Breaking Beautiful (34 page)

I remember the fear in Trip’s eyes, just before Blake opened the door. Trip thought I was dead until I opened my eyes.

When the brakes didn’t work, he knew he was.

My foot reaches for the brake, like if I slam on it now I could stop everything that happened before. Only I’m not sure I want to.

Blake’s voice quivers. “I saw his truck go over the cliff. I stayed there with you in my arms—hurt, in shock.” His back
heaves. “You raised your head and handed me a little purse that you hadn’t let go. You told me to keep it for you.”

I search my mind but come up with nothing. “I don’t remember giving you the purse.” I guess it doesn’t matter.

“When I heard the sirens, I ran away. I was still scared that everyone would think I’d killed Trip and tried to kill you. I ran back up the road and through the forest where I had left my car. My shirt was covered in your blood so I shoved it under a log. I hid in my car until morning.” He looks up at me, his hair plastered against his face, the streetlights glinting on saltwater tears in his ocean eyes. “I’m sorry I left. I was so afraid. When I gave you back the tigereye, I was hoping you’d remember. And hoping you wouldn’t. I didn’t want you to know I was such a coward.”

I pull into the clinic parking lot, put the car in park, and turn off the engine. I don’t move. A thousand emotions churn inside me, fighting each other for dominance—anger, fear, guilt, pain.

His voice is ragged when he speaks again. “I couldn’t keep that night a secret from you anymore. That’s why I gave you back the ring today. I never meant to keep it. I didn’t know what to do with it.” His body shakes. “Please don’t hate me.”

He looks like a little boy again, vulnerable, the way he did on New Year’s Eve. The barrier melts. I slide across the seat and touch his arm. “You saved my life, that night and again tonight. I can’t—” but I don’t know what else to say—too much to express. I bury my head in his neck.

He tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I have one more confession to make.” I pull away and face him, dreading whatever else he has to tell me. He traces the scar over my eye.
“He didn’t do that to you. I did.” He slides his boxers up until I can see jagged white scars on his thigh and the chunk of flesh that’s missing from his hip. “When I jumped out of the car, I tried to protect you, but you hit the side of your face on the road.” He touches his own scar. “I told Grandma that I wrecked my mountain bike. I don’t think she believed me, but she didn’t make me go to the hospital. She took care of it herself.”

I trace the indented white flesh on his leg. Another scar Trip left behind.

He leans over and whispers, “When I saw Trip lose it, I realized it couldn’t have been the first time.” He looks at the floor. “When did it start?”

The weight of my shame hangs heavy in the air. How can I tell him the truth?

I think of James and Randall, turning their faces away and never looking me in the eye again, and Hannah pretending I don’t exist. Like I was damaged. Like it was my fault. I don’t ever want Blake to look at me, or not look at me, the way that they do.

Detective Weeks’s voice fills my head. “You have to start trusting somebody, sometime. I just hope it’s the right person.”

Blake risked his life to save mine, twice. He stood by me when no one else did, even when I told him I didn’t want him around. Even when I was horrible to him.

He loves me.

How can I keep my secret from him? The words start slowly. “You’re right.” I keep my eyes on the floor and lick the salt off my lips.

“What?” Blake looks up again, but I can’t meet his eyes.

“That night. Cotillion. It wasn’t the first time he’d hit me.” Now that I’ve started I can’t stop the flood. “He hit me a lot.” I reach for the missing tigereye, but find Blake’s hand instead. I slide my fingers into his. “Where people couldn’t see. Where I could hide it—on my arms, or my legs, or on my back.”

I grip his hand for strength, but I can’t look at him. Now that he knows how damaged I am, how could he possibly want me? How can he ever look at me again with anything but pity?

His voice is barely a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell your parents? Someone? Anyone?”

My mind swirls like the waters we just left—muddled, dark, too much to process. How can I explain it to him? “I was afraid.” I trace the calluses on his hand. “I thought Trip loved me. I thought I had to protect him.” My excuses sound so empty now that my voice is little more than a whisper. “I was embarrassed. I felt like it was my fault.” I rub my thumb across the smooth inside of his palm. “I was trapped.” I turn to face Blake with my teeth clenched together. “I was stupid.”

