Anything but Broken

by Joelle Knox

  I could intervene, but one look at Mrs. Shaw drives home the truth I already know—I’m an outsider who shouldn’t even be here, much less calling the shots. “Maybe we—”

  And then Evie is standing on the other side of Hannah. “Oh, honey. You’ve been going all day. You have to sit down and rest sometime.” She looks up at Mrs. Shaw with a smile. “She’ll run herself into the ground if we let her.”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Shaw gives Evie the same insincere shoulder pat. “She’s so lucky to have you here with her. Take good care of her for us.”

  The woman turns away, and Evie’s smile melts. “We’re ditching this reception, right?”

  “Please,” Hannah whispers.

  “Come on.” With her hand in mine, I head for the exit. The same untouchable lowlife quality that kept them all from talking to me—hell, from acknowledging my presence—keeps them away now, and we slip out the front door.

  My car is parked near the front of the large, circular drive, and I eagerly dig my keys out of my pocket. “Where to?”

  “Anyplace that’s not…” She waves a hand, taking in the house and the whole damn hill. “Just away.”

  “The diner,” Evie says firmly, wrapping her arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “We’ll get you a burger, some cheese fries, and a milkshake the size of your head.”

  “That sounds good.” Hannah leans into both of us for a few heartbeats, like she needs the chance to gather her strength. Then she smiles shakily. “Actually, I’m kind of hungry.”

  Evie snorts. “You didn’t make it to the table with the mini quiches and crudités? Be glad. It was gossip central.”

  Frowning, I haul open the passenger door. “What were they running their mouths about?”

  “Nothing very original, I can tell you that.”

  Hannah lets Evie climb into the back and sinks into the seat with an air of dread. “How bad is it? Do I need to know?”

  By the time I slide behind the wheel and look in the rearview mirror, Evie is shaking her head. “None of that matters. One lady was bitching that you barely made it here for your father’s funeral. Another was upset that you didn’t remember her. Childish bullshit.”

  I start the car, feeling like an ass because Hannah has to hear this stuff. “Nothing about us?”

  “Nope.” She leans forward. “But did you guys know that I could be married already if I wasn’t so fat?”

  Hannah whips around, nearly strangling herself with the shoulder strap of her seat belt. “No. Who the hell said that?”

  “Someone who didn’t realize I was standing right there, obviously.”

  It’s ridiculous. Evie’s put on a few pounds since she came back to town, but she needed them. When she came home from Atlanta, she looked sick. Weak. Anyone who would prefer that is just an asshole.

  About as much of an asshole as someone who would be upset that Hannah didn’t remember her.

  “Fuck them,” Hannah declares, and at least some of the life is back in her voice. “You know what, fuck all of them. Being nice to my face and catty about both of us and ignoring Sean completely. Who the hell cares what they think?”

  “I kind of prefer being ignored,” I tell her, only half joking.

  She huffs. “I thought Marcia’s husband was going to tell you to park everyone’s cars. We should have left then. You were right. This wasn’t about me or her. Well, maybe it’s a little bit about me. They can’t wait to see how I’m going to implode.”

  “Don’t give them the satisfaction,” Evie mutters.

  “I’m about to,” Hannah retorts. “I mean, that’s what they’re going to think when I don’t go back to school, right?”

  I start the car, then reach over and take her hand. “If that’s their idea of implosion, maybe. But the good news is there are plenty of people in town who don’t think that way.”

  “Yeah. I don’t have to see anyone in that house, ever again.” Her voice strengthens. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.”

  It’s a short drive to the center of town, where all that historical preservation is happening right next to businesses like Wesson’s Diner. It doesn’t have to be meticulously restored, because it never went anywhere. It’s been here since my parents were kids, and not much about it has changed.

  Saturday’s a busy time downtown, but I find a space near the courthouse and park the car. The sky is still cloudless, bright. I shrug out of my suit jacket and toss it across the front seat before locking the doors.

