Read Online How to Break a Heart by Kiera Stewart - Free Book Online

her, my eyebrows lifting. It’ll all be okay, I tell myself. If she’s my true friend, she’ll be happy for me.
    “Okay.” Her face relaxes. “Come on. Let’s see your best Mariela.”
    I glance up at the mirror across my room. What I see is a standard-issue eighth grader with skinny jeans, flip-flops, and a hoodie. “Well, problem one: I don’t look like her at all,” I say.
    No. Mariela has the kind of infectious beauty you almost feel like you could catch if you look at her for too long.
    “Well, maybe try acting like her. Act confident.”
    “But I don’t feel confident.”
    “That’s why it’s called
acting
. Just try it.”
    “Seriously?” I ask.
    “Yes,
seriously
. Don’t forget—Mariela’s a character on a TV show. She’s a pretend person. That lady who plays her is
acting
a part. If
she
can do it, you can, too.”
    I look at myself in the mirror. My shoulders are hugging inward, protectively. I relax them a little and roll them back, which, even though it makes me feel a little taller, also makes me feel a little exposed. But Sirina says, “Good,” so I take a breath and try to go with it. I realize that I haven’t been breathing deep enough—that the air is stuck in a small area in my lungs, and when I breathe deeper, I feel better. I smile at Sirina in the mirror.
    “Better,” she says, smiling back.
    I put on a little mascara. It can’t hurt. I lean my head over and fluff my hair out, then whip my head up and check myself once again.
    “Good. That’s much more Mariela,” Sirina says.
    I turn all the way around and peek at my reflection over my shoulder. If I hold my eyebrows at just the right level, and angle my head in just the right way, and position my hands on my hips, well, it’s almost convincing.
    Sirina studies me in the mirror. I turn and look directly at her.
    “Well,
hello
, heartbreak,” she says in a smoldering voice. “Thy name is Mabry.”
    And then we start cracking up, and it feels good enough that when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, looking satisfied, looking—I don’t know—maybe a little bit powerful, it starts to seem possible. For a second, just a second, I wonder what being a heartbreaker would feel like. Victorious? Triumphant? Maybe you can make a fruit out of a flower after all.

    Sirina stays for dinner. Stephen’s eating with us tonight, too.
    My mom’s a lawyer. She’s always busy, and as far as I know, Stephen’s the only boyfriend she’s ever had. My brother and I don’t even have a father—I mean, technically, we do, but my mom never met him. She chose him from a piece of paper at the New Beginnings Fertility Clinic, so it’s hard to think of my father and not picture Flat Stanley, the traveling piece of paper from a book my mom read to me when I was little.
    Flat Stanley’s name was John. He was a graduate student in engineering; his ancestors were German and Dutch. That’s about all we know about him. Surely there must have been more exotic choices—a Tahitian island gentleman, perhaps, or an Argentinian cattleman, even. Or—
oh!
—an Egyptian prince! But, no. She basically chose a version of Stephen. Well, you could say that my mom definitely has a type, despite not having a romantic bone in her body.
    The topic of the night is, of course, the Case of the Broken Window and the investigative series we’d like to write. We’re filling them in on the rumors—the ex-con pen pal, the murderer, the man-clog-wearing substitute teacher—and the fact that Officer Dirk won’t give us any info.
    “Well,” my mom says, “the school probably just doesn’t want to add to the hype. It can be a distraction.”
    “But the rumors
are
a distraction,” Sirina says. “And there are so many stupid ones out there right now.”
    “Oh! You know what I heard?” Aaron says. His eyes are big, like he’s just bursting to tell us some sort of secret.
    “What?” I ask.
    “I heard that it was this guy serving time for some