Anything but Broken

by Joelle Knox

  And maybe it’s just really damn hard to be mad at someone you’re about to kill.

  I don’t remember walking to the front door, but my hand’s resting on it, so I swing it shut and throw the deadbolt for good measure. There’s a hallway that runs straight through the house, and my sandals hardly make any noise on Evie’s restored hardwood floors.

  I’m a ghost, floating silently through the house and out the back door. Evie’s yard isn’t huge, and her workshop takes up a lot of it. I’m still numb by the time I reach the open door and knock. “Evie?”

  “Yeah, what’s—?” She looks up from the bits of metal scattered on her workbench, and a frown edges out the words. “What’s the matter?”

  “Marcia came by. She said—” My voice cracks, and I can’t force it back this time. The lump in my throat cuts like shards of glass, and as fast as I blink away tears, more keep coming. It’s like the slam of that screen door shot me out of a fantasy world and back into my own life, my own skin.

  It hurts to be here. So much that I choke on a sob and turn blindly, because I have to get away. Someplace private, quiet, where I can wrestle this grief back into its box.

  “Hannah—” Evie catches up with me outside, where the light spilling out of the workshop drives away the darkness. She turns me to face her and wraps one arm around my shoulders. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I lie. It’s ridiculous and stupid when I can’t even wipe away tears quickly enough to banish them. Everything’s unraveling, and maybe I should be glad Evie’s the one here to see it. Sean doesn’t need to watch me fall apart.

  “Come on.” Instead of letting go, she guides me through the back door and parks me at the kitchen table. “Sit down for a second.”

  She pushes a napkin into my hand and grabs a glass from the cabinet. I wipe my cheeks and will myself to take deep breaths, to reach for calm, but then Evie’s back, warm and friendly and just…giving a shit.

  I don’t know how to cope with it. I don’t know how to accept comfort, because the closest I ever came was with Cait on her good days, when she’d shower me in sisterly affection. Too much, too intense, because that was how Cait did everything. All the way up or all the way down.

  Growing up with my parents didn’t make her that way, no matter what Marcia wants to claim. Biology made Cait bipolar—a word so forbidden in the Casey household that it’s still difficult for me to even think it. But that’s all it was—brain chemistry, a disease. No more shameful than my mother’s hay fever.

  At least, it shouldn’t have been.

  That’s what finally lets me take an unsteady breath. Marcia may be right, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It simply means that this situation is fucked up in too many ways to count. Everyone’s a monster, and everyone loses.

  But I don’t have to be alone with it. I wipe my eyes and take the glass from Evie, draining half of it in two gulps. “This sucks, Evie. All of it sucks.”

  She slides into the chair next to mine and eyes me with sympathy. “What happened?”

  Evie’s been sweet to me since I came back. We’ve talked. About guys, about college, about her art and mine. About all the little things that can fill up a day without weighing it down. But we’ve never talked about why she came back to Hurricane Creek. And I haven’t told her why I want to stay.

  It spills out of me in bits and pieces. Awkward at first, and embarrassing when I have to tell her about my scholarships. But doing that’s like popping a balloon, and then I tell her everything—about Cait and her psychiatrist, and about my mother’s obsession with making Cait normal. About their fights over her meds and Cait’s shame and the anger and fear involved with watching my brilliant, talented sister collapse in on herself like a star going nova.

  I stumble over the day of her death, but I don’t think Evie notices. I’m crying again and she’s holding my hands, and it’s normal to stumble when you’re talking about losing your sister, the only family you ever really knew.

  Still, I don’t take any chances. “I’ve been so mad,” I whisper, clinging to Evie’s hands. “Mad at her for what she did to Cait. I should have let her go days ago, but I keep going up there, and I just—I want her to wake up so I can yell at her. I don’t want it to end like this.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Evie whispers.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m going tomorrow to tell the doctors they can—” I close my eyes, but that makes it worse because I can see my mother in my mind, pale and still as death already. I don’t know how it will happen, if it’s as dramatic as what they show on television, where we all stand around waiting for the sound of her heart to stop.

