by Haley Pearce
HIS TO SHATTER
A Contemporary Romance
By
Haley Pearce
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Infinite Muse Press on Smashwords
His To Shatter: A Contemporary Romance
Copyright © 2013 by Haley Pearce
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material
The material in this document contains explicit sexual content that is intended for mature audiences only and is inappropriate for readers under 18 years of age.
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HIS TO SHATTER
A Contemporary Romance
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty One
About The Author
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Acknowledgements
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First I would like to thank my readers, above all, the very reason that I began writing was to share my ideas with all of you. His To Shatter is a novel that is very dear to my heart, many of the characters are inspired by real people who I have had the pleasure or displeasure of knowing throughout my life.
The story of Madison's troubled upbringing is in many ways a confession, it's my first and only real expression of the complicated feelings that I harbor as a result of growing up as an "adult child" of alcoholic and codependent parents.
My heart sincerely goes out to anyone who can relate to Madison's character in any way, this story was written for you. His To Shatter is about the triumph of the human spirit, the realized ambitions of a girl from a bad place who chooses to rise above her surroundings instead of wallowing in them.
Most of all, this story is about how we can't do anything alone in this world, nothing worth doing at least. We all need to eventually open ourselves and trust in other people who have earned it. We deserve success, we deserve nice things, we deserve happiness.
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Chapter One
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I had already been awake for hours when the sky began to lighten over the East River. Since moving to New York City a year earlier, I’d fallen in love with the River Park, especially at sunrise. Every morning, without fail, I rolled out of bed at six o’clock, threw on my years-old running shoes, and hit the pavement. While the rest of the Lower East Side of Manhattan slumbered peacefully behind the closed doors of their fifth story walkups, their penthouses, their lofts, I tore silently through the streets. I never wore headphones while I ran through the city, preferring the tentative silence that overtook the streets so early in the morning. The daily hour I reserved for running was a time of mediation, of calming; and I would need them both in spades that day.
As I bore down on the Brooklyn Bridge, keeping my quick but steady pace, I ran through my pitch speech for the eighteen thousandth time. Later that day, my big interview was finally going to happen. After a year of inquiry emails, follow-up phone calls, and preliminary meetings, I was actually going to have an interview with the employer of my dreams, the international marketing firm Corelli. Just thinking the name sent shudders of anticipation running through my already keyed-up body. Corelli, I thought to myself again and again, making a mantra of the name. Ever since I’d decided to focus on international marketing as a wide-eyed undergrad, Corelli had been the shining beacon that I had aspired to. Now, it was actually within my reach—and I was positively beside myself with nerves.
I slowed my pace to a walk at the end of the first leg of my run. My roommates often made fun of me for running my daily six miles, but that time was entirely essential to my happiness. As I slung my leg over the back of a park bench, stretching out my calves and quads, I breathed in the light April air with relish. I hadn’t been prepared for how brutal New York City winters could be, but now the cold grip of that ghastly season was loosening. Morning glories crept along the chain link fences, now, and tiny green sprouts popped up among the bricks. Even in New York, spring was beginning to show its face. And after spring had blossomed into summer, I could very well be headed to Paris for the internship I’d been lusting over for years.
Interning at Corelli that summer was, as childish as it may sound, my dream. I had been lucky enough to get into the international marketing graduate program at NYU after a somewhat fraught undergraduate career. Living in the city as a full time student let me focus all my energy on reinventing myself. I felt like I could finally find the resolve to put my past to rest as an unfortunate prelude to my real life, my life as a big-time marketing executive. And Corelli was the cornerstone of that fantasy.
A low groan escaped my lips as I leaned deeply into my stretch. Few things satisfied me more in life than that sweet, slightly painful feeling. I looked out over the East River as I switched legs, squinting across the water toward Brooklyn. Along both shore lines, piles of driftwood and detritus stood out like found art. The rugged mayhem of the water’s edge contrasted the tall, gleaming, spotless skyline of Manhattan, rising above me into the ever-lightening sky. New York was always a beautiful city, whatever the time of day or night one wandered out into its embrace. But sometimes, when I least expected it, the full splendor of my new home would hit me square in the gut, its beauty bringing real tears of joy and wonder to my eyes.