He pulls his hand away and shakes his head. “No, I was stupid! I should have seen it. I knew he treated you bad, but … Dammit!” He slams his hand against the glove compartment. It springs open and my mom’s insurance and registration envelope falls out, followed by a thick owner’s manual. Blake goes ghostly pale and slumps forward, gritting his teeth in pain and clutching at his shoulder. “Ouch. Now that was stupid.”

I laugh. Completely off from the mood, but it’s a relief. Like letting go of a huge rock that’s been wedged in my chest. Freer than I have felt for a long time. I touch his arm gently. “We need to get you inside.”

I open my car door and then walk around to his side. We hold on to each other and stumble into the clinic. The bright lights and the stark white interior are harsh and blinding. The waiting room is full—a crying baby, an old woman with a walker, a little boy playing a video game. It all feels unreal after everything that’s happened.

“He’s hurt,” I tell the nurse at the desk.

She looks at Blake’s caved-in shoulder and immediately takes him back. I stand there alone, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and my underwear, wet and shivering. The other people in the waiting room stare, but I’m too numb to care.

“Allie, thank God you finally made it.” Mom’s embrace nearly knocks me over. I blink at her, trying to remember why she’s here. “You’re soaking wet and freezing. And where are your pants?” Her eyes are shocked, but she doesn’t make me explain. She flags down the nurse who’s taking the old woman’s blood pressure. “Do you have something dry she can wear?”

A nurse brings me a blanket and a pair of blue scrubs that feel like they just came out of the dryer. I wrap up in them gratefully. “How is he?”

The nurse shakes her head. “Not good. He’s having a hard time breathing. But we can’t get an ambulance through. There are too many trees down. Your dad and a couple of other guys went out in his truck to see if they could clear the road.”

It takes me a second to realize she means Andrew and not Blake. When it hits me, I run for the curtained room where Andrew lies. He’s pale, his breathing sounds forced, and he’s still. Andrew’s body is always in motion, even when he sleeps, so the stillness scares me more than anything.

I ignore everyone else in the room, climb around the wires and tubes hooked to his body, and lie down next to my brother. I lay my head against his chest and focus on his raspy breaths and the beating of his heart.

I stay that way. The nurses come in and out. Mom tries to reach Dad on his cell phone. When Blake comes in, his arm in a sling, I don’t move. I barely register Grandma Joyce’s hand on my arm before they leave. The only thing that matters is the beating of Andrew’s heart next to mine, the way it did for nearly seven months, the way it has for the last eighteen years.

Chapter
49

The clock on the wall says 3:45.

Andrew’s chest heaves and his eyelids flutter. “Allie.” He says my name quietly enough that Mom can’t hear but more clearly than I’ve ever heard him say it. “I’m sorry. Never meant for you to get hurt.”

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m not hurt now.” I squeeze his hand, trying to soothe him, thinking he’s delirious with fever.

His voice drifts. “You were grounded, weren’t supposed to be in the truck.”

“Straight home after the dance. No exceptions.”

Andrew strokes his finger across the scar on the back of my head. “Didn’t mean for you to get hurt. Couldn’t let him keep hurting you.”

“Don’t go. Stay home with me. For our birthday.”

The pleading in his eyes cuts into my heart. “You don’t understand.
I want to. I just can’t, okay. Trip would be furious. He’s been planning tonight forever.”

His fists clench and his whole body shakes. “I understand, more than you think I understand. I know what he—” His fingers tangle in the lace on my sweater. It slides off and exposes my back and a swollen mass of purple and red—a testament to my lie.

I wrap it back around me fast, but he’s already seen. “I fell and
—”

“
No.” He breathes in slow and deliberate. The softness in his eyes is gone.

Trip barrels through the door, huge and intimidating. “Allie, get out here! The limo is waiting! Everyone is waiting.”

“I’m coming!” I grab the purse off my doorknob and whisper to Andrew, “Don’t tell, please. I have everything figured out. It’s not that bad. I’m okay.”

Andrew grips my arm with more strength than I thought he had. “Let me help you.”

I jerk my arm away. “What can you do?”

His face falls.

