Broken

by A. E. Rought

  Chapter Twelve

  “You really slid your arms under that deer?” A delicate tremor rides the length of Bree’s spine as she spreads our homework over her polished wood dining room table.

  “I really did.”

  Her blood ran into my cleavage, I think. I watched the light die in her eye.

  I push away the flashes of sunlight and death, and pick at the blood in the cuff of Alex’s shirt. Bree and I’d already discussed the shirt and its ownership—she accepted me stripping my shirt and bra off while standing in the parking lot, with a boy a few feet away, and wearing his shirt home. She smiled and danced her eyebrows even. What she can’t adjust to is me wading into a muddy culvert and helping Alex lift the wounded deer.

  “Why would you do that?” Her eyes are wide, the blue eyeshadow almost gone.

  “I don’t know,” I poke at paper in front of me. Why did I do it? I’ve mulled it over. The only answer I can come to is the way Alex bared his soul to me in his panic. “Alex was so upset about the deer…I couldn’t just leave him there.”

  “Wow.” She drags out the ‘o’, staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You two must have some connection,” she says. Then she walks to the door to the kitchen, smoothing her skirt and not touching the wood trim of the doorway. “Want a Diet Coke?”

  “Gross. How about coffee?”

  “Gross,” she mimics, couching a hand on her hip. “I don’t know crap about making it and I am not touching mom’s fancyass brewer. We’ve got instant in the cupboard.”

  Dear God kill me now.

  “Do you have pop that isn’t diet?”

  She nods, dark roots showing in her hair with the motion, as she stalks into the kitchen. The fridge creaks, two metallic clinks sound through the door. Cupboards rattle, crinkling sounds issue from the door, some cuss words follow.

  I gaze around the fussy room, deep beige walls, white trim around the windows and doors, the furniture all stained cherry wood. Gilded picture frames and marble sculptures are artfully, intentionally arranged. Despite the rich color scheme, it feels…sterile. The rest of Bree’s house is the same: beige, white, cherry, gilt and stone. Classy, but no real personality. The living room feels like a museum; I half expect to be charged admission fees and see ropes cordoning off the statues in niches, and big abstract art.

  Bree returns through the door butt-first, shoulders rolled forward under the weight of something. She turns, displays a tray heavy with pop cans, one diet and one not, assorted junk food, fruit and string cheese.

  “So, do you?” she asks, holding out the can of regular cola.

  “Did I miss something?” I take the pop and try to wash out the taste of confusion slicking the back of my throat. “Do we what?”

  “Have a connection.” She stresses the last word like I’m silly for not noticing, that it’s already a foregone conclusion for her and I’m just here to testify.

  “That’s not possible.” It comes out too fast, and too crabby. “I mean… One, connections are in nervous systems and electrical things. Two, I hardly know him.”

  Kind. Funny. Emotionally raw, and way too much like Daniel sometimes.

  “I think you do.” The last word comes out sing-song, her point proven by me hedging the question. “And it doesn’t stop him from looking at you like you’re Romeo and Juliet come back to life.”

  “Bad theatrical reference, B.” I drag a homework sheet closer. “They both died.”

  “Okay, fine. Whatever.” She throws up her hands, then drops into the chair across from me. “So death is bad in romance.”

  “Ya think?”

  I start scanning the trig problems. Multiple choice. This is going to give me a worse headache than Bree’s inquisition. And make my hand hurt, too. Sure, I can check the appropriate boxes, but I still have to do the math.

  “You have to admit you guys have major chemistry.”

  I know what she’s talking about, I feel it in the tunneling, tumbling sensation, in the way he can cut the world away with a turn of his body, in how he makes my heart beat again.

  “We have Dune Ecology.” I don’t want to admit anything. “That’s my only science class.”

  “Are you this difficult in your dead quiet neighborhood?”

  Leave it to Bree to bring up Memorial Gardens Cemetery, my dirty little secret.

  “You know what pirates say: ‘dead men tell no tales.’ The dead also don’t drive me crazy.”

