Broken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Second Season

by Peak, Renna

  I looked back at her with a stare that I hoped told her not to push it any further. I knelt down and picked up the dress, tossing it into the closet.

  She watched the dress fly across the room. “Also not like you…” She looked at the crumpled dress that was now covering several pairs of shoes in the closet. “Jenna, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I walked over to my bed and grabbed the phone from where it had fallen on the pillow.

  “Phone on the bed. Dress on the floor. Christ, he called you, didn’t he? You didn’t…”

  “I did. In front of his girlfriend.” A new batch of hot tears filled my eyes and I swatted them away with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “Can we go now?”

  Her eyes widened when what I had told her sank in. “In front of Robin Axelrod. The movie star. You had phone sex with your boyfriend… in front of the movie star, Robin Axelrod.” She nodded her head up and down, as if she were trying to digest her own words.

  “That’s the gist, yep.” I pressed my lips into a line. “First and last time.” I dropped my voice, barely speaking over a whisper. “Motherfucker.”

  Her lips turned up into the slightest of grins. “If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny. You’ll laugh about this someday, Jenna.”

  “Unlikely.” I flicked my gaze over her. “You want to change?”

  She looked down and frowned at the sexy red dress we had purchased for her that morning. It was a shame that it would be out of place for her at a movie theater. “I guess I should.” She looked back at me. “You should put on something else, too. You’ll fry in that sweatshirt. It’s almost a hundred degrees outside.”

  “I’m fine.” This was the same sweatshirt I had worn when Daniel died. When I thought he died. It was warm. Familiar. Comfortable. “I’ll be fine.”

  She nodded and pulled a t-shirt and pair of shorts from my dresser. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Are you sure this wasn’t just a big misunderstanding? I mean, maybe…”

  I shook my head and held up my hand for her to stop. “It wasn’t a misunderstanding. Not this time. She was there. I didn’t hear her until the end, but she was there.” I felt my face grow hot, just admitting it to her. She was there. I knew she was.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Jenna. Why would he do that? Why would he humiliate you like that?” She shook her head again. “I’ve seen him with you. He loves you. I mean, he’s crazy in love with you. There has to be another explanation.”

  I plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Are you trying to make me doubt myself? I know what I heard.” My cheeks reddened and my voice dropped to a whisper. “I know what I did.”

  She let out a long sigh. “I just think you should ask him. At least ask him what he was hoping to accomplish by doing that to you. He owes you at least that much.”

  “He turned his phone off. He’s done with me. He was pissed off at me and he ran back to her. Then he decided he’d humiliate me, just to show me he could.” I looked down at my hands. “I don’t want to talk to him again.”

  “I just don’t think…”

  I cut her off. “You didn’t hear him this morning, the way he talked to me. There was no explanation, no reasoning. Just him telling me no, like I was a toddler that touched the electrical outlet or something. Just “no.” He’s a twisted bastard. He’s trying to break me for good.”

  “You’re not broken, Jenna. You’re strong; you’ve dealt with worse. You got through the thing with Daniel, you’ll get through this. You’ll persevere.” She looked at me with something close to pity in her eyes. “I know you, and I know you will.”

  I stared at the wall behind her. “He looked for the cracks. He played me for so long that he found them, and he used them against me.” I looked over to meet her gaze. “He just wanted to break me this whole time.”

  She sat down on the bed next to me and pulled my hand into hers again. “I don’t know what happened, Jenna. I just know I love you, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Okay? You want me to go find the guy and beat him up? Gut him?” She looked up at me through her blonde, curly bangs.

  I couldn’t help but smile just a little. “Maybe just the beating.”

  “Done.” She stood up, pulling on my arm to get me to stand. “Movie night, huh? We haven’t done that in a while.”

  “I just don’t want to have to think.” I stood up and followed her out of the bedroom.

