December 18, 1997

Today Zach broke my heart. Before home room, Matt handed me a letter in an envelope. I opened it in homeroom and it said:

Dear Emily,

I’d like you to know you are officially dumped. I hope you cry. C’mon, two months is a long time to be going out, you’d think you’d be able to trust me. I should have listened to Matt on this one. If you want another chance, I might consider going out with you again, but now I want to leave you with three parting words: GO FUCK YOURSELF!

HAHAHAHAHA

Zach

I felt like my throat had been ripped open and my voice box had been torn out. I felt tears in my eyes, but the “I hope you cry” part made me more than ever determined not to.

There was a substitute teacher for almost every class today and normally that would have been awesome, but now I was too depressed to enjoy it.

I gave the note to Steph to read and Ms. Welsh took it away from her. Because of the swears, Zach has a detention on Monday after school.

In the locker room after gym class, I started to cry. But it was so weird. I wasn’t really crying – like, tears weren’t coming out of my eyes, but I was shaking pretty hard and make involuntary sobbing sounds. It hurt. I couldn’t believe Zach would do such a thing. It was only the day before that he had knelt next to my chair at lunch and whispered in my ear.

Every girl sympathized with me and said they hated Zach. I was sad, though, and I couldn’t claim I hated him. What made it even worse is that Emma came up to me and said, “Zach says he never liked you.” How could he saythat? Now that he is gone, I realize how much I love him. When I got home from school, I just threw myself on my bed and cried till my face hurt.

[I’m struck by my claim, “Now that he is gone, I realize how much I love him.” It seems like a bizarre conclusion after an unusually cruel breakup letter. And what the heck, Emma? Chicks over dicks wasn’t a thing yet, I guess.]