“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.