  The thought makes me want to puke.

  Evie’s hand tightens around mine. “Do you want me to call Sean?”

  I shake my head so hard my hair whips my cheeks. “Not for this. Not—” I swallow. “Cait never told him, and finding out hurt him.”

  Evie sighs and leans closer. “I didn’t ask about Cait. I asked what you want.”

  I want Sean. I want him to show up and kiss or touch me, drag me back into that surreal alternate universe where we’re two people groping toward a future together. Right now, I’m pretty sure that place only exists in my imagination. I’m Sean’s summer fling. Maybe, if I stay, I can be more than that.

  But not if I drown him in Casey family drama and beg him to clean up my mess.

  So I rest my head on Evie’s shoulder. “Will you come with me tomorrow? I know it’s a lot to ask—”

  “Absolutely,” she says firmly.

  My head feels stuffed full of cotton and my eyes and throat ache, but I feel lighter. Wrung out and too tired to move, sure. But lighter.

  I have Evie. She’ll help me get through tomorrow. And after that, maybe I can work on building my future.

  14

  »» sean ««

  I’m in the middle of poking at next year’s budget for the garage when someone knocks on my apartment door. It isn’t locked, but I’m not expecting anyone, so I stick my pencil behind my ear and answer it.

  Hannah’s standing there, looking so pale and washed out that her tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes stand out in stark relief. “Sorry I didn’t call first.”

  “No, it’s okay.” My stomach flips over as I pull her inside. “Come in.”

  “Thank you.” She leans into me as soon as the door shuts, her phone clenched tight in one hand. “Evie dropped me off. I told her I’d text her if you couldn’t give me a ride home later.”

  “Sure, I can.” I take a step back, toward the couch. She looks a little vague, unfocused. Shocked. “Hannah?”

  “I need to…” She lifts her phone and taps out a message, but even after it’s gone she keeps staring blankly at the screen.

  There isn’t anything I can do that isn’t pushy. I could pry her phone out of her hand, or park her on the couch, but it all seems like what I choose, not what she needs.

  So I wait.

  The phone beeps with an incoming message, and she starts. Her gaze swings up to meet mine, and her eyes are too bright, as if she’s a heartbeat away from a fresh round of tears. “I did it. She’s gone.”

  I stumble over the words until they finally make sense—her mother is dead. “Oh, Hannah.” I hold out my arms, and she edges into them, shy and wary until I wrap them around her. Then she crumples.

  Why didn’t you call me? The words materialize on my tongue, and I bite down, rocking her against me instead. She’s here now, and she needs me.

  “I waited too long,” she whispers thickly. “Marcia yelled at me last night, and she was right. I was being horrible.”

  “Hey, until she has to deal with this situation, she doesn’t get to say that.”

  “But she said…” Hannah trails off and lifts her head. “People talked about my dad, right? They must have.”

  Sure, they did. They still do, and none of it is anything I would ever want to repeat in front of someone who cared about him. In front of
his kid. “Sweetheart—”

  Her face hardens, and she doesn’t look like a kid. She looks ancient, and so, so tired. “Tell me, Sean. It’s not like I ever knew him.”

  I sit down, not because she needs to, but because I do. “You don’t understand, Hannah. It’s gossip. None of it’s exactly fair.”

  “I don’t want to be fair.” She tucks her feet beneath her and faces me. “She sent me away. Was it because of him?”

  “I don’t know.” Everything I’ve heard about Paul Casey over the years has been filtered through people envious of his status and money. Not necessarily because they wanted it for themselves, but because of the leniency and special treatment that it bought him. No one ever picked the situation apart enough to talk about his wife’s feelings about his alcoholism.

  “Dammit.” The coldness in Hannah’s gaze falters, and she leans her head against the back of the couch and closes her eyes. “It would have made it easier. If he was the bad guy, and there was a—a reason. Any reason.”

