Page 2 of The Break-Up Pact

“The whole Crying Girl thing has practically blown over anyway,” I tell her. “You’ll have to find another story.”

Knowing Sana, she won’t have much trouble. The two of us met digitally long before we met in real life, since we were always freelancing for the same outlets a few years back. I was just out to make a buck while I was traveling, but Sana’s always had a keen eye for meaningful stories and a sharp wit for telling them—before her last gig went belly-up, she was pitching and covering everything from deep dives into how fan culture has shifted with social media to essays on mental health stigma in Asian American communities to satire about the consequences of low-rise jeans constantly threatening to come back into style.

But now that she has her eyes set on Fizzle, a buzzy pop culture site with a tight-knit staff of diverse, ridiculously talented writers, she doesn’t want to write a story. She keeps insisting she needs the story. The one so topical, well researched, and potentially viral that it won’t just get her a headline with them, but a staff position.

In other words, something more profound than her best friend’s meme-ification.

“I’d find a great one if you would just give me Levi Saw’s number,” says Sana.

“Shaw.” I correct her without thinking.

Shit. Her eyes are gleaming when I hazard a glance back at her. She’s been dropping his name to try to get a reaction out of me ever since last week, when his breakup went every bit as viral as mine.

“Just admit that you know him,” says Sana, eyes triumphant.

I turn before my face can give more of me away than my big mouth just did.

“Enough to know that he’s a snob and a recluse, and will have even less interest in talking to a journalist than I do,” I tell her coolly.

The freeloader at the outside table bristles at my voice carrying through the open window. Good. Maybe he’ll take the hint and mount his fancy laptop somewhere else for the morning. Sana Chen is the only freelancer allowed to mooch around here.

“For a place that sells tea, you’re awfully reluctant to spill any of it,” Sana grumbles.

I tap her chair with my foot as I pass her. “And you’re awfully reluctant to pay for it.”

Sana smiles innocently into the mug of vanilla almond tea held up to her lips. “Seriously, though. Levi Shaw is from Benson Beach, so you must have gone to the same high school. What are the odds you and a classmate would both go viral for absurdly public breakups within the same month of each other?”

The pang in my chest is an old reflex, reluctant but ready. There was a time when I couldn’t help but feel shades of whatever Levi felt as if it belonged to me, too. I hadn’t felt the pang in a while, but it resurfaced the moment I saw the headlines about Levi’s fiancée running off with an action movie star and each time his name has been dragged into the press since. I guess even a decade of us barely speaking doesn’t undo something buried that deep.

One among many reasons I’ve avoided getting in touch with him as diligently as he’s avoided me. We’re too busy dealing with our own messes to think too hard about each other’s.

“Careful,” I tell her. “It might be contagious. You could be next.”

“I hope so. Being a self-actualized single woman is nice and all, but god, am I bored.”

The front door jingles again, and in comes Mateo in full Professorial Mode, his lanky frame all decked out in slim-fitting khakis and a smart sweater-vest. I’m about to start brewing his usual Earl Grey when I notice his eyes are wide with panic behind his glasses.

“What did the youths do to you?” I ask in mild alarm. This is the first week he’s teaching as an actual history professor and not a teaching assistant. I’d say that’s why he’s dressing like he just fell out of a modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but I’ve known Mateo since we were ten and can safely say he’s been dressing like that his whole life.

But he shakes his head, the short curls above his freshly shorn undercut also shaking with it.

“Nancy,” he warns me once he gets to the register.

My stomach curdles. Sana leaps to attention. “This is not a drill, folks,” she says, clapping to motivate us. “Landlord incoming.”

I dive for the scone display, but Sana has already beaten me to it, expertly pulling on disposable gloves and scooping half our stock into a basket with the efficiency of someone hiding their tracks in a crime scene. She disappears into the back of the shop just in time for Nancy Richards to round the corner, clad in her usual summer uniform of a loud floral sundress, an ancient pair of orthotic sandals, and the same bright blue sunglasses she’s had since I was a little girl. A deceptively unintimidating figure for someone who happens to own half the boardwalk and holds Tea Tide’s future in her heavily bejeweled hands.

“Good morning, Junebug,” she says, using my parents’ nickname for me that stuck with all their friends. She pulls me into a trademark hug so tight and unrelenting it almost squeezes the panic right out of me. “Let’s sit.”

I follow her to one of the seafoam-green round tables, settling into a pink cushioned chair with flowers painted on the legs. She sits opposite me, giving the shop a discerning sweep. I follow her gaze across the pastel furniture, the floral wallpaper, the mismatched, vintage teacups in customers’ hands and hanging on hooks on the walls. I spent so much time helping Annie choose this décor that it feels less like Nancy is looking at the shop and more like she’s peering back in time.

“Slow day,” Nancy observes.

“You just missed the big morning rush.” I gesture at the display case like a badly rehearsed kid in a fourth-grade play. “Nearly cleared us out.”

Nancy settles deeper into her seat with a wry smile. “Including whoever’s outside with the cup from Beachy Bean?”

I clench my other hand under the table. As nice as the owners of the boardwalk’s coffee shop are, the day they opened their doors last year, they might as well have held up a banner that said GOOD FUCKING LUCK, TEA TIDE. I may not be able to avenge myself, but the instant Nancy leaves, the guy outside chugging his latte is toast.

---