  “Nope. That’s my job.” She opens her Diet Coke, pulls a big swig off it, then grabs a handful of potato chips from the open bag on the serving tray. “You can deny it all you like, Em. But there’s chemistry between you two and I think the entire school’s noticed.”

  Think? The school has noticed. I’ve noticed. It has a ring of unreal to it. When I close my eyes, I have the feeling I’ve known Alex for years. Then I see him, his scars and the brief flashes of raw honesty and horrid secrets and I think I don’t know him at all. And I can’t stay away. Those moments of open ache from him caught my heart, promised it a wounded companion.

  “Yeah. Rumors abound.”

  “Kernel of truth,” she says, then drops her focus to the books and papers.

  One thing about Bree. She eventually figures out when to drop the subject. This one is now officially dropped.

  I stick a pencil in my right hand, wedging it under the thumbhole of my immobilizer, and free some notebook paper to do the problems longhand. Bree expresses how stupid she thinks my Trig teacher must be to give me a sheet like that. After, we sit in companionable not-talking-about-Alex almost quiet, focusing on school work with a sprinkle of gossip—who’s dating who, who’s hating who—rather than the other way around. Bree takes dictation, writing my paragraph essays in her pretty loopy script. My writing was always hard to read, all peaks and skinny letters, and half the time my brain is too far in front of my hand.

  Close to dinnertime, and a no-show from her parents. I’d asked Bree back to my house for the company, but she swore she was going to order pizza on her parent’s tab, then watch a horror movie marathon. With homework finished, Bree stuffs everything in my backpack. My phone slips from the front pocket, as if straining for the light. She scoops it up, and I hope she’ll mindlessly ease it back into the pocket like I would’ve done.

  No such luck.

  “You know you have messages?” she asks, eyeing the blinking light.

  “Yeah. Most likely you.”

  “Let’s see, shall we?” Bree slides open the phone, deftly turning out of my path when I lunge for it. The texts are from Bree. A few anyway. Three are from Alex. “Midnight,” she says, “awfully late to text someone you have no chemistry with.”

  “Stop harping on our chemistry, would ya?”

  My jaw snaps shut when she clicks on the message and it opens. She reads it and then tips my phone for me to read.

  Thank you for holding me together when I fell apart at the dunes.

  Bree lets out a airy, “Aw,” and then skips to the next, sent two minutes later.

  I wrote the report for Mr. LaRue. Hope it makes up for getting dirty to help me.

  The third and last one is from this morning, roughly during passing time after first hour.

  Saving you a seat at lunch. Not sure what I meant when I said I don’t know.

  “What’s that last one about?”

  Of course she’d pick the most awkward one for me to explain and still keep my snarled emotions to myself.

  “Well,” I shoulder my backpack and edge toward the door. “I asked him why he was so kind to me. Then he said he didn’t know.”

  “Duh. Because he likes you.”

  Like a boy being mean and someone saying they did it because they like you and don’t know how to show it? I try for a reassuring, you-answered-it smile but fall short. Bree opens her mouth, I’m sure to coddle me, tell me how she’s right and I’ll just see. Mom’s car horn beeps into the quiet and saves me dealing with or denying anything else.r />
  “Say hi to your mom for me.”

  “Sure thing.” I string my left arm around her shoulders and hug her tight. She uses the position to replace my phone. “Thanks for helping me.”

  “Homework’s no biggie.”

  “Not just that,” I say, then go silent around a lump tightening my throat. Bree’s my best friend. She stood by me when most of the school turned away after Daniel’s death. She occasionally encouraged me to get out of my funk, but never pushed, never got bitchy.

  “What are friends for? Better get moving before your mom toots again.”

  “Two toots and it’s time out.” It was always one of mom’s favorite punishments.

  “That was when we were kids,” Bree says, then pulls from my arm. “See ya in the morning.”

  “Definitely.”

  My last task, after assuring Mom all my homework was done, and that I hadn’t talked to “that boy at school” since lunch time, was to text him back.

