My mom wasn’t home when I arrived from school, which didn’t surprise me too much, though it was always a disappointment. I found some leftover steak and potatoes from one of her “client dinners,” so I reheated it and made that my dinner. I spent that night trying to figure out how to woo Nate when I was supposed to be someone as sweet as Karen. After my little conversation with Karen earlier in the day, I had found David waiting by my car and had asked his advice on the situation, thinking he’d have a bit more insight than I did. Sadly, he couldn’t think of an easy way around the whole mess, so we parted there with the promise that I’d see him the next day.
I was so exhausted by the day’s events that I didn’t even feel like painting, let alone doing homework, when I trudged to my room. I figured that everything that was due the next day I had already done, and all of my other homework could wait until tomorrow. My entire body felt tired from the emotional ups and downs of the day, and I began to wonder if maybe there was some sort of bug going around, and if Karen had given it to me. I concentrated all my efforts on going to sleep, and after what seemed like hours, sleep finally overtook me, giving me a dreamless eight hours before my alarm went off.
My wardrobe wasn’t difficult to pick out that day, since Karen wasn’t exactly the complicated type. I wore khaki pants with white sandals and a white form-fitting T-shirt. With my hair pulled back into a short ponytail, I slung my white backpack over my shoulder and made my way out the door. I noticed my mom’s car in the driveway, which meant she’d had a long night and must have been sleeping. When she didn’t bother opening the garage to pull her car in, I knew she’d gotten home much later than she’d want to let on.
I got into my own silver car and drove to school in silence. I had called David the night before to tell him not to talk to me today so that if Nate happened to walk by, he wouldn’t see me kissing some boy, and then trying to flirt with him. It had to seem like I was available, or this would never work. David hadn’t been happy with this idea, and I couldn’t blame him. Even I wasn’t happy with this, and I was the one making the rules.
Pulling into the busy school parking lot, I glanced down at the clock on my dashboard. I only had about five minutes before the bell rang, so I’d have to seek Nate out quickly. I made my way to the cafeteria and pulled an apple from my backpack. This, of course, was simply a prop to make it look like I had a legitimate excuse to be in the cafeteria. I spotted Nate easily enough. His light brown hair and rosy cheeks gave him away pretty quickly. His back was to me, and his shoulders were hunched over as if he, too, were exhausted. There’s definitely a bug going around, I thought glumly.
Pulling on the hair in my ponytail to make sure it was firmly in place, I slid onto the bench next to Nate, causing him to jump slightly. When he looked up at me, I realized that he looked almost as pale as Karen had the day before. His cheeks were still bright red, but I suspected he could be frozen to death and his cheeks would remain naturally rosy. I wondered for a moment if perhaps Nate had gotten Karen sick, but thoughts like that didn’t get my job done, so I pushed them away to concentrate on what I was doing now.
“Are you Nate?” I asked sweetly, letting an innocent smile play on my lips. He paid absolutely no attention to my full lips as some boys did when I talked to them, and I was instantly reminded that this was going to be a difficult job.
“Yeah, I am… why?” It didn’t seem to be enough of a happy occurrence that a pretty girl was sitting with him; he was apparently the questioning type and needed a reason for this phenomenon.
“I’m a friend of Karen’s,” I said, my voice still oozing with honey. This got a reaction out of him, and he instantly straightened up and scooted closer to me, looking into my eyes intently.
“Is she all right?” he asked quickly, an urgency in his voice that I found touching. I was a bit puzzled by this reaction but responded to it with perfect cordiality.
“Oh, yes, she’s fine. She’s just feeling a bit under the weather.” I gave him a winning smile that was a mixture of sympathy for my supposed best friend and allure for him. He didn’t react to it in the slightest.
“Oh, good,” he breathed, obvious relief lining his voice.
“I, on the other hand,” I said as I scooted closer to him, “am all alone today. I was supposed to sit with Karen since it’s my first day at school and everything, but she’s sick, so I don’t know a single person here.” I batted my eyelashes at him a bit, and he cleared his throat and scooted away. At least I was making him nervous, that much was evident.
“Well, I’ll be here at break and lunch if you need someone to sit with, but if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to my first class. Can you find yours all right?” All of this was said with such a polite concern that I couldn’t lie to the boy, so I simply nodded my head and watched him walk away. I checked my watch once more and saw that there were only two minutes until the bell rang. Letting out a deep sigh, I threw the apple back into my backpack and stood up, only to have hands circle my waist from behind to rest lightly on my stomach. I turned my head with a shocked look of confusion to find David resting his chin on my shoulder.