  Hannah stops halfway around the edge of the courthouse square to stare at a placard dedicated to the efforts of the preservation committee. For a moment, I think it’s only idle curiosity, but then I realize her mother’s name is embossed at the bottom.

  Elizabeth Casey, committee chair.

  I lay one hand on the back of Hannah’s neck. “You okay?”

  “Maybe I knew her a little after all,” she says softly. “It’s the first thing I thought when I saw the town square—that she’d be the one telling everyone what they could build. I knew her. I just...didn’t like what I knew.”

  “Come on,” Evie urges. “You should sit for a while.”

  Hannah gives in, but not before claiming my hand again. “I want that milkshake. And some pie. I need a sugar rush.”

  Wesson’s is just as crowded as the downtown streets. Every booth is occupied, and there are no free seats at the counter, either.

  Trey Blair waves at us from a corner booth. He and Gibb are sitting alone, having lunch, Trey in his work pants and fire department T-shirt and Gibb in his coveralls.

  Gibb slides in to sit beside his brother. I let Hannah and Evie have the other side of the booth, and pull up an unused chair from a nearby table instead. “What’s up?”

  “Not much,” Gibb replies. “Boone’s covering so I can go back later and close up.”

  Trey offers Hannah a menu along with a smile. “Hi.”

  Belatedly, Gibb shoots Hannah a guilty look. “Yeah, sorry. Hannah, this is my brother, Trey.”

  “We met at brunch.” Hannah returns his smile, but hers is shaky and heartbreaking, and her hand sneaks under the table to find mine again.

  I steal a french fry from Gibb’s plate. “The funeral went okay. We just ran away from the afterparty.”

  Awkward silence follows, until Gibb clears his throat. “This whole thing sucks, Hannah. Do you need anything?”

  It surprises me, though I’m not sure why. Hannah may not be Gibb’s favorite person, but he’s decent enough to feel bad for her, even in less awful circumstances.

  Hannah looks a little startled, too. Then, miraculously, she laughs. “Don’t go getting friendly on me, Gibb. I thought the girls liked you surly.”

  “Usually,” he agrees with a grin.

  Evie’s busy studying the laminated menu like it holds the secrets to the universe. “Chocolate, coconut, or banana cream?”

  “Pie?” Hannah leans over to peer at the menu before glancing back at me. “What’s good?”

  I squeeze her hand. “Everything.”

  She squeezes back, her lips moving in two silent words. Thank you.

  You’re welcome, Hannah. Any time.

  15

  »» hannah ««

  Sean offered to skip his weekly race, but I don’t let him. I need a distraction, and sitting in the stands with Sadie while Sean trounces his competitors is the best kind—exhilarating, all encompassing, and so loud no one tries to talk to me.

  I ride with him back to his garage afterwards, where he opens his office for me while he and Gibb perform the less glamorous tasks that come with winning races. Sean leaves his computer with me, too, and I waste about five minutes on Solitaire before I realize why I still feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Finding a browser, I pull up my school email and flinch at the number of unread messages. The latest is from my roommate, a reply to a message I sent her just before the accident, asking to borrow her class notes.


  Hey, you back yet?

  She doesn’t know I’m gone, and why would she? It’s not like I’ve been showing up for class, and she’s given up trying to get me to go out with her. Most of the time, we come and go without seeing each other at all. I should have updated her days ago, but I guess I knew the truth in my gut—she didn’t even notice I was missing.

  My mother isn’t the only uncomfortable thing I’ve been avoiding, and maybe this is why I don’t have a lot of friends. Eventually, I flake out or let them down, and by the time I claw my way out of my own head, I never know how to reach across the gap that’s grown between us. It always seems simpler to start from scratch, with someone who doesn’t already know I’ll fade when things get too hard.

  It would be easy to disappear from Carly’s life. I only have to go back once, to grab my things. I know her schedule well enough to avoid her. I don’t have to face her at all.

  But my fresh start won’t feel fresh if I’m just running away again.

