Fractured (Unreel series Book 1)

by Sanna Wolf-Watz

  Still, looking at the bright side she was sitting comfortably and there was chocolate within reach. Sure, she was facing Thomas over a table in the cafeteria, but come on. Chocolate.

  They seemed to have silently agreed that there was less risk of them physically attacking each other if they were eating or drinking while talking. The irony of this, considering what had happened in the canteen, was not lost on her.

  She took another gulp of her chocolate milkshake and decided that it was way too tasty to squander it by pouring it over his head.

  “Present it?” Thomas asked, frowning at her. “You mean after we’re done with it?”

  She put the milkshake down and slowly inhaled the cafeteria air. It smelled like a bizarre combination of coffee and fries.

  Thomas kept twirling the spoon in his coffee. It was getting on her nerves so Sofia looked away from him and examined the small cafeteria they were sitting in red fake leather sofas. Between them was a round a turquoise, plastic table. Loud pop music was being transmitted through the speakers. Sofia shuddered.

  ”I don’t know. A film maybe, since our topic is TV,” Thomas continued.

  ”Are we allowed to film inside the building? Or do you think we could borrow their material?”

  ”Film inside where?”

  ”Wherever they make TV,” Sofia said exasperatedly. “Isn’t that what Sippleton is so famous for? The only thing it's famous for,” she added.

  Thomas looked at her as if she was nuts.

  ”Why would we film there?”

  ”If we’re going to talk about their methods and impact it might be good to show everyone what it’s like working there. Maybe we could tag along on an outing.”

  “Outing?”

  ”I don’t know the word for it. When they go out to film something. You know what I mean.”

  ”It’s ’coverage’,” Thomas told her and sipped on the latte he’d been avoiding for the whole of their conversation.

  “Is that still warm?” Sofia asked him.

  “Of course it is.”

  “Tasty, is it?”

  Thomas glared at her and gulped down some more. He nearly managed to suppress the shiver that coursed through him, but she didn’t miss the look of utter disgust that passed over his face and grinned.

  “Why did you order it if you don’t like it?”

  “I do like it,” he said and took another large sip. “It’s… nice.”

  “It’s disgusting. Putting a ton of milk and sugar in it doesn’t change that.”

  Thomas took another gulp and winced. “Why don’t you mind your own drink?”

  “I do,” Sofia said and slurped some more. “It’s delicious.”

  “Yes, well I’m a man so I’ll never buy a drink called ‘Chocolovely’.”

  “Jock drinks this stuff all the time, but I suppose he’s secure enough about his masculinity that he doesn’t…”

  ”Hi Tommy,”a soft voice cut in.

  It was a good thing his girlfriend had interrupted them, Sofia told herself as she watched Thomas’s head flick around towards the voice so fast she thought he might give himself a whiplash. They had been working their way towards a new argument and she didn’t want to waste her milkshake on his stupid face.

  Sofia could admit, at least to herself, that Thomas was, objectively speaking, good-looking. Especially when he smiled. Usually when she saw him his face was scrounged up in a frown or a scowl because he was looking at her. Now he was smiling softly, gazing at Rachel as if she was the answer to everything. It was…disturbing.

  Rachel turned her focus to Sofia who couldn't get over how angelic she looked with her long, curly black hair and heart shaped face. Shame her personality didn’t match.

  Sofia smiled at her and Rachel’s big, dark eyes immediately compressed into slits, her expression turning to that normally reserved for piles of dog poop. After you’ve stepped in them.

  ”What is she doing here?” Rachel asked in a voice so high pitched girly it almost broke.

  “Hrrm?” Thomas asked, his dazed expression and boyish smile lasting right until his gaze shifted back to Sofia.

  Sofia was surprised to discover a sliver of sympathy for him when she saw him so completely under Rachel’s spell. That feeling vanished as soon as he opened his big, fat mouth again.

  ”I have to do a project with her. Gilmore put us in teams.”

  Jeez, he made it sound as if their teacher had been forcing them to work together at gunpoint.

  “We were just done,” he added in a way that was obviously intended to make her leave the cafeteria. He should have known better.

  ”Done is a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it, Tommy?” Sofia said, before turning to Rachel. “We’ll be another fifteen minutes.”

  “Do you think you will last that long without throwing food at him?” Rachel asked sweetly.

  “I can’t make any guarantees,” Sofia said with a grin and went back to her loud slurping of milkshake. She held on to the glass for dear life.

  ”Shall we continue tomorrow?” Thomas asked and got to his feet when he finally realized Sofia had no intention of doing so.

  “We need to at least have an outline figured out before we go home today,” Sofia insisted.

  Rachel caressed his neck, her glittering, fake, silver nails moved around his throat. It looked as though she would cut off his jugular if her hand slipped. Sofia was in the middle of estimating the trajectory of blood when Rachel placed a kiss on Thomas’s lips.

  “Honey, you were supposed to take me to town.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes, we have to go now.”

  “Can you wait fifteen minutes for me?”

  Rachel’s angelic expression wavered for a moment, but then she smiled and kissed him again. “But I want us to go now and you promised.”

  “But we have to do an outline and…”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Rachel asked.

