How to Heal a Broken Heart (7 page)

“Andrew,” I say, “Evan is not talking to you until you admit you ate his sandwich and apologize for it.”

Andrew shoots me a half smile and shakes his head. “I kind of got that.”

“Well,” I say, “In his defense, you should never come between a person and their sandwich.”

“You heard me,” he says casually. “I didn’t eat it.”

I roll my eyes “Oh, please. You ate it.”

He shrugs. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

He pauses a second before he answers. “How do you know?”

“Because,” I say, not meeting his eyes. “You like getting under Evan’s skin.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, really.”

“How do you know what I do or don’t like?” he asks with a curious look on his face.

I meet his eyes for the first time. “I just know.”

He studies my face for a second but before he has a chance to say anything Chelsea is back with two red cups in her hand.

“Here.” She hands one of the cups to me. “I hope beer is okay.”

I nod. “That’s fine.” I’m honestly not a very big drinker, never have been, but in social settings I’ll have a little alcohol once in a while. I take a small sip and cringe at the taste. I catch Andrew muffling a small laugh and I shoot him a dirty look.

“So,” Chelsea says, trying to sound a little too casual. “Did you come with Brad?”

Andrew shoots her a grin. “Why? Were you looking for him or something?”

Chelsea shakes her head and glances around the room. “No. I was just wondering.”

She’s lying. I know because on the way over here Chelsea was totally obsessing over the fact that Brad Masini might be here. She was all like, “Do I look okay?” and

“Should I go up to him or should I wait for him to come up to me?”

Brad Masini is this kid in our grade with dark black hair, tan skin, and a nice smile. I don’t really know him but supposedly he’s this like amazing football player or something. And Chelsea seems to be obsessed with him. From what I could gather she’s planning to finally “make her move” tonight. Whatever that means.

“There he is!” Andrew says, pointing toward the front of the room.

“Shh!” Chelsea slaps Andrew’s hand down. “Don’t point!”

“You should go talk to him,” Andrew tells her. “He asked me if you were coming.”

“He did not!” she says, a smile spreading across her face.

“I swear he did.”

Chelsea looks from Brad to me a few times and I can tell she’s torn because she wants to go talk to him but she doesn’t want to leave me.

“Go ahead,” Andrew says. “Me and Stephanie have to run to the store anyway.”

“You do?” Chelsea asks.

“We do?” I ask.

Andrew shakes his head. “Evan is almost out of food and I can just see him blaming that on me, too.”

Chelsea looks at me with a pleading look in her eyes. And really, what can I say?

I mean, it’s not Chelsea’s responsibility to babysit me all night. If she wants to go talk to her crush she should be able to. So I nod to let her know that it’s okay.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she exclaims and then she takes off.

“Come on,” Andrew says, starting to walk toward the door. “My car’s out front.”

And I find myself following him.

Andrew’s car is, like, spotless. Rich’s car always had fast food bags crowding the floors or papers and trash on the seat. The second I step inside Andrew’s car, though, I can tell he’s different. I don’t even see a trace of dust anywhere.

He must notice me looking around because he laughs out loud. “Something wrong with my car?”

I shake my head no. “It’s just really clean.”

“Oh, I get it,” he says, nodding. “You used to date a guy who had a messy car, right?”

Ugh. He could honestly be the most annoying person on the face of the earth.

Why does he have to assume that just because I happened to look around his car it was because I dated a guy with a messy car?

“No, actually, I didn’t.”

He smirks. “Seems like you did to me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” I say, sounding sure of myself even to me.

“Whatever you say.” He turns the car on and shifts it into drive.

I roll my eyes and reach over to turn the radio on. He pushes my hand away playfully before I have a chance to hit the power button and I snatch my hand back.

“Oww!”

“Oh please,” he says, “that didn’t hurt.”

“Yes, it did.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Yes, it did!” I tell him, even though it didn’t. “You can’t tell me if something does or doesn’t hurt.”

“Yes, I can, now put your seat belt on.”

