The Breakup Artist (21 page)

“I know I promised you I was going to stop all of this but . . . this was something I just had to do.” I looked at him, hoping that I could read his reaction and go from there, but his face was completely blank. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. Trust is really important to me and it was a stupid mistake . . . I just . . . I didn’t know what else to do and at the time it seemed like the only option.” I was beginning to ramble desperately. I felt like if I stopped talking for a minute, he would drop the axe on our relationship. Now that I’d confessed to myself that I loved him, it seemed like being without him would be like being without air. The short period of time we’d spent apart had been complete torture. Although for all I knew, the whole time we’d been together had just been a lie to try to get a story out of me. Why couldn’t we have a normal relationship?

He looked up at me now, and I was angry with myself for crying in front of him. It was a low trick women used, but I couldn’t help myself. The tears wouldn’t stop coming now that they’d started. David looked slightly startled that I was crying and I saw a flash of pain flutter across his face. It was a look that made me unhappy but gave me hope at the same time.

“Please don’t leave me,” I said desperately, and I was fully aware that I’d turned into exactly what I’d wanted to avoid all along. I had become a slave to my emotions, but somehow it wasn’t as terrible as I had always expected it to be. “Even being without you for these past two days has been hell.” I was babbling again, but I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts in my head. They all wanted to pour out of my mouth at the same time. I just wished he would actually say something. We sat in silence for a few minutes the only sounds audible were those of the crickets and my occasional sniffing as my tears wreaked havoc on the makeup I’d been so proud of moments earlier.

“Did you mean what you said on the phone?” he asked finally, keeping his tone even and looking me squarely in the eyes. I looked at him questioningly. “You love me?” he asked.

I exhaled deeply, the tears making my breath shaky, and nodded my head. I didn’t even care if he’d been lying to me. Even if he didn’t feel the same way about me, I still felt that way for him and I wouldn’t deny it any longer. We sat there in silence for a moment, just staring at each other.

David seemed to be experiencing some internal struggle, and I was worried about what the conclusion of that struggle would be. “Well, I love you too,” he said finally.

I held my breath for a moment. Hoping he would be the one to bring up the article. He said he loved me but would that change if he knew I’d read his secret? Was he only saying it to keep the game up or was he like me: in love but caught in a situation that looked worse than it actually was?

“I just don’t understand why you felt you had to keep it a secret from me,” he began, though I wasn’t quite sure if he was talking about the job I’d taken, or the fact that I knew what he was up to. “I obviously can’t stop you from doing whatever you want to do, but a little trust would have been nice, Amelia. I thought we had become an important part of each other’s lives. The more complete part. I don’t understand why you have this need to keep doing what you did before.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d get it,” I said weakly, now positive he’d been talking about my job . . . not his. “I didn’t want to run the risk of having you tell me I couldn’t do it.” I knew it was a poor explanation as to why I had behaved the way I had, but it was all I could give him.

“That’s what trust is all about. You have to trust that I’ll be reasonable, and I have to trust that you know what’s best for you. I
am
trying.” He stood now and for a moment I thought he was going to walk away again. Instead he just paced back and forth, a look of confusion clouding his face.

“I had no intention of leaving you. I just had to take some time to think things over. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me now,” he said with a small smile. The sadness I had seen in his eyes when I walked up was now gone, and I actually dared to let myself hope that none of this was an act. Maybe the whole thing really did just seem worse than it actually was and there was a simple explanation for it.

“Why, if you don’t mind my asking, do you feel that you absolutely need to do this job?” It was quite a reasonable question, I thought, and it struck me as odd that I hadn’t mentioned the payment I’d be receiving yet.

“The girl offered me a thousand dollars,” I said simply. The look on David’s face was so stunned that I wished I had a camera with me to capture the moment forever.

“Are you serious?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s Rachel McKlintock,” I explained, knowing that name would clear everything up. David was silent for a moment, considering the information I’d just given him. A small, wicked grin crept onto his face and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking.

“I’m going to sell out . . . just a little,” he began.

“You mean you might actually approve of my heathen business now?” I said in mock shock.

“Here’s the thing,” he said as he sat down on the swing next to me again. “I figure that people like Rachel McKlintock have everything handed to them in life. No matter what difference we try to make, she’ll always be able to buy her way out of things, so we’re really not doing her a disservice by doing this job.”

“We?” I asked inquiringly. David never liked to talk about my business and suddenly he was referring to it as a “we”?

“Or just you . . . either way, she’s not going to stop being a snob just because we—I mean you—refuse to help her, so you might as well take advantage of it and make some money while you do it.” I couldn’t believe all of this was actually coming from David, but I definitely wasn’t complaining. There was a nagging feeling in my brain, telling me that he might just be fueling his story, but I tried desperately to ignore it.

“So are you saying there’s a loophole to the whole no-breaking-people-up-anymore-ever rule?” I asked skeptically.

“I’m saying that in cases such as these, where the person is really hopeless, you’re only doing a disservice to yourself by not accepting the business offer.” His wicked grin was still in place, and I knew he just loved the idea of taking money from someone who delighted in throwing it away so freely. “In fact,” he went on, “if you want, I’ll help you out . . . not that you need it, but it seemed to work out nicely last time.”

“What last time are you referring to?” I asked, not quite on the same page as David.

