Rules We're Meant to Break

by Natalie Williamson

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  For Danny, my partner in everything

  I couldn’t have done any of this without you

  And for Gracie, the Buffy to my Amber

  I’ll see you on the other side of the rainbow bridge

  prologue

  SEPTEMBER, FRESHMAN YEAR

  I stare at the clock all through last period, willing time to speed up so the final bell will hurry up and ring. Today is Friday and also my birthday, and my best friend Hannah and I are going shopping for something to wear to dinner tonight. My mom and her boyfriend, Howard, are taking us to this fancy French place across town, so I want to look extra nice. Partly because of the restaurant, and partly because some of Howard’s extended family will be there, including his nephew, Tyler.

  Tyler, who came to watch his school play football against mine two weeks ago and made sure to sit next to me in the bleachers. Tyler, who slipped his hand into mine somewhere around halftime and didn’t let go for the rest of the game. Tyler, who pulled me aside before I left and kissed me until I was breathless. Tyler, who I’ve seen three times since then, all of which involved more excellent kissing and hands in interesting places.

  So, yeah. I’m a little excited about tonight. I haven’t been able to keep the stupid grin off my face all day.

  Finally, finally, the bell rings and I snatch my books off my desk and scramble toward the door. I’m moving so fast that I knock into someone on my way out of the room.

  “Sorry!” I yelp, jumping back.

  “It’s okay,” the guy says easily, and I look over and see that the person I almost knocked into is Jordan Baugh, possibly the hottest guy in all of ninth grade. He was my number-one crush this year before I realized Tyler liked me back, and I’m still not totally immune to him. I blink at him like an idiot, but he grins at me. “I was looking at my phone, anyway. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.” I stare at him a second longer before I duck my head and rush away.

  I make a quick stop at my locker to grab my backpack and then go find Hannah at hers.

  “Hey, birthday girl,” she says when she sees me coming. “I have to get one more thing and then I’m ready. Matt said he’d meet us at the car.”

  “Cool.” Matt is Hannah’s older brother and our most frequent chauffeur since he got his license this summer. Luckily he’s pretty cool as far as older brothers go, and he doesn’t seem to mind driving us around most of the time. “Do you care if he drops us off at my place first? I don’t want to have to carry our backpacks around the whole time.”

  “I figured,” Hannah says, slamming her locker door closed.

  We find Matt in the parking lot and he lets me ride shotgun and insists that I pick the music again, like he did this morning. I go with Taylor Swift to see how he’ll react, and Hannah and I both crack up laughing when he lets out a defeated sigh, rolls down the window, and blasts the music.

  “Only on your birthday, Richter,” he says, pointing a finger at me when he drops us off in front of my mom’s apartment building.

  “Noted.” I grin at him as Hannah and I get out of the car.

  We take the stairs to the third floor, still giggling about Matt as we come out into the hallway and head for number 304.

  “And when he hit that high note!” I’m saying to her as I turn my key in the lock and push open the door.

  “Right?” Hannah asks, following me into the apartment. But then she stops short and frowns at something over my shoulder. “Whoa. Where did your couch go?”

  I whip around to look and freeze when I see my living room. The leather couch that used to be against the left wall is gone, the dents in the carpet the only sign that anything was ever there at all. I stare at it for a second, not understanding what this means. But then hot awareness creeps up my spine and I take a deep breath and blow it out as I drop my backpack on the floor and step further into the room.

  Hannah stays frozen on the welcome mat as I move into the kitchen and open the pantry cupboard.

  “Amber?” she asks, as I slam the cabinet closed again and start toward the bedrooms. “What’s going on?”

  I don’t answer her. Instead I keep moving, stepping into my room to verify that yes, everything is the way I left it this morning. My bathroom is close to normal, but the scale in the corner is gone, and so are the guest hand towels. In my mother’s room, I find more dents in the carpet. One of the mismatched nightstands and the dresser are gone. Mom’s bras and underwear and workout clothes are stacked on the bed in neat piles, and a pair of her shoes is tucked against the far wall.

  I close my eyes for a second and then head back out to the main living space, ignoring Hannah’s worried gaze. I go over to my backpack, pull out my phone, and call my mom’s cell. She’s at work this afternoon, and normally that means calls to her cell will go to voice mail. But she answers on the first ring, and that’s how I know what she’s going to say before I even ask the question. I still ask it though. Because there’s a routine to these things by this point.

  “Mom,” I say, listening to her breathing on the other end of the line. “Why is all of Howard’s stuff gone?”

  * * *

  Half an hour later Hannah and I are sitting on one of the benches in New Market, outside of the little boutique where I wanted to buy a dress to wear to dinner tonight. There’s no point in buying the dress now, because dinner obviously isn’t happening. But I wanted to walk, and New Market is the closest place to my apartment that made sense. So here we are.

  “Did she say why?” Hannah asks me now, breaking the silence for the first time in a while. “I mean, I thought things between them were fine.”