  I curl under the cover of my blankets, with the power cord to my cell phone snaking between my sheets like a thick black vein, and stare at the text thread from Alex. Hiding to text him seems even more surreal surrounded by the screens anemic blue glow. I read his messages again and again, knowing I should reply. Then I type:

  Thanks for writing that report. Don’t apologize. I don’t know what you meant, either, but I won’t let you fall apart alone.

  Those last words are as raw as he is beneath his scars. I should delete them. I really shouldn’t make promises I’m not sure I can keep. My finger drifts from DELETE to SEND, and then I push. Once the text is gone, I turn the phone off, knowing I’ll have to deal with the consequences tomorrow at school.

  #

  As it turns out, Friday dawns cool and bright. The storm scoured the dingy autumn hues to a brilliant wet shine, like fresh skin beneath a burn. After checking my phone for messages, and pouting because there wasn’t any, I stuff Alex’s freshly laundered shirt into my bag, climb into clean clothes and fail miserably at leaving my closet without touching Daniel’s hoodie. The aching loss is still there, quivering and hollow in my chest. The miracle of the morning is it’s smaller.

  Flooring passes beneath my feet in a blur when I launch from the stairs. Mom has another breakfast burrito ready for me in our lived-in kitchen, shakes her head and natters about me getting up earlier. She launches on another nagfest, and then helps me into my backpack straps.

  I’ve gotten into the habit of tucking my right hand in the open zipper of my sweatshirt. I wedge it there while I inhale my breakfast burrito and take in the late October morning. Sunlight bleeds through a sheer sheet of clouds, softening the edges of the world. The creepy atmosphere of my late night walks is gone, the jack-o’-lanterns only grinning not ghoulish, no presence dancing on my nerves.

  An odd sense of hope rises in me. And, I refuse to believe it’s because of Alex Franks.

  He’s nothing but trouble in a kind, brooding conundrum.

  The line for the Walk-Up side of Mugz-n-Chugz is long. I join the queue, raking at my hair with a brush while I wait to order my breve. Eyeliner is so not happening this morning. One person from the window and my Friday hits the skids. Tiny sees me and narrows a glare. I sink further into my hoodie, and flirt with wishing for Alex to play my boyfriend again. The only other time Tiny left me alone was when I dated Daniel.

  The coffee is as hot as the needling glances from Tiny when I walk away from the window. I suppose I deserve them for pretending to like another guy. Pausing at the curb, I look left and right, not so much for safety but to avoid a pedestrian/vehicle collision with Josh Mason’s crappy Camaro. The rumbling rust-bucket of a Z-28 is conspicuously absent this morning and I’m running late as normal.

  Has the Universe shifted? Tiny hates me. Josh isn’t here to harass me. Alex Franks is invading my life…

  Bree’s on the bench closest to the side door. She’s in black from head band to suede boots. How she makes a kicky little skirt and military issue boots look good together is beyond me. I definitely lack the put-together gene that Bree Ransom has in abundance.

  “Morning!” She sings. She tips her sunglasses down, eyes me and her expression turns sympathetic. I’m sure she’s thinking about whipping out her makeup bag.

  “Hey.” I slump to the bench beside her and take a big drag off the sweet, creamy coffee.

  “So, did you talk to your boyfriend last night?”

  “Haven’t we already had this discussion?”

  “Yep.” She stands and holds out a hand for my coffee so I can use my left to stand. “And I believe if you think about something hard enough, it will be true.”

  “Why are you getting all metaphysical beliefy on me?”

  “Because I think he’d be good to you. And you need a good guy.”

  I arch an eyebrow at her. “Really? All the stuff going around about him and you think he’d be good to me?”

  “Call it intuition,” she says, shaking the wrinkles from her skirt at the same time. “Call it whatever. Other than Daniel, I’ve never seen a guy look at a girl the way Alex looks at you.”

  Me neither. He replaces the planet, makes my heart beat faster, and God, I can’t believe it, I think he makes the ache a little less lonely. I scan the quad one last time. Still no Alex. Is he sick with Asia’s flu? He never replied to my text last night. Did I scare him off with that stupid promise? What was I thinking when I sent it?

  The entire day passes without a sight of or any answer from Alex.