“That didn’t seem to go well,” he remarked without any malice. There was only mild interest in his voice. He may not like my line of work, but at least he liked me enough to know when he shouldn’t tease me too much.
“Not at all,” I answered as I tilted my head to the side so that our cheeks were touching. I knew I shouldn’t be so close to David when I was in character to break someone up, but I knew Nate would be halfway to his first class right now anyway, so I didn’t see much point in enforcing that rule.
“Well,” David began, gearing up for what sounded like the beginnings of a pep talk, “after what you told me yesterday, I think your best bet for this one might just be to tell him the truth. I mean, you may be the most beautiful girl ever, but that boy’s got it bad. He’s not going to take any bait you put out there.” This all made sense, but the one thing David didn’t understand was that I couldn’t tell him the truth because Karen had told me not to.
“What if I’m not allowed to?” I asked, wondering what he might have to say to that little detail.
“I think Karen should be grateful to you for getting the job done, so I don’t think she should be able to put too many stipulations on exactly how it’s done. This really is probably the only way to complete this assignment so I can finally have you all to myself.” He kissed my cheek lightly after saying this, pulling me closer to him. I placed my hands on top of his where they rested on my stomach and I closed my eyes. I felt so comfortable and safe with him there. It was such a weird feeling to have after only knowing him for a short time. I hoped beyond everything that jumping into this relationship so fast wouldn’t come back to bite me in the butt later.
“I guess that’s my only option,” I agreed quietly.
When the bell rang, David and I went our separate ways, fully aware that we wouldn’t be able to see each other for the rest of the day. After psychology I sought Nate out and found him just where he had said he’d be. I was afraid that after our interaction that morning, he would have found somewhere to hide from me until Karen came back to school the next day, so I was slightly shocked to see he’d kept his word. Then again, Nate just seemed to be that kind of guy-the kind who kept his word.
I slid into the spot next to him, yet again, and startled him, yet again. He looked up at me with what I thought looked like exasperation. “Hi,” he said, his eyes returning to the book in front of him. I looked down at the title written across the top of each page and almost laughed when I read Romeo and Juliet. I had to quickly compose myself and put on a neutral face.
“English class,” he said, following my gaze to the source of my amusement. Those two words were all I needed to jump right in to my job.
“So I’ve been hanging out with Karen for a while now,” I started, gauging his reaction, which was absolutely unreadable. He didn’t even look up from his book to talk to me, so I pushed on. “She’s so much fun to hang out with.” I looked at him once more and got nothing. It was like talking to a brick wall. If I hadn’t seen him act so lively with Karen only the day before, I would have wondered what she saw in this guy. If he were like this with her, it would be like having a relationship with a teapot or a loaf of bread.
The only way to get this job done, apparently, would be to just drop my normal lines without waiting for his reactions and just see where to go from there. “So since we’ve been hanging out so much she’s really started thinking about how much she likes to just be one of the girls.” Still absolutely no reaction from Nate. “She’s kind of realized that she’d like some freedom in her life… you know… not being tied down and all?” I wasn’t really doing a good job at cushioning the blow, but it wasn’t my fault. This guy was so head over heels for Karen that he wouldn’t respond if a supermodel came and flirted with him. Not that I was comparing myself to a supermodel.
“So, I’m really sorry… I guess this is my fault for giving her a taste of single life, but she wants to break up with you,” I finally said, his lack of reaction making me bold enough to just come right out and say it. I suppose I thought maybe he wouldn’t react to that either and I’d have completed my job with no verbal backlash from the dumpee. I was wrong, of course, but not in the way I expected to be wrong.
“She doesn’t want to break up with me,” he said simply, his eyes still trained on the page in front of him. I wondered if he was actually reading the play or just keeping it there so that he wouldn’t have to look at me.
“Yes, she does,” I said, almost defensively, as if he were calling me a liar by not believing me.
“No, she doesn’t,” he countered. His voice was still neutral, like he was telling me that the capital of California was Sacramento. Finally, after a long silence of my confusion and his stubborn insistence, he looked up from the book. “Who are you really?” he asked, with a resigned curiosity.
“I told you, I’m Karen’s friend,” I repeated. He shook his head at this but kept his eyes trained on mine.
“I’ve known Karen her whole life. We’ve been friends since we could talk. She only has a small handful of friends and most of them are homeschooled.” My mouth hung open slightly from his completely out of the blue response. I hadn’t expected him to know her so well, but then again, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t dealing with a normal high school relationship. “So who are you?” he asked again.