  Thomas looked horrified. “Nnno,” he stuttered.

  “Aren’t I more important than some stupid school assignment?”

  Thomas hesitated briefly, but got up from his seat. “Of… of course,” he said and turned to Sofia. “I have to go. See you tomorrow.”

  “But we have to plan…” Sofia stopped talking as Thomas grabbed his letter jacket and let Rachel drag him away. Right before they left the cafeteria Rachel looked back at Sofia over her shoulder and put her hand in Thomas’s.

  Sofia shook her head. If Rachel thought she was competition for the attention of her adorable boyfriend then she was a lot dumber than she looked.

  She leaned back and took another gulp of her milkshake, humming happily to herself. Never mind the assignment. Her life was not that bad, all things considered. Jock might be bossy, shallow and a bit full of himself, but he wasn’t a sociopath. If Thomas was in love with Rachel he was in for a major bout of karma.

  10

  Going Out

  Thomas spent the rest of his afternoon on cloud nine. When Rachel put her hand in his he forgot all about his awful day. When she moved closer to him, her flowery perfume wafting up at him, he forgot about the scholarship and Sofia and the nightmare of their social studies project.

  Rachel was holding his hand as they walked around the center of Sippleton Major in the sunshine and life didn’t get much better than that.

  Sippleton wasn’t that much of a town compared to a place like Kansas City, but they had a main street with a few stores and restaurants. A ten minutes drive to the east was a mall with more stores, a few more restaurants and a movie theatre.

  They walked along the high street together, Rachel commenting on the clothes displayed in the windows of the stores lining the street.

  At the end of the street there was a large square, named Great Square, with a statue of Toto, Dorothy’s dog from the ”Wizard of Oz”. Behind the statue rose the pride and joy of Sippleton, the JBC Building. It was an ugly and grotesque construction, but he felt a surge of excitement ever
y time he looked at it.

  The first of the JBC offices, it was still the flagship of the company and even though they’d never shot any of their major TV-productions in Sippleton and only local news was filmed and edited in there. It was still the pride of the town.

  Rachel looked at him expectantly and he realized that she’d asked him a question.

  “Sorry?”

  Rachel frowned at him so he leaned in and kissed her cheek to show that she now had his undivided attention.

  “I asked where you see us going.”

  “To a coffee shop? I was thinking we could get something to eat and…”

  “No, I mean in the future. Where do you see us in ten years?”

  Thomas stumbled. “In ten years?” he repeated, stalling.

  She looked at him expectantly and Thomas cleared his throat. Was this where she wanted him to ask her to marry him, like she’d told her friends he already had? Or should he play it cool and give an ambiguous answer? With Rachel it was hard to tell what she’d like best.

  “In ten years we’re probably married and living in a nice, big house. Maybe have a couple of kids,” he said.

  It was difficult to imagine that life and he shifted uncomfortably. Ten years was an eternity so maybe he’d be ready for it by then. He looked over at Rachel who was now pursing her lips. What did that mean? His heartbeat picked up. Had that not been what she’d been wanting to hear?

  “Where do you see us in ten years?” he hurried to ask.

  “Are you going to get that scholarship?”

  “Which one?”

  He hadn’t told her about Krümper. He hadn’t told anyone about Krümper, but Rachel had a way of finding things out.

  “For your baseball.”

  Thomas released the breath he’d been holding.“Too early to say. I’m still a junior. Anything might happen.”

  She frowned again. “But what are your ambitions?”

  “I want to get accepted to Kansas State or whoever else that will take me, get my degree and go into business. What do you want to do?”

  “Well, I’m not going to be stuck in Sippleton all my life,” Rachel declared. “I’ve lived in small towns all for too long already and I want to see something else. Anything else.”

  “Where do you want to live?”

  “I don’t know. Los Angeles was great. Aunt Mia wanted me to audition for commercials and things. She said I’m as pretty as she was, back in the day.”

  A heavy weight settled in the pit of his stomach. He’d never been further away from home than Kansas City. The idea of visiting California, never mind living there, filled him with trepidation.

  “Do you want to go to college there?”

  “I don’t know if I want to go to college. I want to focus on a modelling career or on being an influencer. I have this blog, you know? And I’m building my Instagram and Snapchat so I’m going to have a big platform of followers there as well.”

  “I thought your Instagram was private.”

  Rachel smiled at him. “I have two. Here, see,” she said and handed him her phone.

  Thomas scrolled through pictures of her in different clothes from different angles. A few of the pictures were of the two of them together with hashtags like #perfectday and #bestboyfriend. He was flattered. Still, imagining a bunch of strangers seeing pictures of him made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  He looked at her number of followers. Two thousand people. Insane.

  “You should follow me on this one as well,” Rachel told him and took her phone back. “We should take a selfie,” she added and put her arm around him to snap a picture.

  “I don’t…”

  “You need to raise your ambitions,” she told him and leaned into him, aiming the camera of her phone. “Have you considered going pro?”

  Considered it? Only every day since the first time he ever held a baseball bat, but he couldn't rely on that dream coming true. It didn’t take more than a split second to injure yourself bad enough to never be able to play again. He knew that all too well, knew that he needed an education to fall back on.