  “I heard them fighting a few weeks ago. But only that one time, so I thought…” I stop and shake my head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. She always does this. She always ruins everything. Which is why I should’ve known. I should’ve seen this coming. I’ve had enough practice by now.”

  Howard is the third guy who’s lived with us since my dad left when I was five, and none of them have ever lasted long. Mom didn’t say much on the phone, but she said enough for me to know that while Howard’s move-out day wasn’t her choice, him leaving definitely was.

  “Amber,” Hannah says, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. “No. Ugh, God. This sucks.”

  “Tell me about it.” I shrug off her hand and get to my feet, my face hot. “But we’re here and I have Mom’s credit card to buy myself a dress. So we should still go shopping, right?”

  “I don’t know if that’s—” Hannah starts, but I give her a look that shuts her up.

  I try on a ton of shirts and dresses in the boutique, but nothing fits right and I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror right now because my face is blotchy and red and my mouth is a thin line. So we leave without buying anything and go to the bookstore, where I buy myself a hundred dollars’ worth of horror novels. Normally romance is
more my thing, but blood and guts sound a lot better to me right now.

  “Where to next?” Hannah asks, shading her eyes and looking around. “We could go get something to eat. Or maybe look at the record store?”

  “Let’s go to The Pet Shop,” I say, my gaze catching on the sign across the parking lot.

  “Okay,” Hannah agrees, linking her arm through mine and marching us in that direction.

  I had a hamster named Neville in middle school who died before Howard moved in with us last year, but Mom wouldn’t let me get another one since Howard is allergic to pet dander. Today seems like the perfect day to fix that problem. It is my birthday, after all.

  I’m thinking about small mammals as we approach the store, trying to decide what to do. Should I get another hamster, since I loved Neville so much? Or a rat since they’re supposed to be sweet but would probably freak Mom out more?

  “Is there a puppy tied up to that tree, or am I imagining things?” Hannah asks.

  I look where she’s pointing and see she’s right: There’s a black and tan puppy tied up to the tree in the little planter in front of The Pet Shop. It’s warm today, in the high eighties, but the puppy doesn’t have a water bowl or anything nearby. Its little tongue is hanging out as it pants rapidly in an attempt to cool itself down.

  Hannah and I exchange looks and rush over to the dog. It sees us coming and gets to its feet, straining at the leash tying it to the tree, tail wagging furiously. But then it chokes, and I realize the leash is one of those noose kinds that you loop around the dog’s neck, not clip to a collar. “Hold on, baby,” I say to the puppy, closing the rest of the distance between us and holding out a hand for it to sniff. Hannah goes for the leash on the tree while I pick the puppy up and carefully loosen the makeshift collar so that I can take it off.

  “What kind of asshole would leave their puppy outside a freaking pet store?” Hannah says, untangling the leash from the tree.

  I look into the little puppy’s face and feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes as it licks me. “The kind of asshole who isn’t coming back.”

  Hannah’s face falls. “You think so?”

  “If I had to guess, yeah. But let’s go in and check.”

  We meet the owner of The Pet Shop, who introduces herself as Stephanie, and after checking with her employees and customers over the intercom, she confirms our suspicions that the puppy was dumped.

  “It happens more often than you’d think,” Stephanie says, sighing and reaching out to scratch the puppy’s head as it laps up water. “People think it’s better to leave them here than at the shelter because they’ll be found quickly. They assume we can adopt them out. But most of the time, we have to call the shelter too.”

  “You do?” I ask, looking from her to the puppy, who abandons the water bowl to come lick my legs.

  “Yeah,” Stephanie says. “But don’t worry. This little lady won’t stay in a shelter long. Puppies find homes really quickly. It’s the older dogs I worry more about.”

  I bite my lip and look down at the puppy’s sweet face, then reach down to pick her up. She looks like a shepherd of some kind, though it’s hard to tell for sure, and her big brown eyes suck me in as she snuggles into my lap.

  “Oh no,” Hannah says, and I look over at her.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head and looks at Stephanie. “Don’t worry about calling the shelter. What all do we need to get so we can take this pup home?”

  * * *

  We have to call Matt to pick us up because we can’t carry the bed, toys, and twenty-pound bag of dog food back to my place. His eyes widen when he pulls up to the curb in front of the store, but he gets out and helps us load everything without a word. I get shotgun again, and the puppy stays in my lap.

  “Who’s this?” Matt asks, looking over at me as he starts the car back up.

  “Buffy,” I say.

  He reaches over to stroke a hand down Buffy’s back, then puts the car in gear. “Okay then,” he says, and he drives us home.

  By the time my mom gets back from work at five thirty, Buffy is asleep on her new dog bed, which I set up along the blank wall where Howard’s couch used to be. Hannah and I are on the floor on either side of her in spite of the love seat and chair Howard left behind, and we’ve got season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing on the TV.