“With Blane. You do whatever it is that you do, and I sweep in as the long-lost boyfriend so that you don’t have to worry about getting rid of the boy afterward. It’s perfect!” His enthusiasm made me smile, and I couldn’t deny that it sounded like a pretty good idea.

“And you’d really be willing to help me out?” I asked doubtfully.

“Like I said, there’s nothing morally wrong with it if the person we’re doing it for is already socially crippled for life. We’re not going to cure the world of rich spoiled kids by refusing them service.”

I laughed at this justification but still couldn’t believe that he had changed his mind so suddenly. “Well, if we’re doing this together, are you free to sweep in on Tuesday? I’ll try my best to end it on Monday at dinner, but if he tries to stick around after he and Rachel are through you’ll have to work your magic.”

“Or we can just assume I’ll be working my magic on Tuesday. After all, you want to really show this guy that you aren’t available after you’ve finished the job, that way you don’t run the risk of bumping into him later,” David said, obviously having thought this through in the short time he had changed his mind about my business.

“Deal,” I said simply.

We spent the rest of the night talking about how we could hone our plan to perfection and at least get Alex and Rachel broken up by Monday night. I explained the basics of what I did to David and made sure he had a clear understanding of exactly how this would all work out. By the time we parted in the parking lot that night, I had almost forgotten about the unflattering biography David had written about me. It wasn’t until he walked me to my car and noticed the laptop on the front seat that our happy reunion turned somber once more.

“Oh,” he said simply, seeing the laptop waiting for him to take it back and continue his exposé. “Where was it?” he asked, nodding toward the computer. He looked almost as if he was afraid to touch it, like it would burn him if he tried to take it back.

“Under the couch. You left it there after you made me dinner.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, not wanting to ruin our newly stabilized relationship. Although if he really was just after a story, the stability of our relationship was pretty much gone.

David sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. I loved it when he did that.

“All right, well . . . I don’t know if you read what I was writing or not . . . but it doesn’t matter . . . because I should just come clean either way.”

“I read it,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. I was focused on him so intently that I had been holding my breath. The next few words that came out of his mouth were going to define what our relationship would become.

“All of it?” he asked, his brow furrowed as if he were confused. I looked down for a moment, I was a little ashamed that I had read his article without asking . . . but he should probably be the one who was more embarrassed in this situation, considering what he had written.

“About half . . . After hearing what you had to say about me . . . Let’s just say I didn’t really need to read the whole thing.” I looked back up to him and the expression he wore surprised me. He didn’t look angry or relieved. Instead he just looked sad. I couldn’t quite understand where his sadness came in to play but as he came over to me and hugged me, I felt tears welling up in my already red, puffy eyes. This was it. He was leaving me.

“I’m so sorry,” he said into my neck. I exhaled deeply. I knew this moment was coming eventually, but that didn’t mean I was any more ready for it. “This must have been so hard for you this whole time tonight,” he said finally. I nodded silently, still hugging him tightly. I didn’t care that he was breaking up with me. I just wanted to hold onto him a little longer.

“It’s been hard. I was just hoping somewhere in the back of my mind that you would tell me it was a joke . . . or something,” I said thickly, my voice wobbly from the tears streaming down my cheeks. “I didn’t even want to bring it up because then all the progress we made tonight would be worthless.” David pulled me away from him slowly. I dropped my eyes to the ground, not wanting to meet his gaze as he said the final word in our relationship.

“Amelia?” he asked, tilting my head up so that I would meet his eyes. “How are you so frustrating?”

“Seriously?” I asked, a slight anger mixing with my sadness. “You don’t think breaking up with me is enough? Now you have to insult me while you do it?” David simply shook his head, frustration lining his beautiful face.

“Amelia, you aren’t understanding me. I’m not breaking up with you . . . I mean . . . I’m sure you might want to break up with me after reading the horrible things I wrote about you . . . but I’m not going to be the one to leave tonight.” I looked at him quizzically, not quite following what he was trying to tell me.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, wiping the tears away from my face. Now that they were drying, the salt was beginning to sting my cheeks.

“You said you only read half of the article? Judging by your very emotional reaction, you only read the bad things I wrote, back when I was observing you . . . before I actually got to know you.” He looked down guiltily. “Not that it excuses the things I said. I was really awful . . . I went on and on about how you judge people based on their appearance when I completely judged you before ever speaking to you.” As he spoke I started to feel that same creeping hope come back to me. Maybe things really weren’t as bad as they seemed.

“So the second half is nice?” I asked hopefully.

“Well, that’s the thing. I was trying to write a story about perception. You know? Like how I felt about you and what you did before meeting you and if that idea changed after finally meeting you. I thought it would make an interesting article to have a before and after point of view . . . just to see if my perception of you changed at all.”

“And did it?”

David smiled at me, pulling me close to him once more.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so wrong about a person before,” he said, kissing the top of my head lightly. “And the thing is, I don’t even want to turn the article in anymore. I kind of want to keep it just to remind me how wrong I can be sometimes . . . but for some odd reason, I’m really not that intent on destroying you anymore.”

“Oh, well, that’s good to know,” I said with a laugh. “Because it’d be nice to not worry about my boyfriend being a soul-crushing, life-ruining leech.”

“I just said I wouldn’t turn the story in . . . not that I was changing who I really am,” he said sarcastically. I smiled up at him, letting myself feel relaxed for the first time in a few days.

“So are we still on for Tuesday then?” I asked with a grin.

“Let’s bring this guy down.”