“Amelia,” I answered, though that didn’t really answer his question.
“And she sent you to try to break up with me because she didn’t want to do it herself?” he asked. This boy really was more astute than I gave him credit for. I nodded dumbly, wondering what I was supposed to do now. I felt like a spy whose identity had just been compromised, except I didn’t exactly have the option of setting off a smoke bomb to make my great escape.
Nate closed the book that lay on the table in front of him. “Listen, Amelia. I know you think you’re helping her out, but you’re really not. Karen’s mom is just overprotective of her because of her condition.” He looked at me, searching my face for some scrap of understanding to see how much I actually knew about Karen.
“Condition?” I repeated with my brows drawn together in confusion.
“When she was little she got scarlet fever and it left her with a weak immune system. Now the smallest bug going around makes her sick. It was a battle just for her mom to let her go to a public school, so a boyfriend has always been completely out of the question.” He kept his eyes trained on mine as though he were willing himself to be strong and continue on with the story of a life I was oblivious to. “As you can imagine, her mom is a little wary of Karen kissing boys or holding hands when she needs to be kept away from any germs. We’ve always been really careful, though. If I get even the smallest cold, I won’t even come to school since we have a lot of the same classes. I wash my hands every five seconds when I’m around her, and we only kiss if we’re both completely healthy.”
His words were so heartfelt and concerned that I couldn’t believe I’d actually set out to break them up. The fact that Nate was willing to risk a normal life just to be around Karen was almost too much for me to comprehend.
“She thinks she needs to break up with me because of her mom, but I know that if her mom knew how careful we were, she wouldn’t object to our relationship. Karen’s being unreasonable, though. She’s terrified that if I ask, her mom will take her out of public school and she’ll never see me.” Now Nate looked down, the weight of the situation clearly on his shoulders. “I don’t know what to do,” he concluded quietly. I bit my lip and looked down also. What could he do? I didn’t know Karen well, but maybe since she’d trusted me with the disposal of a relationship she was so fully invested in, she would trust my advice to let Nate talk with her mother.
“Maybe I can try talking to her. Karen, I mean. Maybe if I could get her to see reason, she’d let you talk to her mother. That way her mom would know there were ground rules to govern your relationship, since Karen is so fragile.” I looked at him hopefully, finding that I actually wanted to save this relationship, even though my job had always been to destroy them. Maybe it was my connection with David that had sparked it, but I had a lot of hope for Karen and Nate.
“That might work,” he said as he lifted his head to look at me. His eyes held a small spark of hope that I couldn’t ignore.
“I’ll call her later and see if you can come meet her mom tomorrow after school when she picks Karen up.” At these words Nate looked a bit doubtful.
“If she’s in school tomorrow. When she gets sick, Karen usually stays out of school for at least a week.”
“Well, then, you’ll just have to meet her mom on your own terms away from school. Besides, it’ll look like you’re much more serious about this if you go out of your way to meet her mom.” I’d had some experience in the relationship world, and though my expertise didn’t involve much hands-on practice, I knew what impressed people and how to really show them that you meant business.
“All right, it’s a deal,” Nate said, the spark of life that I’d seen in him the day before lighting once more. “Thanks, Amelia,” he said as the bell rang and he made his way to class. I had to admit that I felt pretty good about myself as I walked to my English class. Of course, there was the question of exactly how I’d get Karen to accept my terms, but that was just a small detail.
I didn’t have any time to work out my plan of attack during English because our teacher had decided that we needed to write a timed essay. She gave us a topic and started the timer, and I quickly learned that no one should ever write for two hours straight. By the time I left English for lunch, my hand was cramping and covered in ink.
I walked quickly to my spot by the library after stopping off to tell Nate that I’d be calling Karen in a few short minutes. David was there in my usual spot with a laptop in front of him, typing away furiously. I cleared my throat to try to break the intense look of concentration on his features. His face instantly brightened when he saw me, and he quickly put the laptop away.
“Homework,” he said simply with a nod toward his backpack, where the computer now resided.
I sat down and told him everything that had happened during break and what my current plan was as I pulled out my cell phone, which was pale blue today.
“Wow,” he said simply, as I grabbed Nate’s fact sheet to retrieve Karen’s number. “Is your work always this crazy?” he asked me, though after watching me for a year I was sure he knew.
“Never,” I answered. “It’s weird for me to stumble across people who actually care for each other, let alone people who care for each other but can’t be together because of things that are, for the most part, out of their control. I just really want to help them.” David smiled at me warmly.