  She turned back to face me, her lips turning up into a wide grin. “Think there are any Robin Axelrod movies playing? We can throw tomatoes at the screen.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Richardson, you need to tell us what happened. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and we need to know what happened so that we can help you.”

  My thoughts swam in my head. It seemed like it would just be easier to go back to sleep, but I needed to see her first. “Where’s Jen?”

  The man in front of me looked at me like I had two heads. He cocked his head to the side, giving it a small shake. “Mr. Richardson, how did you get the wound on your abdomen?”

  “I need to see her.”

  The man, who must have been a doctor, shook his head at me again. “Mr. Richardson, you could die. Do you understand that? We need to know what caused these wounds in your abdomen.”

  “If I die, you need to tell her I love her. Will you do that?”

  The man cocked his head to the side again, apparently thinking I was out of my mind. “Your fiancée just went to give blood. She knows you love her, and she clearly loves you, too. Can you please tell me what happened so that we can help you?”

  I shook my head at him. I didn’t have a fiancée, not yet. Maybe if I made it through this. Yes, if I made it through this, I would marry her. The thought of tearing a white dress from her body on our honeymoon…

  “Mr. Richardson, don’t fall asleep. You need to tell us what caused the wound in your belly. You’re bleeding profusely. We need to know if it was a knife, a machine…”

  “Where is she? I need to see her.”

  “Fine, I’ll get her for you.” He turned and spoke to another woman standing behind him. Another doctor, maybe a nurse…

  I glanced around the unfamiliar room. I was in a hospital. I could tell by the sterile white walls and the smell of chemicals. There wasn’t any pain, though. I couldn’t really even feel anything below my neck. My thoughts swam in my head again, back to Jen. She’d gone to give blood for me. She did love me.

  “She’s on her way. Mr. Richardson. Brandon. Tell me what made the wound on your belly.”

  “I don’t want her to know. You can’t tell her. She wouldn’t forgive me.”

  “I won’t tell her anything. I just need to know so we know what we’re looking for when we take you in for surgery. You signed the consent. We need to get in there quickly before you lose any more blood. Please, just tell me what happened.” He grabbed my hand. “I know this is scary for you. Nothing you tell me will leave this room.”

  I looked up at him. He was older than me, probably close to fifty. Maybe even older. His eyes were a weird shade of some color that I couldn’t remember the name of. But he looked like he cared. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the name of the color.

  “Damn it, we should have asked him before we gave him the sedation.”

  “She’s on her way now.” It was a woman’s voice that time.

  I forced my eyes to flutter open. “She’s on her way?”

  The nurse nodded and the doctor cocked his head, peering down at me again. “You need to tell me.”

  I lifted my head a few inches off my pillow. “He stabbed me. He told me he knew. He knew the answers.” My head dropped back into my pillow with a thud. “But he didn’t have anything. The lying bastard knew exactly what to say to get me to come down here, then he didn’t have anything. He just wanted to kill me. I knew he did when he called this morning, and I came here anyway. He wanted to get me away from her, but he didn’t win that one, did he? She’s giving her own blood for me. She love
s me. She chose me.”

  “You’ve got a lot of morphine and sedatives in your system right now, Mr. Richardson. We need to get the bleeding stopped in surgery. You’ll see your fiancée when you get out.” He kicked something under my bed.

  I could feel the bed starting to move. “No. I need to see her one more time. In case I die, I need to see her. I need to tell her I love her.”

  I heard the nurse’s voice from behind my bed when we started moving again. “She knows. She loves you, too.”

  She knows. The need to sleep was heavy in my eyes and I let them close again. She knows. The click of heels against the tile floor almost made my eyes open one last time. Her heels. Jen never wore heels, not unless she was trying to break an ankle. Why was she wearing heels?

  “Wait, wait!”

  The bed stopped and I struggled to recognize the voice. I knew it, but I couldn’t remember it. I felt her lips on my forehead. It was familiar, but it wasn’t Jen.

  “I love you. And the answer is yes.”