I let out a little laugh as I pulled myself together. Leave it to me to cry over a sunrise. I turned on my heel and started back toward my apartment. The rhythmic pounding of my sneakers against the asphalt comforted me like nothing else could. I’d been running for years, having discovered the healing powers of a good long dash when I was still a skinny, awkward kid. I’d done my growing up in West Chester, Pennsylvania—otherwise known as the middle of nowhere, for someone like me. There had been very little to do in my hometown once my friends and I outgrew trekking through the wooded hills and hunting for salamanders in the streams. When the kids I went to school with started entertaining themselves with booze and weed, bouncing from basement to basement with no motivation except getting high, I was left to my own devices. I didn’t touch drugs and alcohol as a rule—not after what they’d done to my once-happy family.
Bitterness rose within me the instant I let my thoughts touch upon my family. I made a habit of leaving my former home out of my mind; it was the only way I could get through the day. When I left for college, I started the drawn-out process of extricating myself from the wreckage of my home life. If I concentrated very hard, I could remember a time when my family had been intact, supportive, and even wholesome. But those memories were nothing more than fleeting shapes and shadows; the years I could actually remember were nothing but darkness, shame, and grief.
Maybe growing up would have been easier, if I’d had siblings. But it was just me and my parents, alone in our little converted farm house in the low hills of Pennsylvania. My parents had married young, after becoming unexpectedly pregnant with me. My mother, Fr
ancie, had only been nineteen when I was born; my father, Steve, had been twenty. Neither had gone to college, but for a while it seemed as though they might do OK for themselves anyway. Mom started working at a bank, once I was old enough for day care, and Dad had a decent job at the local high school, coaching one sport a season and teaching PE to boot.
The day that everything fell to pieces was one that I knew I would remember forever. I was five years old, and had just finished my first week of kindergarten. As soon as I walked through the doors of my elementary school, I was hooked. There were books, crafts, and other kids everywhere. That first week of school had been a dream; flying across the monkey bars at recess, trading my white milk for chocolate in the lunch line, napping alongside my newfound friends in our cozy classroom. For a brief, beautiful moment, I thought that life would be perfect from then on out. I could never have known just how wrong that thought was.
Dad was found out that week, at long last. The police showed up at our house on Friday night and arrested him for a slew of charges. As it happened, he’d been engaging in some rather inappropriate behavior with his older students. Weekends would often find him partying with the kids on his team, showing up to basement gatherings like an overgrown teenager. One of his students had finally come forward and alerted the authorities to his behavior. Apparently, he was not shy about providing booze to the kids he coached, nor was he resolute in keeping his hands off the girls. My mother had cried for a full day after they took Dad away, baffled by his actions. I had done my best to take care of her as she rearranged our finances to bail Dad out. The one thing she kept saying, over and over again, was “Your father is a good man. Your father is a good man.”
But even then, I no longer believed that in my heart.
The high school fired Dad without ceremony. None of the girls he’d fooled around with were under eighteen, so at least he didn’t have to add “pedophile” to the list of traits people might assign him. But to me, from that time on, he was a pervert—a desperate old man past his prime, delusional with false power. And once he was let go from the school, those delusions and aggressions only got worse. With no job to go to, Dad found a new hobby: drinking incessantly. His descent into alcoholism wasn't even surprising, it was just sad.
Worse still was the way that my mother defended his pathetic behavior. Mom had always been insecure about her relationship with Dad. He’d spent the better part of their marriage accusing her of trapping him with a baby, of keeping him penned up during the prime years of his life. And after being blamed so many times, Mom really started to believe it. And so, when Dad’s philandering came out into the open, she wasn’t even angry with him. She believed wholeheartedly that it was her fault he had strayed; she hadn’t been attentive enough, lusty enough for a man of his stature. It was his right to cheat, or so he convinced her. By the time I was old enough to realize how warped her mind had become, it was too late for me to intervene. Even as a child, I could see that my mother had been corralled into cowardice, and that my father was a lumbering, misogynistic brute. Mine was not a particularly sunny childhood.
My legs began to pump faster as memories of my youth flooded my consciousness. I sprinted along the East River, trying to outrun recollections of my mother’s idiotic, deferential simpering, and my father’s ruthless, cutting criticism of everything that I did. Dad was not afraid to raise his hand to my mother and I. But as many times as he pushed and slapped me around, no wounds hurt so badly as those he left with his words. I grew up being told that I’d amount to nothing, that I was a fool to try and elevate myself above my upbringing.
“You snobby little bitch,” my Dad would snarl, in between swallows of beer, “Do you honestly think that you’re better than us? You were born in this shit town, you’ll end up in some other shit town, with a shit job and a shit husband who doesn’t treat you half as well as I do.”
My mother had been less colorful in her language and more crushing in her delivery. “Just don’t set your sights too high,” she had told me all my life, “There’s nothing wrong with being average, you know. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. You read too many books, I think. Things always get better for people in books. People always get better in books, but that’s just not how life works, Madison.”