  Squaring my shoulders, I compose a brief reply about the funeral, promising that I’m okay and will catch up with her soon. It’s awkward and inadequate, but I feel a million times better after I’ve sent it. It makes it easier to find the latest one from my advisor.

  I’m rewording my reply for the tenth time when the office door swings open. Sean’s standing there, rumpled and smiling and so hot that even grief and exhaustion can’t stop that jolt of awareness that shivers through me.

  I look back at the screen. At the words that will close the door on the old Hannah for good.

  I click send.

  “Ready to go?” Sean asks.

  “Yep.” I log out of my email and close his laptop. “I was emailing my advisor.”

  “Oh yeah?” He shoves his hands in his pockets and raises both eyebrows. “You seem happy about it. Good news?”

  “Not news, just…closure.” I smile as I rise and circle the desk. “I’d been avoiding it, but I told her I’m withdrawing. And that I’m taking a year off.”

  “I didn’t know if you’d change your mind.”

  Now that I don’t have any reason to stay, he means. Because I was my awkward, tongue-tied self and assured him I couldn’t possibly be staying for him, and now I don’t know how to take it back. Or perhaps I’m afraid to take it back, because even if he likes the idea of me now, I’m still braced for the day when he won’t.

  “My mind’s made up,” I say instead, stopping close enough to him that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. “I’m staying right here for a while.”

  “I’m glad.” Sean touches my hair, wrapping a lock around his finger.

  Why did I ever think he was dangerous? I’m more vulnerable than I’ve ever been as I take my first shaky steps toward a new life, yet I feel utterly safe as I rest my palms on his broad chest. “I’m glad that you’re glad.”

  “What do you want to do tonight?”

  I’m so safe I can tell him the truth, because the last thing Sean’s going to do is take advantage of my grief. “Can I spend the night at your place?”

  “Yeah.” The rest of his fingers thread through my hair. “Did you eat?”

  “Not since the milkshakes and pie.”

  He grimaces. “Real food. You like steak, right?”

  “Of course.”

  He slides his hand down into mine. “Come on.”

  He leads me to his truck instead of his fancy car and holds open the door as I climb in. I like the Boss for driving fast, but there’s something perfect about curling up next to him on the bench seat.

  With the window rolled down, the air teases at my hair and carries with it the muggy warmth of a Georgia summer night. The cicadas are so loud I can hear them over the rumble of the truck’s engine. I’m living my own country rock song, and it’s like I finally fit in my skin.

  He pulls up outside his apartment and parks by the curb. I wait, my hands trembling, as he circles the truck and opens my door. He’s standing so close that I brush against him as I slide out, so I lean into it, lean into him, and close my eyes. “Thank you for taking care of me today.”

  “You’re welcome.” He tugs me toward the stairs, and we walk up to his apartment silently. There’s a tension twisting the space between us. It isn’t uncomfortable, not exactly, but my skin prickles with heightened awareness as Sean unlocks the door and turns on the lights.

  I’m not thinking about steak. I don’t think he is, either, though I know he’ll feed me if I ask him to. He’ll do anything for me, and there’s a dizzy sort of power in that. Especially when I’m this raw, this hollowed out.

  The old Hannah would have wrapped herself in the guilt of wanting something good when she should have been wallowing in grief. As if grief is finite, as if it will disappear if I don’t make myself feel it every second of every day, forever.

  I refuse to feel guilty for needing something else. Comfort. Contact. A connection with someone, no matter how fleeting. “Sean?”

  His keys clatter to the counter between the kitchen and the living room, and he turns to face me, his expression solemn. Perceptive. “Hannah.”

  I rise on my toes and slide my arms around his neck. “Tell me I’m not alone.”

  “I’ve got you,” he whispers back as he wraps his arms around me. “I’m right here.”

  I know he is. So I kiss him. Not fast or crazy this time, but slow. Just my lips against his, barely parted, because that’s enough to summon the sparks. They catch fire so quickly, and Sean moans into my mouth and deepens the kiss, his tongue finding mine.

