Buzzed Hearts

01: the library grinch

THE DAY ISAAC AYAMA smiled at her, Camila—or Cami, as he liked to call her—saw the end. When you go through as many relationships as she does, you'd understand why. It's not that she wanted it, not this way, and it's not like she jumps at any chance to form bonds, but she does it and it becomes. So it became, in their corner of the library, the little place where she'll either cover with another passing memory or burn it dry to the foundations of this building.

    But it's arson, so she won't.

    "Hey," Isaac says tentatively.

    He fills the seat next to her, the one she's curled up on, doing her biology report. Even without looking up, Camila Bean knows what he's in here for.

    "You want to break up," she states.

    Isaac looks taken aback. Most times, it's premeditated. She's calm, nostalgic even, and her friends Jeremy and Elle always tell her that she lives her life backwards. Camila sees her relationships through a telescope—just the wrong way. Most times, she predicts the end before it comes, and the act of doing so "fulfils her own prophecy, which is so dumb" is what Elle Arora says.

    "Yeah," he murmurs. Then, sits up straighter. "I mean, we aren't going to make it long distance, right? You're going to Juilliard and I'm going to Caltech."

    "Don't worry, Isaac. I understand." She looks up from her laptop screen.

    He blinks once, twice. Like all the people she's been with, her words confuse them. Goes right over their heads. Even smart kids like Isaac have a hard time grasping her viewpoint on love or life. They'd like to blame it on the fact that she's a musician, or how her last name is Bean but she knows better. Searching for your soulmate is as tough as it gets and she's learned to quickly eliminate those that don't seem likely to last. Isaac is, and always will be, too determined for his own good.

    "You're not hurt?" he asks, placing a hand on her arm.

    "I'm feeling mellow today," she says.

    Jeremy Yang calls her a calculated optimist. While she's quick to be affectionate, Camila knows right where it needs to be invested.

    "The last thing I want to do is hurt you," Isaac repeats and his forehead is a tiny bit crinkled.

    "You're not. I've been expecting it," she says, letting this slip.

    God, what a mistake. Being as rational as he is, even Isaac can't disguise the way his throat locks in place or how his pupils contract, a little drop in his mouth as he tries to find his reaction.

    "Look," she begins, as she searches his face, "the last thing I would want to do is hurt you."

    It registers in him that she's spewing out the carbon copy of his last statement, right at him.

    "You're...you're a douche," he responds.

    Something in Camila's blood spikes.

    "I'm a douche? Because I'm actually okay with the fact that you're ending our relationship over a few hundred miles? Did you want me beg and crawl, or go to a school near you just because it's near you? Screw you, Isaac," she says.

    "It looks like you don't even care!"

    "I do care. But I don't have to cry to care. What did you want? Have I ever been known for messy breakups?"

    "You..."

    "Stop, Isaac."

    Her biology report still needs two graphs and five hundred words and there's no way Camila will spend her time telling Isaac to grow up and that this is life. She loves him but that was two days ago and now, he's refusing to accept it. That's the selfish part she finds in everyone she's ever been with. Even when they don't want to give, they still ask for so much from people they don't care about anymore.

    "Yeah. Ok, fine," he says and gets up to leave.

    "You forgot your gym bag," she reminds him.

    Isaac backtracks and grabs it, an almost woeful look in his eyes—at least that's what she guesses is. And so, on a Tuesday, it became of them. Three months together is only a sliver of time compared to the rest of her life and one of the longer relationships she's been with.

    "Ah! The heartbreaker strikes again," a slow voice drawls.

    Has she been spied on? Caught? But then Camila realizes that it doesn't even matter, so she twists in her seat to the source of the voice.

    "I would hardly call myself that," she says, when she can't find a person to look at. "Who are you?"

    "The library grinch."

    A smile breaks upon her face, her seemingly uneventful day looking up, even though her word count isn't.

    "I mean, I've only ever been broken up with. So I doubt I'm a heartbreaker."

    "But are you ever heartbroken?" the voice asks.

    It calms her, almost, the smooth timber of his voice.

    "Sometimes. The first few times hurt," she replies.

    "That's what she said."

    She groans, a little bit shocked, but also glad that the entity she's speaking to has a sense of humor that Isaac lacks. She should probably date this voice.

    "You can't really be a heartbreaker without being heartbroken," she says.

    "I guess you're right. You also date a lot of assholes. Remember Parker?"

    "Have you been checking up on me?"

    Everyone remembers Parker Rhys. Too smart for his own good and progressive to the point where he doesn't acknowledge feelings.

    "Your breakups aren't really as inconspicuous as you'd like them to be."

    "Where are you? I'd like to meet you," she says.

    "It's a secret," he replies, a lift to his voice.

    They're in the last few minutes of first period and there's not enough time for her to go search for him, amongst the fluffy beanbags and lovechairs stuffed with pillows so she packs up her bag and leaves.

    "Bye, library grinch! Grow a heart for graduation, okay?" she tosses over her shoulder and signs herself out at the front desk and goes to AP European History. It dawns on her that he might not even be a senior five steps out, but she shrugs and plugs in her earphones.