Chest heaving, I soared out of the River Park and back along the early morning streets of New York. I wiped away the angry tears that had begun to stream down my cheeks as I thought of my parents. They can’t hurt you now, I told myself for the umpteenth time. They’ll sit in that little shit house for the rest of their lives, but you don’t have to. Things can get better. People can get better. You can be better, too.
I turned onto Clinton Street and finally slowed to a walk. My clothes were wet with perspiration, but I felt better. I always felt relieved after a good run, especially when I had seemingly insurmountable nerves to contend with. I’d been preparing for my interview with Corelli for a solid month, rehearsing every possible answer to every possible question they might lob my way. I was as prepared as it was humanly possible to be—or at least I would be once I got out of my sweats.
My apartment was at the top of three steep flights of stairs. I all but sprinted to my front door, eager to keep my momentum up. I pulled my keys out of my sports bra and threw open the front door. The air hung heavy with the smell of espresso—I had set some to brew before I set off on my run. My two roommates and I went through more than a few cans of Cafe Bustelo every week; our kitchen was littered with dozens of the red-and-yellow containers. I smiled to myself as I grabbed a Dollar Store mug from the cabinet. We were girls of simple means, at the end of the day, but it didn’t bother me one bit. Having never had “the finer things in life”, I never learned to value or expect them. I would have no idea what to do with a designer purse, or an expensive dress. The things I knew were books and art; fashion and luxury could wait.
I made my way across the small, cluttered living space toward the bathroom. Espresso mug in one hand, I yanked at the bathroom door knob, only to find that it wouldn’t budge. I jiggled the handle impatiently; even the smallest snag in the course of this extremely important day was bound to set me off. As I pulled at the door, I heard a rustling beyond the threshold, and something that sounded very much like a sigh.
“Excuse me,” I whispered into the door, “I need to get ready.” No one answered from the closed bathroom, but by then I could discern pretty well what was going on. “Dara,” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could, “I really need to get in there. My interview is in a few hours.”
“Oh! Sorry, Madison,” my roommate Dara answered. “I totally forgot that was today. It’s just...Um...I’m a tiny bit busy in here...”
“I will look away as you and Mr. Whoever go back to your room,” I said without emphasis. “Just hurry. Please.”
The door cracked open and I obediently snapped my eyes shut. I could hear two bodies moving out of the bathroom—one petite and one bulky, as usual. I felt a tiny squeeze on my arm and heard Dara’s voice next to my ear.
“Take a look at his ass before we close the door!” she sighed, “I swear, that thing was carved out of marble.”
“What’s his name?” I said, peeking out at my roommate.
Dara’s perfectly manicured eyebrows knitted in a moment of confusion. I gave her the once-over and saw without surprise that she was naked. Dara spent a lot of her time around the apartment naked, and was usually entertaining some “gentleman caller” or other. “You know,” she said slowly, “I think it’s either Ryan or Bryan. The club was really loud, so—”
“Well, go get ‘em, tiger,” I said hurriedly, squeezing past her into the bathroom. Dara knew that I was skeptical about her revolving door of a love life, but I did not have time to initiate another lecture just then. Dara shrugged, sending her long brown curls dancing across her shoulders, and made tracks for her bedroom. I had to give the girl credit, she knew how to get what she wanted—even if most of what she wanted was a parad
e of well-hung one night stands.
I closed the bathroom door firmly behind me and leaned back against it. It was getting harder and harder to hold my tongue about Dara’s promiscuity. It wasn’t that I had anything against sleeping around in the abstract, I just worried that she wasn’t being as safe as she could be. Having multiple partners was one thing, but having so many that you forgot their first names was quite another. I had known Dara for five years by then, since our very first day of undergrad. She’d arrived at our small liberal arts school ready to tear the place up. We had been assigned to the same triple room, and I could tell two things from the moment we met: we’d be very good friends, and we’d disagree about almost everything besides that fact.
Instead of slowing down as she got through her rebellious stage, Dara had only gotten to be more of a party animal as the years went on. When we made the move to the city, she’d come along to “be part of the scene,” as she said. Mostly, though, she’d done little but live off her parents’ money and fuck on every surface of our apartment. I couldn’t say why I found her privilege, and her willingness to indulge in it, so frustrating. Probably, I was just jealous that while Dara skipped through undergrad with no loans or effort, I’d had to work my ass off winning scholarships that put me through school. My parents certainly weren’t going to be any help on that front, after all.