  I could do this for hours, days. Just cling to him and kiss him, my pulse thumping harder every time he groans. My body somehow defying physics, turning tense and liquid at the same time.

  I’m the one who pushes it further, easing my hands under the hem of his T-shirt. His skin is hot beneath my palms, his muscles taut. He wraps his fingers around my wrists, but he doesn’t pull my hands away. He looks down at me, the question burning in his eyes.

  “You make me feel better,” I whisper. “I want to be selfish for an hour.”

  “All right.” He takes a step into my space, urging me back toward the hallway. “Sixty minutes.”

  I didn’t mean it literally, but now he has such an intense look in his eyes that my heart’s racing. “Should I set a timer?”

  “We’d better,” he agrees with a rumble. “Just to be sure.”

  He’s still urging me down the hall. I slide my hands around his body, into his back pockets, and come up with his phone as my back thumps against the doorframe. His bedroom is just beyond, but for the moment we’re poised on the threshold, his body hot and hard all along mine.

  I pull up the clock and set the countdown for sixty minutes before turning the phone toward him. “What can you do to me in an hour?”

  “Wrong question.” Then he captures my mouth again, open and eager. The phone is pulled from my grasp as I take that step back, and I hear it clatter on wood—his dresser, maybe, or a table.

  I don’t know, because then I’m on the bed, Sean’s tongue in my mouth and his body pressing mine into the mattress.

  My head’s spinning. Maybe the whole world is. He’s been hot before, hungry, but not like this. This is the edge he’s always held back, the fire that makes him climb behind the wheel of a car and drive as fast as he can, no matter how dangerous it might be.

  It burns up all my reservations and melts my self-consciousness. For sixty minutes of stolen time—or maybe fifty-nine now, or fifty-five, because he’s been kissing me so long that I ache all over—I’m not awkward Hannah or inexperienced Hannah.

  I’m the woman he wants. The woman he’s finally letting himself have.

  He eases his hand beneath my tank top, just above the waistband of my shorts. His fingertips graze the button before moving higher, up to the bottom edge of my cotton bra.

  I tear my mouth from his and tilt my head back, fighting the urge to arch eagerly into his touch. My brain may be reaching critic
al shutdown, but I still remember his words. “What’s the right question?”

  He smiles against the hollow of my throat. “What can’t I do to you in an hour?”

  Oh. My. God.

  He licks a path straight up my throat to my chin and bites me gently.

  If his mouth makes me wild, then his teeth make me reckless. Shuddering, I slide my fingers into his hair, holding him against the vulnerable curve of my neck. “More.”

  He nips at my jaw this time, softer than before. “You’ll bruise.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He licks the spot, slow and soothing. “You might when people are staring.”

  I tilt my chin higher, offering him even more skin to mark. Not for other people, but for me, because when reality crashes back in later, I want the tangible reminder. “I don’t care.”

  His chest rumbles, a deep sound that I feel more than hear, and he finds the spot just below my ear—and bites hard.

  The pain travels faster than the pleasure, stinging through me in a rush that has me opening my mouth to gasp. Then the heat hits me, floods me, turning it into a moan. “Sean—”

  He looms over me, holding my head between both of his huge hands. “Kiss me, Hannah.”

  I do. I can’t stop myself, and I don’t want to. I strain up, lips already parted, and he lets me move just enough to touch my mouth to his. It still sparks, but it’s not enough now. I can’t tilt my head, so I lick him, trying to taunt him into deepening the kiss.

  He holds back, though his tongue darts out to meet mine. “You want something? Take it.”

  Yes, that’s who I’m going to be now—someone who wants and isn’t afraid to take. My fingers are still in his hair. I curl them, let my fingernails prick his scalp, and drag his head closer.

  Sean relents with a groan, and I kiss him hard as his hands slip lower—under my shoulders, between my back and the mattress, beneath my shirt. To the band of my bra, and he groans again as he searches in vain for the clasp. “Front?”

  “Yes,” I gasp, freeing one hand to tug at my shirt. I want his hands on me. His mouth.