The Romantics(5)

Mason, who knew more than anyone how much his parents’ split had hurt him.

“Gael?”

“Everything is fine,” he stammered, scowling at the floor.

“What was going on between you and Anika?”

“We were just talking.” He spoke the words slowly. If he said too much, he’d lose it.

“One sec,” Mrs. Channing said. She shuffled through the chaos of her desk—stacks of papers, two empty coffee cups patterned with caked lipstick. It was nice how Anika wore gloss instead, Gael thought automatically, before pushing it quickly away.

Mrs. Channing opened her file cabinet, flipped through the bloated folders, then pushed two pamphlets across the desk.

Pamphlet #1 Breaking Up and Breaking Down: Coping with the Highs and Lows of High School Romance

Pamphlet #2 No Means No: A Primer on Relationships and Consent

Gael stared in disbelief. “My mom’s a women’s studies professor at UNC,” he told her. “I know all about that no-means-no stuff. I just wanted to talk. She’s my girlfriend.”

Mrs. Channing took a deep breath. “I know it’s hard, Gael, but it didn’t look like Anika wanted to talk.”

Mrs. Channing didn’t get it. Gael was the ultimate respecter of women. He never ogled girls like Mason did, that shithead. He loved Anika.

“Can I please go?” he asked. His voice cracked, midsentence.

“Yes.” She scribbled a note for his teacher and set it on top of the pamphlets. “Off to class.”

Gael grabbed the stack and moved for the door.

“Oh, and Gael,” she called.

“Yeah?”

“It happens to all of us.”

“What?”

“A broken heart.”

I watched in agony as Gael stomped out of her office, wadded up the papers in his hand—note for his teacher and all—tossed them into the trash, pushed through the front door of the building, and stepped out into the sun.





the second-worst day of gael’s life, continued


Gael spent the rest of the day hiding out in his car in the school parking lot, eating a half-full bag of stale chips he’d found in the glove compartment, moping as he flipped through fuzzy radio stations, and angrily picking off the crumpled petals of the stupid $6.99 bunch of carnations until the flowers were all destroyed.

Gael had nowhere else to wallow. His mom was home, since she didn’t teach her first class until 2:00 P.M., and she had a great bullshit detector. And the thought of sitting alone in his dad’s dingy apartment was even more depressing than this.

As the hours rolled by, the faint buzz of each period’s bell drifted through the parking lot. Gael tried his best not to think about anything at all, but it was no use. He imagined Anika and Mason, sitting close in the cafeteria, their bodies touching as she ate sour-cream-andonion Pringles, Mason shoving that gross rectangular cafeteria pizza into his mouth. He saw his classmates laughing as they spread the news that Gael had finally found out. His high school was just small enough that everyone knew everyone’s business, popular or not.

He saw himself, shocked and shamed and trailing after the guidance counselor, the school’s official recipient of pity.

Worse, he saw the truth, bold and blaring like the old-timey marquee at the Varsity Theater on Franklin: Anika wasn’t his anymore. Anika was hooking up with Mason now.

Anika, his girlfriend, was hooking up with the guy he’d known since he was seven: the guy who, in fourth grade, had suffered through two weeks without recess for punching a kid who’d called Gael a dork; the guy who frequently said that as adults, he and Gael would marry twin models, buy houses next door to each other, and have an obscenely large home theater system for Gael’s movies and Mason’s video games.

That guy.

By the time 3:15 rolled around and the school’s final bell rang, students eagerly flooding the parking lot, Gael’s sadness had morphed into full-fledged anger. Before he could change his mind, he whipped the car door open and slammed it bitterly behind him, heading as quickly as he could to the band room.




High school marching band was its own little microcosm of the world. More a study in sociology than in woodwinds and brass: There were the band geeks, pimply and a tad too greasy, making out with one another every chance they got. There were the no-nonsense go-getters, eager to fill a line on their college applications, marching without rhythm or passion. There was the percussion section, hipsters-to-be whose arms would be full of tattoos in a few years’ time. And there were the tuba players, chunky and asexual, as if they were slowly morphing into their instrument of choice.

Gael had always thought of himself and Anika and Mason as separate from these stereotypes. Mason was a blue-eyed drummer, sure, but he still spent most of his time with Gael and Anika. Gael joined because his love of old movies had led to a love of movie soundtracks and a love of tenor sax. And Anika was different from Amberleigh Shotwell’s harem of mean-girl flute players, with their sheets of long hair forming a shiny wall that said, Don’t talk to us. We shouldn’t even be in marching band. Anika would never make someone feel like she didn’t want them around, in band or otherwise. She always knew how to fill the space between people, instantly putting them at ease, whether through obsessively quoting Firefly or by complimenting them in genuine, unique ways, like when she’d told Jenna her new bangs made her look like a “posh librarian.” Anika made people feel like they mattered.