  The bed started to move again and my lids were so heavy, there was no way I could open them to ask the woman what the question had been.

  5

  “You forgot the tomatoes, Mel.”

  She giggled and gave me a little shove as we walked out of the theater. “You’re the one who wouldn’t go to her new movie. God, anything would have been better than that piece of shit we just saw.”

  I shrugged. “No way would I have been able to sit through two hours of Robin Axelrod. Sorry.”

  Her smile fell. “Are you okay?”

  “Define ‘okay.’” I cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Um, not feeling the need to hide in the closet?” She jutted an elbow at me. “Not feeling like you want to gut the man you’re in love with?”

  I groaned. “I’m not in love with him. I hate him.” Except that I didn’t. I just wanted to because I knew there was no way I could forgive him. There was no way I would ever be able to see him again, either.

  “Right.” We walked down the sidewalk in silence for a while. “So what’s the plan, Stan?”

  “Plan for what?” I glanced over and noticed her staring at the ground.

  “Like, what do you want to do?” She looked up into my eyes.

  “Right now? I was thinking fro-yo.”

  She stopped walking, turning to me and grabbing my elbow. “I mean for your life, Jenna. School fell through. Your dad is obviously not going to be president, so that fell through. This governor job thingy fell through.” She dropped her gaze to the sidewalk again. “I’m worried about you. You say you didn’t want the job, but you were sure pissed off this morning when they told you that you couldn’t have it.”

  “When Brandon said I couldn’t have it.” I let out a small sigh and forced a smile to my face. “Look, I’m a people pleaser. We all know that. If someone calls me and offers me a job, it isn’t like I can say no.” I pulled my elbow from her grasp and turned back to walk up the sidewalk. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”

  “But no politics?”

  I stopped walking again, turning to face her. “What are you asking me, Mel? If my dad were to get back in the presidential race, would I go back to campaign for him? Probably. Will I campaign for him when he runs for the Senate again in a few years? Probably. What is it you want to know?”

  She stared at the ground for a long moment. She finally looked up at me and shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t know.”

  I glanced behind me, making sure Cade was a decent distance away and out of earshot. Having a body guard around all the time was more of a nuisance than anything most of the time. It wasn’t like anyone was out to get me. I was sure that after the antics my father had pulled the month before, there were probably plenty of people out to get him. “Spit it out, Mel.”

  Her eyes darted back to Cade, who had propped himself up against a telephone pole, well out of hearing distance. “I just… I’m worried about you.”

  I shook my head. “Worried about what? Taking a job with a politician is no different than taking a job anywhere else. Where is this coming from?”

  We began walking again. She let out a long sigh. “I’m just worried about you, Jenna. That’s all.”

  “I know. Everyone’s worried about me.”

  “It’s not that.” She glanced behind us again. “You’re different. Since, you know…”

  My eyes rolled up to look at the clear night sky. I knew. Since I thought Daniel had killed himself. Since I did my month at Shady Shores for trying to join him. “I’m not different.”

  She nodded. “You are. Things that would have rolled off your back… I find you hiding in a closet now.”

  I stopped walking and turned my head to her. The sharp edge of my voice threw us both off our guards. “If what happened to me tonight had happened to you, we would not be having this conversation right now. I would be holding your hand, telling you how much men sucked and how we didn’t need them. That’s how we used to handle things, Mel.” I started walking toward the fro-yo place again. “The way you’re treating me has changed. You and everyone else, treating me like a fragile little flower that can’t handle anything.”

  “You were in the closet.”

  “Because I wanted to hide. I just masturbated in front of fucking Robin Axelrod, for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t want to hide?”

  “I would…”

  “But because it was me, I must be having another breakdown.”

  “I’m sorry, Jenna. You’re right, I mean, if it happened the way you say it did…”

  I turned to her again. I set my jaw, glaring down at her. “It did.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Will you tell me if…”

  I clenched my jaw. “I’m not having thoughts of suicide. I don’t have any plans to kill myself or hurt anyone else. Except for Brandon if he ever comes near me again.”

