The Anatomy of a Broken Heart //Completed//

70. Santana

Caleb sat behind me in French class, playing with my hair, running his fingers through the long strands. It was something unconscious and inconsequential, but somehow, in the fogged recesses of my teenaged mind, it meant so much. It was the fact that he did it instinctively, like it was a custom, like the way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was nervous, or the way he stuck his tongue out a little when he was really focusing, something a part of him. I was now a part of him, not apart from him.

Last night, I'd slept through the night for the first time in a long time. The lights went out in my brain like I'd powered down and rebooted with a brand new operating system. As the day drew to a close, I kept thinking something would kick in and ruin the illusion. It was a thin veil of bliss which covered all the shit I'd done and been through and all I needed was a perfectly manicured nail to come and run its sharpness down the length of it and tear it to shreds. Then I saw Caleb speaking with Farrah and I swear I couldn't breathe. Jealousy was something I prided myself on not having, especially when I'd been with Jas. There was something about the way we were, had been, which reassured me I was the only one. Maybe it was the mutual self-destruction which blinded me and told me only I was allowed to fuck him up.

But with Caleb, I was tiptoeing on a glass floor to get to him. As I walked I could feel the glass crack and I was sure, eventually, I'd shatter it and we'd fall right through it. If he didn't bleed to death then, surely I would. I couldn't mess this up—mess him up. So I didn't mention anything about Farrah to him. I'd never speak of her to him again. I wouldn't speak of Jasper to him either. I owed him as much. It wouldn't be fair.

If he was still thinking about Farrah, could I blame him when I still thought about Jasper? Thoughts of him didn't taste the same way, anymore though. They'd lost their color, too, becoming like a picture through an old television. But, they were still there.

"Donc, mes chéries," began Madame Izadi. "I av some news. A lot of you will not like ziz, mai, oui, it iz appening and I am sorry."

The class perked up. Her voice was just grave enough to get our wandering minds to focus a fraction more than usual in the stuffy room. Madame had an electric candle plugged into every available outlet of the room. It smelled like what I imagined a French brothel would smell like, but I guess that was the point.

"Ze voting for ze division of the deestreect as come and gone and unfortunately for some of you, my darlings, we will no longer be seeing you here. As of ze following seemester, you will be placed into a new school."
Caleb's fingers stopped mid-run through my hair. There were exclamations of "what!" and "oh, shit!" all around us, but my brain was still trying to process what she was saying. I'd have to leave. Pari and JD and Zealand would have to leave and Marlow would be here all alone. And Caleb. Caleb would stay here.

"Does she mean you?" he asked quietly. I nodded, feeling his frozen fingers tug at my hair. When I turned around to face him, he had that look on his face, processing the information like it was a problem on our physics homework. It wasn't physics as much as geography, though.

In the halls, I could sense that the news had spread. They'd held the vote early, they'd called a unanimous winner even before the ballots were closed. Pari cried in JD's arms while he glared at Caleb and everyone else whose parents had been involved. Marlow just hugged me, and everyone leaving her behind.

"I'll still be able to visit you," Caleb said as we walked along the street. I'd asked him if we could go for a walk, and though it was cold, he'd acquiesced. I didn't really have a destination in mind, so we walked around the block, on opposite sides of the street. "This doesn't change anything," he said, as a car passed between us. The flowers on the bushes which framed people's carefully constructed lawns were already succumbing to the weather.