  It physically hurts that I can’t give her that. “It may be true. But no one spreading gossip is gonna know something like that.”

  She rubs her hand across her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you through more family drama.”

  “Don’t apologize.” Saying it makes me feel shitty, but not as bad as the fact that I apparently have to say it. She didn’t want me with her while she was dealing with this because she thinks it’s not my problem, and the knowledge claws at me. “I’m here. You know that, right?”

  “I know.” She reaches out, her hand creeping into mine. “I just worry, I guess. That it’s too much to ask.”

  “You shouldn’t.” It’s too much for anyone to have to deal with, but only an asshole would consider that a reason to leave her to deal with it alone.

  “I can’t help it.” Her eyes drift open, and she stares at me through a sheen of tears. “You have this awesome life, and I’m a mess. I don’t want to screw you up, but that’s all anyone in my family is good for.”

  “I’m a grown damn man, Hannah. I can handle it.”

  “Do you want to handle it?”

  It sounds like she’s asking more than a straightforward question, but people don’t always get to choose their circumstances. “I want to be here for you.”

  She wets her lips. “Even if I might not be going back to Atlanta?”

  The words clench my stomach. “You’re dropping out?”

  “Not for good,” she says quickly. Defensively. “Just until I figure out what I’m supposed to be. Because I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  It’s everything my mom warned me to be careful of. Not to expect. “So you’re staying in Hurricane Creek?”

  “With Evie.” Her fingers tighten around mine. Nerves, I think, because she sure as hell looks nervous. “Her aunt needs help in the store, and Evie’s been wanting to take more time for her art. We figured I could help out until the estate is settled. The lawyer said it could take a while.”

  It’s not forever, but it’s more than I thought we’d have. I offer her a reassuring smile and squeeze her hand. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “I’m not staying for you,” she says, then winces. “No, that came out wrong. I want to be with you, but I don’t want you to think this is about you. That you have to stay with me because I gave something up.”

  She’s babbling, and it’s sort of tragic that she feels like she needs to tell me this. Reassure me that I don’t owe her anything, like that’s the rational conclusion, the first place my mind is going to go. “Hey, relax. Just relax, okay?”

  She takes a deep, slow breath and lets it out, then another, like it’s a coping strategy. Second nature. Then she shifts, edging across the couch to curl against me, her head resting on my shoulder. “I trust you,” she whispers, her breath soft and warm on my neck. “You know that, right? I just don’t know how to do this. How to let someone...care.”

  I wrap my arm around her and pull her closer. She’s soft, pliant. More fragile than ever. “A little bit at a time, maybe.”

  “I can do that.” She twines our fingers again, relaxing into me. “Could you come to the funeral with me?”

  “You bet.”

  “Thank you.” She sighs and tilts her head back. “Were you busy, or is it okay if I stay a while?”

  I lean back against the cushions and prop my feet on the coffee table. “Budget stuff. Couldn’t get more boring than that.”

  “I don’t know…” She reaches up to tug the pencil from behind my ear with a faint smile. “It’s kind of sexy. You own your own business.”

  “Nerd.” It’s good to see her smiling. “If that kind of stuff turns you on so hard, maybe you should be an accountant.”

  She wrinkles her nose at that. “I like math okay, but maybe not that much of it.”

  “Come on.” I tickle the back of her neck. “Tax season is hot.”

  Her smile grows as she rubs her thumb over the back of my hand. “Do you stay up late and get all disheveled and ink-stained while you’re trying to cook the books?”

  “More like freak out because Gibb forgot to file a bunch of receipts.”

  “Ouch. You should make him install one of those apps. Evie has one on her phone. She takes a picture of the receipt when she gets it.”

  Gibb spends half his time glued to his phone anyway, so it just might work. “I’ll ask her about it.”

  “You should.” Her thumb keeps making slow circles, working up toward my wrist, but it doesn’t feel flirtatious. It’s absent, like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, but it soothes her. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay up and bring you coffee and donuts during tax season.”