  His absence whips the gossip hounds into a frenzy. According to Ally Rhodes and her harpies, and anybody else with an opinion, Alex Franks is done with me. Word has it I gave him what he wanted and he didn’t come to school because I flipped out when he told me. According to the all-knowing “they,” I should be on suicide watch.

  The words dig in like barbed wire, but I’m tired of letting them hurt me.

  At lunch I check my phone, and then again after school. Still no reply. The little bubble of hope I’d felt this morning has died a withered, sticky death. At this point, the graveyard fence holds more attraction than Bree’s museum dining room, or any nonexistent text from the guy who is definitely not my boyfriend. With help from the janitor, I gain access to my locker after school, fumble with my books, then load my bag and head for Memorial Gardens.

  The wrought iron fencing looms into view, black rotted teeth ripping through the tufty brow fur of the grass edging.

  A whisper of fear flits through me.

  What if Daniel is the scary corpse I’ve seen the past two times? Where will my broken heart find sanctuary then?

  My phone buzzes to life in my bag. I linger at the corner of the cemetery, eyes on the distant mausoleum drenched in afternoon shadows. Torn between backsliding to hanging on the fence and wishing for a grave that will never be, and allowing whatever text it is to delay it, I sigh and give in. The backpack straps whisper over my shoulder.

  My pink phone flashes a red message light.

  Sliding it open, I see the sender’s name. The fear crashes.

  Alex Franks.

  I click on the text and open it.

  Been home sick. Will be back to life tomorrow. Save me a dance?

  I feel the smile without forcing it. The pumpkin across the street echoes my expression. I type into the text field, Of course! Feel better soon.

  I know one little text from him has that affect on me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Yards and yards of fabric and I still feel naked. Not for the last time I wonder why I let Bree talk me into these costumes and this dance.

  Tank tops don’t show as much skin between my cleavage and chin as this dress does.

  Skirts flare when I spin and pin Bree with a half-hearted glare.

  “Oh, come on, Emma!” she huffs, and glitter whisks from her exposed skin. “Admit it. We look amazing!”

  Her gown floats above the floor when she glides to stand next to me in the full-length mirror back sta
ge of Shelley High’s auditorium. She’s dressed nearly identically to me, and seems to have blossomed in the gown, where I feel like pulling on the garment bag the dress came in. Layered skirts of ivory silk, and corsets embroidered in gold or silver are pushing up our boobs. Filmy sleeves off our shoulders and our blond hair curled, pinned, and dangling. The best Twins costumes she’s ever created.

  “Okay. I admit it.”

  “Yes!” she pumps her fist in the air. “I finally win one! You’ve never agreed with me before.”

  “Don’t rub it in.” I’m tempted to cross my arms.

  Jason Weller emerges from the dressing room to our right. A giggle escapes me, shattering whatever regal image Bree created.

  “A monk?”

  He smiles broadly, his hood flopping over to cover his face when he bows. I pick at the scratchy brown fabric of Jason’s robe when he rises.

  “What else would I be?” He eyes our exposed boob-tops, scrunches his eyebrows together, and then brandishes his Bible like an offensive weapon. “Every royal family should have their own clergy to steer them from the paths of wickedness.”

  “Whatever.” Bree gives him an eye roll and sigh combination, then links her arm in mine and gestures vaguely toward the door. “Then lead on, holy man.”

  Jason produces a lighter from his robes, then lights an incense cone inside the ornate metal globe hanging from a chain. Then he smoothes his cowl into a collar, adjusts his huge wooden cross pendant, and puts his best monk face on. Striding slowly, chanting some complete nonsense, he walks from the backstage area and into the side hall leading us as if we really were two fairytale princesses.

  “I was thinking about killing you,” I whisper to Bree. “But I’ve reconsidered.”

  “You’ll be thanking me when Alex Franks sees you.”

  “And now I’m thinking maybe I should smack you.”

  “That would not be lady-like,” Jason sings into his mock monk chant.

  “Plus your hand is in a brace,” Bree says, parroting his tone.

  “Only one of them.”