response.

Until five minutes later.

Brad Sego:
I bet you were tired.

Blood rushes in my ears as I read the words Zach Wechsler typed himself just moments ago. That text is the end of a conversation. He didn’t ask any questions, so that means our little back and forth is over. Those are the rules.

But…I wonder if his mother never taught him the rules. Maybe he doesn’t know that girls aren’t supposed to be making chitchat with him via his phone?

Why do I care, though? The whole point is to not prolong this whole “friendly” exchange. I put my phone down on my nightstand and flop back on my bed.
Leave it
, I think.
It’s over.

It feels like my phone has eyes, though, and it’s staring at me. “Don’t ignore me,” it says. “What if he’s waiting for a reply?”

He isn’t,
I think as I roll over and grab my phone. I’m being an idiot.