I scowl but reach over and put my seat belt on anyway.

“You’re really annoying,” I announce. “You find something wrong with everything I do.”

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. Let’s have a talk about it.”

A talk about it? He wants to have a talk about it? No thanks. He’s just looking for an excuse to get under my skin again. I think I’ll pass on that.

“Lets talk about why you always try to get under Evan’s skin,” I suggest.

He chuckles. “I don’t try to get under his skin. You just assume I do.”

“Oh, so we aren’t being honest with each other then?” I shoot at him coyly.

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, as if he’s thinking about what I just said.

Then he shrugs and starts to talk. “I don’t know. It keeps things interesting, I guess. He’s been that way ever since we were kids, picking stupid fights with me. It’s just how we are. And yeah, sometimes, not all the time, I do stupid things to mess with his head, like eat his sandwich.”

I smile. “I knew you did it.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. And I know what you’re thinking, but Evan is actually a really good friend.”

“What is it that I’m thinking?” I ask.

“You know,” he says as we pull into the parking lot of the gas station up the street from Evan’s house. “That he’s a lot to put up with.”

“Actually, I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

Andrew pulls the car into a parking spot and turns off the ignition. “Really?”

“Really,” I say, opening my door. “I think he’s nice. Why, is that what some of your other friends think?”

Andrew nods and we start to walk into the gas station. “Yeah, certain people give me a hard time about it.”

And I know who he’s talking about without him having to say anything else.

Probably people who he plays sports with or people who hang out with Mary who think that you can only be friends with certain types of people. Just hearing about it makes me feel sick.

“Why do you have that look on your face?” Andrew asks. We’re inside the store now and Andrew’s filling his hands with different kinds of chips, cookies, pretzels, and an enormous amount of candy. He’s moving so fast that I’m not even sure he realizes what he’s picking up.

“What look?” I ask as he picks up a bag of peanuts and shoves them in my arms.

“That look like you’re going to throw up or something.”

I shrug. “We just live in completely different worlds, that’s all.”

He nudges me toward the counter. “Not really.”

“Yes, really,” I say, throwing the bag of peanuts on the counter. “I mean, last time I checked no one was allowed to give me any shit about my friends.”

“Hey, there,” the girl behind the counter says, looking directly at Andrew and completely ignoring me. She’s younger, with short blonde hair, way too much make up, and a shirt that looks like something my little sister would wear.

Andrew smiles and the girl starts to scan the items on the counter. “Someone’s having a party, huh?”

I roll my eyes and Andrew shoots me a smirk.

“Not me.,” he says, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “My friend.”

“I like to party,” she says and then she winks at him.

Literally, she winks at them. Um, really? Does anyone even do that anymore?

Wink? I mean, honestly.

“I’ll be in the car,” I announce, and then I turn around and walk out the door before either of them have a chance to say anything. I’m leaning against the passenger side of Andrew’s car when he comes outside a few minutes later.

“Thanks for staying to help me carry the bags,” he says, holding up two huge white bags that are overflowing with snacks.

I shrug. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the keys, then unlocks his car doors. “No need to be jealous, Stephanie.”

I glare at him. “Please. I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t feel like sticking around to witness her pathetic attempt at hitting on you.”

He drops the bags of snacks into the backseat, and I slam the door shut behind me.

“Oh no,” he says, “you don’t sound jealous at all.”

“Well, somehow I don’t think Mary would like that,” I tell him smugly.

“Well, I don’t think she has a right to say anything since me and her aren’t dating.” I roll my eyes and he keeps talking. “And for the record, no one gives me shit about who I’m friends with. I talk to who I want, when I want, and I really don’t care what anyone has to say about it.”

I don’t say anything, not because I don’t believe him, but because I can’t help but wonder if that applies to me. I wonder what his friends would say if they knew he had invited me to the store with him tonight. Or if Mary knew, what she would say.

“I’m surprised you came tonight,” Andrew breaks the silence as we creep closer to Evan’s house.