  “I’ll take it.” Talking about next spring seems like avoidance, considering the day she’s had. “Do you need me to call anyone?”

  But she shakes her head. “Marcia’s taking care of all of it. I went with her to the funeral home, but everything is all planned. Handling it gives her something to do, and I guess she needs that.”

  “What do you need?” If it’s a night of popcorn and movies or video games, I can do it. Anything to turn those faint smiles into something more substantial.

  “I don’t know.” She laughs, short and forced. “A drink?”

  It’s not a joke, and there goes my stomach, clenching again. She wouldn’t be the first Casey to master the art of refined alcoholism.

  It seems like years since that night at Shorty’s, but I don’t think I was wrong. She’s not as far gone as Gibb’s dad, who literally gets the shakes if he goes too long without hitting the bottle, but she sure as hell seems to use booze to kill the pain.

  It’s a slippery fucking slope.

  “Not tonight, Hannah,” I tell her softly, though it comes out sounding more like a plea. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  She stiffens in my arms, but she doesn’t argue. After a few tense moments, she just changes the subject. “Could we go driving again?”

  “You ready to take the Boss for another spin?”

  Sitting up, she brushes her hair back from her face and smiles, though she won’t quite meet my eyes. “I’d do it every night.”

  For the thrill, or to spend time with me? Not that it matters. I know I’d say yes, either way.

  »»»«««

  Marcia Prescott’s house is big and white, with columns and curving staircases and honest-to-God chandeliers. Being here under any circumstances would be weird as hell, but being here for a reception after your girlfriend’s mother’s funeral…

  That’s a whole different kind of fucked up.

  The funeral was bad enough. We stood there under a cloudless sky, waiting for the minister to finish with his flowery words, but my attention kept drifting from the open grave in front of me to the older one beside it.

  I still feel guilty. Not about Hannah—I have a feeling Cait would be glad of that much, at least—but about how I handled shit five years ago. Maybe it’ll never go away, this vague sense
that I should have been able to do more, that I should’ve known more about Cait’s situation and illness. I keep replaying it in my mind—all the times she’d do crazy shit, and we’d laugh it off, all the times she’d say crazy shit, and we’d shrug, because what do you expect from Cait?

  I didn’t save her. Worse, I didn’t know her, not really, and that seems like the far bigger crime.

  Hannah has never been less like Cait. Hell, she’s not even like herself right now—not the Hannah I’ve been falling for. She’s a pale, composed shadow, one who murmurs all the right things in a numb voice. She hugs well-dressed strangers and accepts their condolences, and the only reason I know she’s still in there at all is the way she grips my hand when we’re alone for a few moments, her fingers clenched so tight my own ache.

  “Whenever you want to get out of here,” I murmur. “Just say the word.”

  Her polite mask slips for long enough to reveal a painful yearning, but she shuts it down so fast it’s scary. “I shouldn’t. I did everything else wrong. I owe her this.”

  Making all the right noises of gratitude while a bunch of strangers eye her with thinly veiled, almost predatory interest? Not hardly. “This isn’t for your mom. This is for everyone else.”

  As if to prove my point, another woman approaches us. Mrs. Shaw—Mason’s mother—a tall, icy blonde who gives Hannah the fakest half-hug I’ve ever seen and pretends I’m not there at all. “Hannah, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Hannah mumbles, clinging even more tightly to my hand. “I know it would mean a lot to her that you’re here.”

  The words are empty, rote. I’ve heard her say them to every damn person in attendance, but Mrs. Shaw obviously agrees that her presence should mean a lot to anyone. She pats Hannah’s arm and nods. “I can’t tell you how much I’ll miss her. We headed the Historic Downtown Preservation Committee together. But you know that, of course. You must be so proud of all the good she did.”

  Hannah’s nose scrunches, just a little, but I know that look. It’s her trying-not-to-laugh look, and the numbness in her gaze is transforming into something wild.