  She let out a little snicker. “That’s fair. But you would tell me?”

  “I promise I will tell you if I start feeling like I want to end my life. Do you want to do a blood oath or something?”

  She shook her head with a grin. “Not necessary.”

  * * *

  My heart raced in my chest. It felt like the right side of my body was on fire. The burning started in my fingertips and went all the way down to my toes. My head throbbed as I tried to figure out where in the hell I was. What the hell had happened to me?

  “Oh, baby, you’re awake.”

  I heard the woman’s voice from somewhere in the distance. I groaned, more from the pain, and then from the realization of who it was that was with me. What the hell was Robin doing there?

  “Oh, God, Brandon, I was so worried about you. They said you almost died on the table.”

  A loud groan escaped my lips. I tried to tell her to get the hell away from me, but the only sound I could make was a damned groan.

  “You lost a considerable amount of blood, Mr. Richardson.”

  A man’s voice that time, vaguely familiar. Another groan came from somewhere deep inside of me.

  “We repaired a laceration on your right lung. We had to remove your right kidney and a lobe of your liver due to the bleeding we found. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Lucky? This was luck? And where was Jen? I definitely remembered someone telling me she was there before they put me out. Someone had said she had gone to give blood for me. I definitely remembered that. They said she loved me, that she was there. Where the hell was she now? I forced my eyes to open and saw Robin wringing her hands at the edge of my bed. The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, the concern on his face obvious. There were machines all around me, beeping and whirring. Where was Jen? I tried to ask again, but my voice betrayed me with a moan instead.

  “We’ll increase the pain medication, Mr. Richardson. You’ll be able to leave critical care in a few days. We’ll keep a close eye on your liver and kidney functions. Assuming everything goes according to plan, you’ll be able to go to the pr
ivate facility your fiancée has requested by early next week.”

  I groaned again. I didn’t have a fiancée. What the hell was he talking about?

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Robin peered over the rail of my bed into my eyes. “Do you remember what I said to you before you went into surgery, baby?”

  I made a sound through my closed lips. Something about an answer to a question.

  “I found the ring in your pocket.” She raised her left hand and dangled it in front of my face, a gleaming platinum band on her ring finger. “I know you’re too sick right now, but I don’t want to wait, baby. As soon as the doctors say you’re okay, we’ll go to Vegas and do it. We can have a big wedding when we get back, but I don’t want to wait another second. I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. I love you so much, Brandon.” She leaned down and brushed her lips over mine.

  What the hell was she doing wearing Jen’s ring? It was like I had gone through the looking glass while I was asleep. Everything was backwards, upside down. How the hell had she gotten that ring unless I was in some alternate universe?

  “Maybe in a few weeks, that’s what the doctor said. As long as you get healthy and do everything they tell you, we can go to Vegas in a few weeks. I wish you had let me meet you at the airport, baby, then none of this would have happened. You could have gotten down on one knee. I know you wanted to, and I’m sorry I ruined that.” She beamed down at me, stroking my hair. “But you can ask me later, if you want to. The answer will still be the same.”

  What the fuck was going on? I tried again to talk, something like a grunt leaving my throat that time. I was getting closer to being able to speak. At least I thought I was. Where the hell had that ring come from?

  My thoughts clouded again as the morphine flooded my body. They must have increased the pain medication, and I was thankful that the burning had stopped, but my mind was even more clouded than it had been before. I tried to piece it back together. Getting stabbed at the warehouse, I remembered that. What happened before that? I flew to L.A. That motherfucker called me and asked me to come. Things began to swim again in my mind and the memories swirled together with dreams. Jen had been here; I had seen her here. Hadn’t I? She was giving blood for me. Giving her blood. For me. She had to love me if she would come all this way just to give me her blood. She found out and she still chose me. And I had been such a dick to her this morning, telling her there was no way she was going to work for the man that was responsible for…