Free The Breakup Artist by Shannen Crane Camp Page A

his strong features.
    “I take it you’re not a fan?” I asked. He pulled a face at my question, scrunching his nose up in disgust.
    “All right, no seafood then. What about Italian? Pasta is good at any time of the day.” In fact, I had a particular love of pasta for breakfast, but we didn’t need to let David see my little oddities when this date wasn’t even mine to jeopardize.
    “Italian it is,” he said with a small nod. I was half surprised when he kept going straight instead of turning on the road to go to our school. I was definitely on autopilot. This little shock only reminded me of how much I didn’t get out of the house, increasing this date’s potential by a few notches.
    “Nice hair, by the way,” David said after a few moments of silence.
    “What?” I asked, completely puzzled by his statement. It didn’t dawn on me until after my brilliant response that I had dyed my hair since I’d last seen him. For me it was typical to look in the mirror and see a different hair color every few days, and my mom had long since gotten used to it, but to normal people it must be quite a shock when my hair constantly changed at a breakneck pace.
    “It’s blonde,” he pointed out, as if this little fact had possibly escaped my notice. Maybe he thought I had been ambushed in the middle of the night by the hair-dye fairy and the result had simply floated right by my scope of understanding.
    “Yeah . . . I get bored easily,” I mumbled, hoping this explanation would save me from any further questions.
    “I like it,” he said finally. All right, so he was a blonde guy. Maybe if I could get Claire to change her hair color it would be easier for me to get them back together. This thought only made me realize how weird my job really is. Most of my date thus far had consisted of me covering up my job and thinking about how I could get my date back together with his ex-girlfriend, who I’d tried to get him to break up with originally. Good thing I had a psychology class, or I might need some serious therapy from all of this.
    After a few more lies and some close calls on my part, we pulled into the parking lot of a small Italian restaurant. I could smell the breadsticks before we even entered the little building. The interior was dimly lit by fake candles with soft mood music maintaining the atmosphere. The host seated us in a cozy booth surprisingly close to the kitchen. I could hear the clattering of dishes and calling out of food orders from my seat. We looked at our menus, ordered drinks, and then were faced with the awkward silence first dates are famous for causing. This time in a date was normally just fine for me, because I would be strategically planning out how to get rid of the guy for good, while my date would be nervously contemplating my silence, wondering if it meant I didn’t like him, or if I was feeling bad that he had just broken up with his girlfriend.
    This date, however, was different. My half of the silence was spent in nervous anticipation. I knew there was nothing for me to be excited about, because the sole reason I was here was to manipulate this boy without his knowledge. But still, I couldn’t help but feel that this date was a small reward for my years of work. Maybe this boy actually liked me and things could somehow work out. Of course, like all good dreams, these thoughts were instantly stifled by reality.
    “So, Amelia, do you work?” I nearly choked on my soda at his question, and I actually had to take a minute to recover from the coughing fit this unexpected turn in the conversation brought on. He looked at me with mild amusement, which was slightly disconcerting since I was, in fact, choking. Well, perhaps I wasn’t choking, but I was sure coughing enough to cause other diners alarm. And here was my date, sitting there smirking at me like some cruel model from a clothing advertisement. After I regained my composure and patted my face with my maroon cloth napkin, I