Free How to Break a Heart by Kiera Stewart Page B

well, Nick too, and we—”
    “Wait. Nick?”
My
Nick?
    I have a memory flash from Wednesday, the day it happened. The same day as the band rehearsal. Abe calling Nick to come downstairs. Nick running right past me without even a moment’s glance. My heart pangs now just as it did then.
    “Yeah, we were doing some fierce spin kicks—”
    Patrick snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, I got Abe in the cojones!”
    “Yeah, dude, I still owe you one!” Abe says, and makes a false kick in the general direction of Patrick’s pants, while Patrick squeezes his knees together and squats.
    Mere children
. Both of them.
    “Anyway,” I say.
    “Anyway, so then we heard this loud crash. Dude, it was, like,
really
loud.”
    “Yeah, it was like a
cannon
,” Patrick adds.
    “So I looked over and saw the guy who broke the window. He was huge,” Abe continues, “like a giant, and I was like, ‘One step closer, dude, and I’ll open up a can of roundhouse on your—’”
    “No way, you said that?” Patrick says, in sincere amazement. He holds his fist out for a bump.
    Abe looks at me, and back to Patrick, his head bobbling a little. “Dude, you were there!” He looks back at me and sighs, flustered. “I
did
say it. He probably just didn’t, you know, hear me.”
    “Okay,” I say, “so what else? Can you give me a description?”
    “Oh. Yeah.” Abe brightens back up. “Okay, so I stand on my left leg,” he says, demonstrating. “And then I bend my right knee and bring it up—” He looks like a dog about to pee on a fire hydrant.
    “Abe? I mean a description of the guy who broke the window. Not the can of roundhouse.”
    Patrick cackles.
    “Oh,” Abe says, putting his leg back down. “I mean, the guy looked huge.”
    “What else?”
    “Humongous,” he adds.
    “Like the Hulk,” Patrick says, holding his arms out wide.
    “Can you give me any other details? Like his hair? His eyes? Anything like that?”
    “Um.” Abe bites his lower lip and looks toward the ceiling. “Well—it happened so fast.”
    I wait a moment, but he doesn’t offer anything else. “Okay, well. Then what happened after the guy broke the window?” I ask.
    “I mean, so, like, me and Patrick—”
    “We’re not idiots—we took off,” Patrick interrupts.
    “Dude, we didn’t ‘take off,’” Abe says, impatient. “We went to find Officer Dirk! You make it sound like we ran away!”
    “Well, we didn’t want to get
blamed
for it,” Patrick says.
    “What about Nick?” I ask.
    Abe shrugs. “What about him?”
    “Did he run off with you?”
    “We
didn’t
,” Abe seethes, “
run off.
We went. To get
help
. Big. Difference.”
    “Yeah, and Nick couldn’t keep up with us. We were like bullets.
Pyooooo
,” Patrick says, his finger ripping through the air in front of him.
    “Dude,” Abe says, slowly shaking his head. “Just. Shut. Up.”
    I realize I’ve got to interview Nick. Even if I wasn’t already dying to talk to him, I need him for this story. But then I remember that it’s pretty much impossible to interview someone who has been avoiding me at all costs. So I ask Abe, “Can you get Nick to call me?”
    Abe looks at me. “You don’t need me. Just call his mommy,” he says, and he and Patrick crack up. I start to point out that Nick is one of his best friends, but Abe’s already tuned out. He and Patrick start karate-chopping themselves away, until Abe cripples Patrick with the crotch-kick payback he’s been waiting for.

yo escribo

tú escribes

ella escribe

nosotros escribimos

ellos escriben
    I
am a sharp-dressed reporter with shiny hair and a cinched-waist dress. He is a tousle-haired eyewitness to a terrifying crime. We meet in secret, in a back alley, behind the
lavandería
. A nightgown, drying on a line, flaps in the breeze. “Tell me what you know,” I say.
Dígame.
He looks into my eyes—deeply in them—and he says,
“Mi querida
, my darling, I will tell you anything.”
    The final bell has just