Read How to Break a Heart for Free Online

into the sand, like I had been dumped NOT ONLY by Thad Bell, but by the universe as a whole.
    Here, now, I say, “How could I forget?” And not in a friendly tone.
    “
Wow
, so,” Sirina says, “this is crazy. What’s it been—like four years?” She looks at me, like I’m who she’s asking.
    “I haven’t been counting,” I say in this very cool and tight-lipped way.
    “Yeah, about that long,” Thad says.
    “Didn’t you move away?” Sirina asks.
    “Yeah, but we moved back a few months ago.”
    Sirina eyes his skateboard, which is tilted up under his foot. “Cool board,” she says.
    “Thanks, I just bought it like five minutes ago. I lost my old board. Sucks because it was my dad’s.”
    “You lost your dad’s skateboard and you broke your hand? Good going,” I say.
    He looks surprised, and then looks down at his right hand, which is wrapped in gauze. “Oh, that,” he says, and laughs a little. “That’s from earlier. Yeah. Just a few scrapes. I’m new at this. But I got some gloves now, so I can fall all I want.”
    Sirina laughs. I don’t.
    “So what are you up to besides learning how to skate?” Sirina asks him, a vast question I’m secretly curious to hear him answer.
    “Today, just buying this board, but usually I’m here for the nachos,” he says.
    She laughs. “Seriously?”
    “Yep. Burritos, sometimes. Most times.”
    “Don’t get out much?” I say, meaning every bit of the bitter tone that comes across.
    It doesn’t seem to affect him. “Yeah, not so much.”
    “What about school?” Sirina asks.
    “I’m just doing online school.”
    “Online school? Is that the same thing as being
homeschooled
?” she asks.
    “Yeah.” I snort. “What are you, Amish?” Despite my mockery, a fleeting image of Thad in an Amish Sunday suit flashes into mind. For a second, I’m intrigued. I wonder what it would be like to go out with an Amish guy. Would he pick me up in a carriage? Would we cause a scandal? Would my first kiss be stolen behind a barn? Would it cause a fight among his family, and if so, would he choose me over his Amish life?
    “No, genius,” Thad says to me. “
Online
. It involves a computer and, yes, electricity.”
    “I
know
,” I say.
“Obviously.”
    Thad blinks his eyes in this self-righteous way and looks at Sirina. “Am I—? Did I—? Have I—? Done something to her?”
    “Oh, what, besides giving me a curse?” I say loudly.
    He takes his foot off of his skateboard. “I, uh—I don’t understand girl language.”
    “She’s just—
gah
,” Sirina says. I hear the frustration in her voice.
    “Nineteen times, Thad Bell! And you were just the first!”
    “I need, uh, maybe an interpreter?” He puts a question mark on it.
    “You probably don’t remember,” Sirina says in this apologetic tone. “You dumped her back in fourth grade.”
    “Oh.” Thad grimaces. “Sorry. I guess I’d kind of forgotten about that.”
    “Don’t worry, it’s just, she’s—uh—had a really bad couple days. And she’s taking it out on you instead of the person she
should
be mad at.”
    “He crushed my soul!” I cry out.
    “Me?
I
crushed your soul?” Thad says. “I was
nine
!”
    Sirina puts her arm around me, but says to Thad, “Not you. It’s this guy Nick. He just—
you know
.”
    “Wait—Nick Wainwright?” Thad asks.
    “You remember him?” Sirina asks.
    “
Oh
, yeah,” he laughs in a not-happy way.
    “HE IS MY DESTINY AND I LOVE HIM!”
    “Mabry, come on,” she chides me. To Thad, she says, “She’s obsessed with this TV show,
La Vida Rica
—it’s this Latin soap opera. That’s why she sometimes sounds so crazy.”
    “It’s not a soap opera. It’s a telenovela. And anyway, Nick was the love of my life!”
    “He dumped her for karate.”
    “Uh, lame,” Thad says. “Really lame.”
    “
He
didn’t dump me,” I say. “Not really.”
    “Huh?”
    Sirina makes a cringey face. “His mom did.”
    “Dude,
what
? You got dumped by