I think about shooting a snotty remark his way or turning it into a joke but for some reason I stop myself. I think it’s because somehow I know that he wouldn’t buy it or that it wouldn’t work the way it did on Evan.

“I am, too,” I say softly as he parks on the side of the road a few houses away from the party.

“It’s okay to allow yourself to have fun, you know. Just every once and a while.”

He smiles and then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of peanut butter cups and holds them out to me. “Here.”

“How did you know they were my favorite?” I ask, looking at his hands and not making any move to grab the candy from him.

“You were eating them that night at the bowling alley, right?”

And then I do something crazy. Maybe it’s because I know I get these butterflies in my stomach whenever he’s around, or maybe it’s because for the first time in a long time I feel just a little bit like myself again. It could be that I can’t lie to him because somehow he can see through me. Or maybe it’s just those damn peanut butter cups that push me over the edge.

Whatever it is, I find myself throwing myself on top of him and crushing my lips against his. Not even because I want to, but because something inside of me tells me I need to.

But what’s even more crazy is that his hands are in my hair and he’s kissing me back. Andrew Collins is kissing me back.

And it’s absolutely amazing.

So here’s the thing. Andrew Collins could be the best kisser to ever walk the face of the earth. I mean, not that I’ve kissed that many boys. Only four to be exact, and one I don’t even remember. Not because I was drunk or anything, but because I was only seven and it was at my cousin’s wedding. I don’t even know if I kissed him for sure. My mom and dad just told me I did. But that’s not the point. The point is that Andrew is for sure the best kiss I’ve ever had.

It started off really intense, probably because I pounced on top of him, but after a few minutes we started to slow down and kind of set into a rhythm. And then suddenly it would get intense again. We didn’t stop making out. I mean, we did, but not for, like, at least twenty minutes. And that was only because Chelsea pounded on Andrew’s car window and interrupted us.

“What are you doing?” she exclaims. “I’ve been calling you! Evan’s parents came home and they are pissed! We need to get out of here NOW!”

Then, before I have a chance to protest, she swings open Andrew’s passenger side door and grabs my arm, dragging me out of the car. “NOW!” she says again. “They’re calling people’s parents! Bye, Andrew, it was nice seeing you.” And then she slams the door shut and pulls me after her toward her car.

“What. The. Fuck. Was. That?” she asks me.

And all I can do is shake my head because I don’t know what it was.

And now it’s the next morning, and I’m laying in my bed thinking about it, and I still can’t figure it out. I mean, what was I thinking just throwing myself at him like that?

I have no idea what came over me, no idea what I was thinking.

Andrew and I are from completely different worlds. It would never work. Not to mention I’m not the type of girl who just goes around kissing boys randomly. And Andrew Collins of all people! I don’t even like him! He drives me absolutely crazy.

Not to mention the whole Mary situation. Ugh, how could I be so stupid? I mean, he said they weren’t dating, but who really knows? If they really were he wouldn’t have kissed me back, right? Unless he’s that much of a jerk.

The whole situation is starting to drive me a little crazy. So I decide right then and there to forget that it happened, because I already knew how it would end. With Andrew back with Mary, and me making a fool of myself. Might as well save myself the trouble.

The thing about a broken heart is that sometimes, even if there’s something that starts to make you happy again, something that starts to make you feel like maybe you’ll be okay again ---well, sometimes you don’t think you deserve to have it. Sometimes you feel like you should still be miserable. But mostly you’re just really scared of it, so you push it away. You push it down deep into the bottom part of your soul and make yourself forget that it was ever there to begin with.

I don’t hear from or see Andrew for a week and a half after the night we kissed.

Which is just fine with me. It’s not like I expected him to call me or anything, I don’t think he even has my number. I come to the conclusion that he must feel the same way I do about that night -- that it was a horrible mistake.

I’m almost beginning to wonder if maybe I’d dreamed the whole entire thing when there he is. Andrew, I mean. He’s just standing down at the other end of the bowling alley with Evan, getting ready to bowl. He’s early too, because I always make sure I’m gone by the time they get here.