  “I’ve thought about it,” he told her.

  “It would be perfect. We could combine my modelling with your baseball career.”

  “It takes a lot to do that, going pro,” Thomas said.

  “I believe in you,” Rachel said as she tucked her phone away. “You just need to have faith,” she took a sip of her coffee. “And increase your training.”

  Thomas dropped his arm from her shoulders. “I’m training every day.”

  “Of course you are, but you can always push a little harder. I just don’t want you to miss out on the chance of a lifetime because you didn’t try hard enough.”

  Thomas frowned at her. That sounded surprisingly like his dad.

  Rachel looked up at him and smiled widely, leaning into him. “But that is all in the future. Let’s focus on the here and now. We can work on your schedule later,” she said and pulled him closer.

  “My schedule?”

  “Mm, I’m sure we can fit in some more training. I don’t understand why you’re taking so many advanced courses. It’s not like you’re going to need them. You could do intermediate stuff and have a lot more time for baseball.”

  “I like my courses. I need them to get an academic scholarship if I don’t get one for baseball.”

  “That is the type of loser attitude that’s going to keep you from making it into the big league,” she said as she pulled him inside a coffee shop.

  Thomas looked at her as she scanned the menu to figure out what she wanted to drink. “I need to have a backup plan.”

  “No, you don’t. You need to bring your A-game and not worry so much,” she told him and turned to the barista. “A decaf skinny latte with hazelnut syrup, please.”

  “Bringing my A-game doesn’t mean I won’t get injured,” Thomas protested. “Just a plain coffee for me, please.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Why do you think you’re going to injure yourself? You’re fine.”

  Thomas paid for their drinks and picked them up to carry them to the table Rachel had selected by the window.

  “I broke my arm once. Couldn’t play for two months.”

  “What? I don’t remember that.”

  “It was before you moved here. I was eight.”

  He had stumbled and landed on his arm at the worst possible angle. It had healed well and he didn’t have any problems with it now, but he still remembered his fear of not being able to play again. That had been the day he started to pay attention to things other than baseball.

  “See? It was a long time ago. You haven’t been injured since, have you?”

  “Not badly, but that’s because I’ve been careful,” Thomas said and took a sip of his coffee.

  He made a grimace. It tasted like dirt and water. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to drink this stuff. His dad always said that a real man drank coffee and he could only conclude that a real man didn’t have tastebuds. He determinedly took another sip. He’d get used to the taste or die trying.

  “Careful doesn’t win you the game. I’ve seen you play, Thomas. You’re great, but you could be amazing,” she said and reached out across the table to take his hand. “I don’t want to see you selling yourself short.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good,” she said with a smile, her eyes glittering. “It’s decided, then. You’ll become a baseball pro, I’ll be a model and we’ll live happily ever after in a mansion in Malibu.”

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. That sounded like a detailed and virtually unachievable dream, not a goal. Not that he was going to tell her that. Not when just the idea of it made her smile.

  “I think that the important thing is that we’re together wherever we end up.”

  “Of course,” Rachel said quickly. “You’ll love LA, by the way. Aunt Mia took me there to…”

  Thomas zoned out. He didn’t mean to, he simply became preoccupied wi
th the way she moved her head when she talked and the way her mouth formed each word so perfectly.

  He nodded and smiled when she looked at him like she expected a response. Rachel didn’t seem to mind carrying on with the conversation on her own so he could relax in his seat and just watch her.

  He wished he could freeze this moment. Before the summer holiday, and her trip to California, she had told him that she needed a break from their relationship. Just as she had three times before during the two years they’d been together.

  He hadn’t known how to deal with that and it had cast a long shadow over his summer, but here she was again. She was holding his hand and letting him kiss her. Life didn’t get better than this.

  After Rachel had finished her coffee they headed over to the mall to look at clothes. He didn’t care much about fashion and shopping usually bored him, but so long as Rachel was there he didn’t mind.

  He didn’t say a word when she had him trying on shirts in pastel colors and tried talking him into buying one of them because being her boyfriend meant he had to meet certain standards. Her calling him her boyfriend made a shiver of pleasure run through him. Maybe those shirts wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He did look good in turquoise.

  In Thomas’s opinion the day turned to night far too fast and when he dropped Rachel off at her parents’ house he didn’t want to drive home.

  “I had a good time today,” Rachel said, lingering in the car.

  “Yeah, me too,” he mumbled, focusing on her pink lips. He leaned forward.

  “I guess I’ll see you in church on Sunday?” Rachel asked, pulling back.

  Thomas straightened in his seat. “Of course.”

  She cleared her throat and opened the car door, but hesitated before getting out. “Are you coming to Michael’s Halloween party in a few weeks?”

  Thomas blinked. No need to ask which Michael she was talking about. Michael Perez always had parties whenever his parents were out of town and they tended to attract a crowd. They also tended to end in disaster. The last time both the police and the firefighters had been called there by the neighbors.

  Thomas’s father had made him swear to never again go to a party hosted by Michael and he had heard Rachel say, repeatedly, that she wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those parties.