“Now, Allie!” Trip crosses the floor in three quick steps.

Andrew levels a hard gaze at Trip, but Trip doesn’t even acknowledge him. He doesn’t hear Andrew whisper, “I won’t let him keep hurting you.”

Realization pours into my chest like icy seawater and flows through my body until I’m colder than I ever was in the cave. Andrew was home alone while Mom and I were at the inn. Andrew knows cars. He would know how to mess up Trip’s brakes.

Andrew cut Trip’s brakes.

Andrew killed Trip.

I forced my brother to be a murderer to protect me. The single damning piece of evidence, my shoe, and I led James right to it. I bury my head against Andrew’s chest. “I’m sorry. It was my fault, always my fault.”

“No.” He pushes against my face and his eyes catch mine. “Not always your fault.” He takes in a ragged breath. “I didn’t mean for him to die. Didn’t know he was going by the cliff. Just wanted him to know what it felt like to be helpless. Wanted to give you a chance to get away.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” I whisper.

He strokes my cheek and I feel his strength flowing into me. His voice gets quieter. “Time to let it go. The tide comes in and takes everything away. Like it never happened.” His voice fades.

“Andrew?” I panic. “Andrew?” I lay my head against his chest. His heartbeat is slow, but steady.

“Shhh. Time to rest.” He wraps his arm around me. I close my eyes and let the exhaustion overtake me.

.........

Sometime just before dawn Caitlyn comes in the room. She’s wearing a long plaid coat over shorts, a T-shirt, and purple boots. Her hair is tucked under a matching purple hat. Her eyes are red and she looks like she’s ready to shed another gallon of tears, but she puts her hand on her hip and says angrily, “Andrew.”

His eyelids flutter open when he hears her, and his face settles into a guilty grin.

She takes a step toward the bed. “If you ever do that to me again …”

I get out of the bed and give up the place that rightfully belongs to her. I know she’ll take care of him.

Mom stirs when I stand up. “Andrew seems better,” she says. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest? Dad will be back soon.” I nod and squeeze her hand on the way out.

Blake is sleeping on a couch in the waiting room. I thought he had left. I lean over and kiss him good-bye on the cheek. He doesn’t even stir.

Mom’s car is still outside where I left it. The keys are still in the ignition. Pacific Cliffs is small-town like that—a place where people still leave their keys in their cars. A place where they leave their doors unlocked at night. A place where people feel safe.

Without knowing where I’m going, I drive past town, where people have gathered to talk about the storm and clean stray branches out of the street, past the mix of old houses and vacation condos, past the high school and the police station. I finally stop at the top of the cliff road and pull into the parking lot.

I get out and sit on the bench beside the plaque overlooking the ocean. The flowers and notes that were left behind by kids from the school are gone, blown away by the storm. Only Hannah’s sad, soggy teddy bear remains behind.

The waves are gentle. The wind has blown itself out. The high tide has receded back into an extremely low tide. The water is out so far that I can see kids walking along the beach looking for treasures. I wonder if any of them will find the tigereye or the ring. A van with a commercial diver’s logo on the side is parked in the sand to the right of the cliff. I wonder how long it will take them to find Trip’s truck.

I sit watching the ocean, without moving, even when the black Charger parks behind me. I know Detective Weeks is coming to arrest me, but I’m through being afraid. I’m through running away.

Detective Weeks sits down beside me. “This is a great view.”

“It’s the most beautiful spot in Pacific Cliffs,” I answer. I wonder if he’ll handcuff me and read me my rights like on TV. I wonder what the gossip will be in the cafeteria and in the halls at school. I wonder what it will be like to stand trial or be in prison.

“That it is.”

I take a deep breath and prepare to confess to everything so Andrew doesn’t have to take the blame for my mistake. “Detective Weeks, I wanted to—”

He holds his hand up to stop me. “Before you say anything, you should know, Trip Phillips’s death is going to be ruled an accident.” He sounds so sure that a spot of hope cuts through the gray in my chest.

“But after everything you said last night—” My head hurts too much to try to figure anything else out.

He shakes his head. “We need to continue this discussion at the police station.” He stands up and gestures to the police car. “I could give you a ride, if that’s okay with you?”