  “Amber?” Mom says, looking at all of us, and I can hear the bite in her tone. She knew I’d be upset, but she obviously wasn’t expecting me to bring home a dog.

  “Mom,” I say evenly, and we stare at each other for a long moment. I dare her with my eyes to ask me about the dog, to try telling me I have to let Buffy go.

  Finally, Mom sighs. “Do you still want to go to dinner, or would you rather I order in pizza?”

  “Pizza is fine.”

  Mom blows out a breath and heads back to her bedroom to change. Her footsteps falter around what I’d guess is the doorway to her room, and for a second my heart squeezes in my chest. But I push that feeling aside, because I’m still angry right now and being angry is a lot easier than crying.

  We eat pizza on the floor and then Hannah and I take Buffy for a walk around the apartment complex. My phone buzzes in my pocket as we’re walking, and I pull it out to find a text from Tyler.

  Hey. Uncle Howie told me what went down with your mom. I’m so sorry.

  Hope surges in my chest and I hurriedly hand Buffy’s leash to Hannah so I can text him back.

  Thanks. Since we had to miss out on dinner tonight, do you maybe want to hang out tomorrow? We could go see a movie or something.

  The little bubble showing he’s typing pops up almost immediately, but it takes him a long time to reply.

  I don’t think that’s a great idea. It’d be weird, you know?

  Happy birthday though.

  I suck in a breath, and Hannah holds out her hand.

  “Show me.” I pass over my phone. “Shit.”

  And that’s when I start to cry.

  Hannah guides me to one of the picnic tables by the pool and wraps an arm around my shoulders, waiting without saying a word until I’ve gotten everything out.

  “This is the worst birthday ever,” I say finally, with a huge sniff.

  “Yeah,” Hannah says. But then she leans down and scoops Buffy up, depositing her in my lap. “It hasn’t all been bad though. Right?”

  I rub Buffy’s ears between my fingers and lean in so her little face is right next to mine. “No. It hasn’t all been bad. But I can’t keep doing this, Han.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting my hopes up. Letting myself believe that the next guy will be different. I was starting to really like Howard, you know?”

  “I know,” Hannah says quietly.

  “And Tyler…”

  She sighs. “I know.”

  We sit in silence for a while, long enough that the sky starts getting dark, and then suddenly I sit up straight.

  “What?” Hannah asks.

  “Maybe what I need,” I say, looking over at her, “is to start preparing for the next guy right now.”

  She frowns at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Well there’s always a next guy, right?” Hannah gives me a look like she’s not sure how to respond to that without sounding like a jerk, so I keep going. “And since I know that already, I should have known better than to get involved with Tyler, or even to start liking Howard in the first place.”

  “I don’t know,” Hannah says. “It wasn’t all bad with them, right? There was some good stuff too.”

  I shake my head. “Yeah, but they’re still gone, and today still sucked. If I make sure I don’t get attached to anyone next time, it’ll be better for me when things end. For everyone, really.”

  Hannah doesn’t look totally convinced, but she doesn’t disagree with me out loud, so I’m calling that a win. I get to my feet and set Buffy down gently, taking her leash in hand.

  “Come on,” I say to Hannah. �
��I want to do this now, before I forget.”

  “Do what now?” Hannah asks, her brow furrowing as she gets to her feet.

  “Write down the rules for next time,” I say.

  “Rules? What did you have in mind?”

  * * *

  When everything is said and done, I end up with nine rules to follow for the next time one of Mom’s boyfriends moves in.

  1. Always keep your eyes on the horizon.

  2. Children of Mom's boyfriends are roommates to be tolerated, not friends.

  3. Get used to introducing yourself to strangers. It's going to happen a lot. (Of course, if said stranger looks like a creeper, throw this rule out the window and run.)

  4. Related, get used to spending holidays with strangers too, because that's pretty much the norm.

  5. Protect your plate at all large meal gatherings, holidays or otherwise.

  6. Never ask Mom's boyfriends for help, unless it's a legitimate emergency.

  7. Never get romantically involved with anyone connected to Mom's boyfriends or their families.

  8. Don't get involved in any “family” drama, even if it's juicy and hard to resist.

  9. Keep your real life separate from Mom's life with her current boyfriend.

  Just reading through the list relaxes me, and I feel totally calm for the first time since Hannah and I got back to my apartment. I tuck the finished rules into my favorite book and hide it behind some of my new horror novels on the bottom shelf, and then I go out to watch another movie with Hannah and Buffy before we all go to bed.

  The next morning I pull out the list to check that it’s still there, and I find that Hannah has made a last-minute addition.

  10. Remember you love your mom. I know it’s hard sometimes. But do it anyway.

  I debate scratching it out, but decide against it and tuck the list back into its hiding spot. Hannah meant well, and she’s probably right. Knowing my luck and Mom’s track record with guys, I’m going to need the reminder.