this is how my former victims felt. Maybe they figured out that something wasn’t right, that their lives were tinkered with in some mysterious way. But that frustration can’t compare to this pain. Is there anything worse than loving someone who hates you?
I stumble back to my house. When I open the front door, my parents are there waiting with a small congratulations banner hung on the staircase banister.
“Congratulations!”
“Becca, we are so proud of you.”
I stare at them with a hollow look.
“Are those happy tears or sad tears?” my mom asks.
I collapse onto the front rug and sob into my acceptance letter. Diane squeezes in between my folks. “I got this.”
***
I’m feeling slightly better Sunday night. Slightly. The Bartlett acceptance envelope remains on my desk partially opened. I can’t bear to look at the Welcome Student catalogue. The kids in there will all be disgustingly happy and pretty, and I’m just not there yet.
“Hey, hermit.” Val breezes into my room. It’s nice to remember that no matter what, I still have a friend who cares about me. “Well, at least you’re dressed.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You haven’t checked your phone all weekend.” Val takes a seat on my bed. “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone all Sylvia Plath on me.”
“How was the dance? I saw you dancing with Manny.”
Val blushes so hard it nearly seeps into her hair. “How’d we look?”
She waits for my answer, and she deserves nothing less than the truth. “Like a couple.”
“We had a lot of fun,” Val says with a glint in her eye. She rubs my shoulder, diving back into supportive friend mode. “But it seems like you didn’t.”
I take a deep breath and let it out. “I love Fred. He dumped me. And I got into Bartlett.”
Val’s face goes from peaks to valleys with each sentence. She doesn’t know how to proceed.
“I care mostly about the first two things.”
“Give him time,” Val says. “He’s just upset, but he’ll cool off soon enough. He won’t have a new girl on his arm tomorrow. I promise you that.”
I think about Fred’s closed front door, and a revolting wave of pain rolls across my stomach. “What if I see him in school tomorrow? I can’t do this in front of him.”
“I have some extra large sunglasses you can borrow,” she says.
For all of my former nastiness, I truly am lucky to have a friend like Val. She could’ve taken Fred’s side or lectured me about being a bad girlfriend. It’s so rare to find someone who gets you, who makes you feel like the complex person you hope you are. I don’t know if I’ll find someone like Val again. Another set of tears flows down my cheeks.
“Becca, please tell me you’re outlining a term paper.” Val gawks at my notecard investigation. Looking at it now, it does seem a little ridiculous.
“More like who the Revenge Artist is.” I go into what happened at the Snowflake Dance with Wade. “If the second person has a vendetta against me, we’re basically talking about a third of the school or more.”
I pull over my laptop. “Maybe it’s someone affected by one of my break-ups or relationship engineering. Like a third party. Or a disgruntled parent. Or a teacher. Miss Hardwick has hated me all year—”
Val shuts my laptop, nearly chopping off my fingers in the process.
“Stop it!” she yells. The rare instance of Val raising her voice startles me into inaction. “Forget the Revenge Artist! What about Fred? Shouldn’t you be thinking of a way to get back with him? Or do you want to spend the rest of your life with an anonymous person?”
“Obviously not. But this person needs to be stopped.”
“When people found out you were the Break-Up Artist last year, did all those couples magically get back together? No. Finding out who this person is isn’t going to solve your problems. It’s not going to bring back your couples. It’s not going to…” She stops herself, but I know the rest.
“Make Fred…” But I can’t go there. Not yet.
“I know,” she says. “This is you. You bury yourself in schemes to block out what’s really bothering you. But you can’t do that. Some things can’t be fixed.”
“Are we still going to be friends next year?” The words gush out of me.
Val spins around from the notecards, speechless. Her hair whips her mouth.
“We’re going to be one thousand miles apart. We’re never going to be able to run over to check up on each