The Break-Up Pact

by Emma Lord

“Take that picture and I will throw your phone so far into the ocean you’ll start getting texts from Poseidon.”

“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.”

“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.”

We don’t close for another eight hours, so I’m going to have to reschedule the oncoming existential breakdown for 6:01 P.M. at the earliest.

His eyes are so close that they widen into mine, revealing the specks of pale gray against the blue, like the brewing storm in my heart reflected back at me.

When you have a sister, you don’t realize how much of the way you think, the way you exist, is framed not just by your own thoughts, but hers. Don’t realize how much of her colors the way you look at the world until she isn’t in it, and you’re staring at all the same people and places you’ve known your entire life and trying to recognize some new version of them, with the old colors gone.

“Is that why you’re here? So we can form a Benson Beach viral break-up support group? Because I don’t really have time for niche extracurriculars right now.”

Levi and I were like two sides of a fucked-up coin. I was going viral underground on the internet, and he was going viral above it over every boomer mom in America’s television screen. He has every right to be as un-okay as I do.

The moment I realize it’s over Griffin, it stops me in my tracks. Levi takes a breath, and some of the tension goes with it. “I’ve never seen you cry like that.”

But I never wanted Levi back in my life because he thinks I’m broken. I wanted him back because he wanted to be back.

Back then it felt like the grief would swallow us whole. It’s different now, more like the waves at our feet—constantly ebbing and flowing, swollen one moment and quiet the next. A tide I can dip my feet into and let myself feel, or a swell that will hit me from behind when I least expect it.

There’s a tension between us then, a fragile one that can make or break us.

“I still vote for Sky Seekers,” I say. “But if you’re really staying, you can write in Tea Tide, if you want.” Levi nods carefully, respecting the weight of the offer. The quiet trust in it. Then he says gravely, “I’ll bring my viral break-up support group application.”

“I’ve reduced my Taylor Swift break-up playlist listens to once a week.”

“Running is tiring!” “So is pretending not to have feelings for people.”

I don’t answer for a moment, only because I am struggling to figure out an interpretation of “situation” that doesn’t equate to “Kelly seems like she is taking advantage of all the best parts of you, and it makes me feel sick.”

My cheeks flush. At some point in Sana’s little lecture, I stopped listening and started imagining. The warmth of Levi’s broad hand in mine. The way it might feel to burrow myself against him, breathing in the crook of his neck. What he might taste like, where his hands might wander, if we actually kissed.

Yesterday, Levi and I were sad B-characters in other people’s romances. Now we’re hijacking the stage.

“Fake dating aside, it’ll be nice to hang out again like we used to.”

The world will think we’re dating, but in reality, we’ll just be finding our way back to what we once were—Levi and June, two people who shared friends and made-up stories and long runs on the beach. In some ways, that alone makes this worth it.

“Sana’s right, though. We should talk rules.” My eyes sweep to the floor. “I don’t think we need to make any.”

The thing is, if we set rules, it’s only going to make this seem like a bigger deal than it is. Like we’d be taking a microscope to every gesture between us, every touch. And I can’t have that.

Only after I say the words do I realize the deeper root of my unease. It’s not the pressure of playing this trick with Levi—it’s whatever comes after. We’ve only just started to repair our friendship. If this goes south, it might set us back all over again.

The words are still rattling between my ears as he leaves, the full impact of them settling in. It’s a date. It’s a pact. It’s a new chance. But more than that, it’s something to feel. Something other than brewing panic or gnawing guilt or grief. Something electric, something that gives energy instead of draining it; something I want to know the shape of so I can hold on to it even when it’s gone.

I’m glad to have Levi back in my life, but that inherent ease we had as kids? That bone-deep familiarity of knowing each other inside out? I don’t think it’s something we’ll ever have again, and I don’t even understand how much I miss it until I’m looking at an echo of it on my screen.

“I’m glad to be back in your life again,” he says. The sincerity in the words makes me feel weak in every bone, only I can’t let it. Not if I’m going to come out of this pact we have in one piece.

the two of us catching each other’s eyes with a different kind of mischief—not the one we used to have, but something heated. Something a little more than friendly. Something I’ll have to keep in check because there’s no point in denying it anymore. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

“That’s it,” I say flatly. “I’m breaking up with you.” Levi doesn’t even glance up from the table. “Well, we had a good run.”

“You understand that frosting isn’t just god’s gift to our mouths,”

And I’m really just so, so happy to see the two of you together—I think I speak for most of our classmates when I say it’s about damn time!”

Thoughts like leaving that crumb exactly where it is and pressing my lips to it instead. Thoughts like wondering what the rest of him would taste like if he let me give it a try.

an “expert in body language” to assess the way Levi and I interacted beat by beat. Sana would be proud of how quickly we’ve gotten into the swing of this trope, because the expert declared us one of the most sincerely in love couples she’d ever seen.

Don’t get too close to Levi. Not just in the romantic sense, but the friend one, too. If he lets me down again, it’s going to take a long, long time to come back up.

“Being here makes me miss it a little,” he admits. And then, a moment later: “Being around you makes me miss it.”

We look like something timeless, something iconic. Like two people so far in the throes of passion we’ve forgotten the rest of the world exists.

“Literally every Hallmark movie heroine written into existence is ready to fight you right now.” “You’ll get there,” she says, patting me on the back. “Just as soon as you and Levi drop this whole fake dating thing and realize you’re madly in love with each other.”

I think a lot of our issues started because I felt like a question mark to her, and we’ve just never been equipped for that.”

“But before all that, it worked between us for so long, I just…” “Don’t want to feel like those years were wasted?”

The truth is, it’s almost impossible these days to meet people in a way that gives you time to be friends first, to feel each other out. Most people expect to know whether you’re attracted to them on the first or second date. But it’s never been like that for me. I’ve always had this strange feeling of not being able to keep up. I can’t run headfirst toward something without knowing there’s a solid foundation under my feet, and judging from all my friends’ stories about the dating out in the wild, I worry there aren’t a lot of people willing to wait for me to find it.

I’m upset with myself for not breaking things off much earlier. I would have come home sooner. Had more time with Annie. Avoided this whole mess.”

It made me appreciate that life is both too short and too long for being something you’re not.

“I don’t think anyone ever gets to be settled in life. I think you just find people who weather it with you.”

“Anytime I felt out of place, I would think of you. Something funny you might say. And then I didn’t feel so out of place anymore.”

“And I just remembered thinking sometimes—Levi and I never run out of things to say. And even when we did, we’d just make up stories instead.”

“You know you’ve always got me, right?” he says. “I know things weren’t great between us, and I’ll regret that forever. But if you ever need me. No matter what. You’ve always got me.”

And then that faded smile comes back, easing onto his face like the sun easing back out from behind a cloud. I squeeze his hand one more time before I let it go.

“We’ll see if you’ll ever have enough time for that, busy business guy,” I say. Levi says without missing a beat, “I’ll make time.”

I’ve been walking at the edge of this line with Levi for so long, and if I don’t take the chance to cross it now, I never will.

“It’s that both of you were a little bit lost a few weeks ago. But neither of you pushed. Nudged, occasionally. But mostly just encouraged each other. Tried to make things easier, when you could.”

“Neither of you wants to change the other one or tell the other what to do. You just want each other to be happy. And that’s what love is supposed to look like.”