Page 43 of People Skills

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Do you regret breaking up with her?’

He hesitates.

‘No. Maybe. No. I don’t know. I regret causing her pain.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes you do.’

He is quiet for a long time, then he speaks. ‘She wanted to book this holiday overseas, and I was dragging my feet about it, and she was getting really mad at me, and after a while I realised I didn’t want to book it because I wasn’t sure we’d still be together in six months and then I realised that if that’s what I was thinking, I needed to end it.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. Things moved really quickly when we got together. She got serious very fast, Mum was really invested, there was all this pressure. Lana was so together. I felt like I was always disappointing her. She was always talking about my potential, like I was never good enough for her right now, but there was a new and improved future version of me she couldn’t wait for. Like I was a project. I knew if I didn’t write another book I would never be good enough for her. But then she would write about us in her newsletter like we were this great love story, and I didn’t recognise that version of our relationship either.’

I think of Lana’s essay. And about the fact I have just made Xavier more of a project than ever.

‘Sorry if this writer’s-block program makes you feel like a project.’

‘Well, you’re not my girlfriend, so it’s not so bad.’

‘You’re more of a work assignment anyway.’

‘Even better. And don’t forget, you’re my project. My research project. So, we’re even.’

‘Have you ever had your heart broken?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Not really, I don’t think. This breakup with Lana is probably the closest I’ve come.’

‘So you do the breaking?’

‘I think I just try to leave before I get to the heartbroken part.’

‘That’s smart.’

‘Have you?’ he says. ‘Had your heart broken?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘For your research?’

‘Yes. I will have a whole section in my Charlotte binder called “The Exes”. Complete with home addresses so I can hunt them down at the end.’

I don’t know what to tell him, or how much.

‘Do you want them all or just the big heartbreaks?’

‘How many are there?’

‘It depends how far back we go.’ I had a crush on Jonathan McKenna in grade three, and he broke my heart by not inviting me to his Pokémon-themed birthday party even though I owned the most Pokémon cards in the class. Damien Li in chess club in year eight was my first kiss. He would only talk to me when no one else was around. Shaun Michaels in first-year uni, who, when I found out he was seeing another girl, claimed we were “never exclusive” even though he had introduced me to people as his girlfriend, and we went on to have a long argument about the meaning and implications of the word girlfriend and he eventually conceded the point that he probably was cheating, but it turned out winning that particular argument didn’t exactly feel like winning.

‘Tell me about the worst heartbreak. Or the most recent,’ Xavier says.