Bizarre breakup stories (Page 4)

Disclaimer: It’s a freaking novel. I would have made it shorter if I had more time…

I went to an Episcopal boarding school for high school. This school, though coed, had two separate campuses 4.5 miles apart and bussed students back and forth for activities and classes. By 6pm girls and boys were on their respective campuses, unless they had an activity on the other campus.

My junior year I was dating a really nice guy, Dave. I was his first girlfriend. We had started dating in the fall, and we were both going to Australia for Christmas (his Dad had been transferred there for work, my Dad lived there full time), and our parents had arranged for us to fly to and from Australia together.

The day before Christmas break, I was on the boy’s campus at night for choir practice. In the middle of practice, I had to go to the bathroom, and as there were no bathrooms in the chapel, I had to go to the school building to use the facilities. As I was walking to the bathroom, I ran into our class “bad boy”, Ed. We had always had good chemistry, but had never hooked up. He asked what I was doing, and I said I was on campus for choir and was just going to the bathroom.

When I came out of the bathroom, he was standing there and said, “What are you doing now?” (Really, the only words that were said. So hot.) And, with that, we disappeared into a classroom. Twenty minutes later, I was back at choir practice wondering what the hell I’d just done and hoping that Ed would keep his mouth shut.

No, I didn’t tell Dave. We went to Australia, and had a great time. Ed, of course, did not keep his mouth shut, and when we got back from break, Dave found out, was pissed, and we broke up. I convinced him to give me another chance, and we started dating again. Dave hated Ed, and as this was boarding school, everyone knew everyone else’s business and felt compelled to take sides. Seriously, silly high school boys—“Team Dave” and “Team Ed”.

The week before spring break, I was headed to one of the common rooms in the basement of a dorm to go hang out during a free period—almost everyone was in class. Girls were not allowed in boy’s dorms, except in the hallways en route to the common rooms. I was wearing a skirt that was a few inches above the knee and red suede boots that came up about three inches over the knee—OK, so tall, red boots. On my way to the common room, I ran into Ed in the hallway. He just shook his head and said “nice boots”, and took my arm and steered me to his room, which was right off the main hallway. The guy was way ahead of his time.

We didn’t think anyone had seen us, but after being in his room for maybe 5 minutes, two guys from “Team Dave” busted in, one with a Polaroid camera (dating myself here) and snapped a pic. The whole things happened in maybe 2 seconds. We scrambled, he went after them to kick azz and get the pic, and I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible, as at my school being in a boy’s room or having sex were offenses that could get you expelled.

As I mentioned, the girls and boys were on separate campuses during the evening, but by dinner time, rumors of what had happened were flying among the students, and I was sweating it because I did not want faculty to find out. Dinner was relatively formal (not quite Hogwarts, OK, but picture a few notches down from there, and you get the idea), faculty sat at the tables with students, and after dinner one of the senior prefects read announcements, which always had to be approved by the head faculty member before being read. It was an ongoing contest among the boys to see if they could sneak in a funny or inappropriate announcement.

Apparently, that night at dinner, the last announcement that was read* was “Could Ed ____ please report to A3 (the table of the photographer) to pick up his photos,” at which point the entire dining room erupted. Poor Dave. Ugh. The faculty, of course, wanted to know what the joke was about, and by 9am the next morning, I was called into the headmaster’s office with my advisor and rowing coach. They ended up having to go into a “disciplinary committee meeting” with multiple faculty members and a few “head” students. I ended up getting 60 hours of janitorial work over spring break as my punishment, but I will never forget my advisor telling me over drinks graduation evening that the “nadir of his tenure was having to defend a student over a pic of her in only red boots.” Brutal.

Though Dave wouldn’t speak to me at all (and who could blame him), he did contact me by email 12 years later and things were copacetic.

*I was going over this story with a high school buddy a few months ago, and she reminded me that it was Seth MacFarlane who had read the announcement (Bastard! JK, he was a good guy.  I had forgotten that he was the prefect who read it, but it makes the story extra funny now, I guess).