“And that’s why I like you so much. You’re a good person.” I smiled back at him but looked down at the phone, not used to receiving genuine compliments that didn’t revolve around my good looks. “Even if your typical day involves destroying innocent boys’ lives,” he added with a grin.
“I knew it was coming,” I said with a shake of my head and a smirk.
Punching in the number Karen had given me, I rehearsed what I would say to her one more time.
“Hello?” came a familiar but weak voice on the other end.
“Karen?” I asked, even though I knew it was her.
“Hi, Amelia,” she said quietly. I was surprised that she recognized my voice or possibly my number, but I continued on without any pause.
“How are you feeling? I heard you actually got sick.” I knew I sounded guilty even though her real illness had nothing to do with me.
“I’m all right. It’s just a small flu, but I should be fine in a few days.” I heard a cough on the other end, and then she resumed her thoughts. “Did you talk to Nate yet?” I knew this was coming. In fact, it was the only reason I had called her, but I still felt unprepared to answer that question.
“So here’s the thing, Karen. I talked to Nate but he wanted nothing to do with me because he’s so in love with you.” I paused for a moment but got only silence on the other end, so I took that as a sign to keep going. “So he ended up figuring out that you had sent me just to break up with him, and then he explained why you were doing it in the first place.” Still silence. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that Nate and Karen had the most boring, silent relationship ever. “So anyway… I didn’t break you guys up. I’ll give you your money back and everything, but I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“What is it?” she asked with a yawn.
“I want you to let Nate talk to your mom about you two.”
“No,” she said instantly, and with such authority I couldn’t believe it had come from little, fragile Karen.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” I asked.
“If he talks to my mom she’ll know about us, and she’ll take me away from the school and away from him,” she whispered, and I suspected her mom was nearby.
“You don’t know that,” I responded, hoping I sounded more convincing than I felt.
“Yes, I do. She’s so afraid I’ll get sick just from being at school, she’d never let me near him.” I thought this over for a moment, trying to find some sort of compromise.
“Well, maybe Nate could talk to her and you guys could set some rules. He already told me how careful you are. Surely that will show your mom how serious you both are about staying safe.” I heard a choked sound on the other end of the line that sounded like a sob. “Or what if you went back to being homeschooled and Nate could still be your boyfriend? That way you’d be away from the threat of hundreds of kids and trade that in for just one boy.” I thought it sounded like a reasonable proposal. After all, Nate had told me that Karen’s friends were all homeschooled, and he was the only one she knew at the school anyway. If it meant getting to keep Nate in her life, I couldn’t see why she wouldn’t want to just stop going to a public school. It’s not like she would miss the cafeteria food.
There was a long moment of silence in which I wondered if Karen had hung up or fallen asleep. After a minute or so of the silent hum of ambient noise, Karen’s voice sounded on the other line. “It’s worth a shot,” she said finally, instantly bringing a smile to my face.
“Perfect,” I said, a bit more enthusiastically than was necessary. David gave me an odd look, but I ignored it and continued. “I’ll see if Nate can drop by your house tomorrow to talk to her. Don’t worry, Karen. This is going to work. I just know it.” We ended our conversation after a few more reassurances. I knew I shouldn’t make promises to her if I couldn’t definitely keep them, but I was just so sure that this whole plan would succeed that I couldn’t see any other outcome.
“So everything’s all right, I take it?” David asked beside me.
“I think it is. Nate’s going to talk to Karen’s mom tomorrow. He’s going to ask if she can go back to being homeschooled in exchange for the freedom to date him. Personally I don’t see how her mother can refuse. Trading in 3,000 kids for just one potential threat has to be a pretty appealing offer,” I said confidently.
“Unless she feels that Nate poses a greater threat than those 3,000 kids,” David replied with a sigh. “From what I’ve seen of her, Karen wouldn’t be the type to go around kissing 3,000 students, just passing them in the hallways, not even making physical contact.” As much as I hated how grim his outlook on my plan was, I couldn’t deny that it was a legitimate argument, and one I’d have to be prepared for. “And there’s always the possibility that she’ll agree to the terms and then go back on the offer once she has her daughter out of school,” he continued, quite unnecessarily.
“You certainly have a glum outlook on human nature,” I said in annoyance.
“I was trying to catch a con artist for a year, so I had to start thinking of every possibility,” he replied with a cheeky grin.
“I’m not a con artist,” I corrected with indignation. “I’m a breakup artist.”