Breaking Beautiful (6 page)

“Stalker.” Megan grins and pops a fry into her mouth.

Hannah keeps blushing and scowls at both of them. It’s weird to see them be kind of nasty to each other, but I’ve never had close friends. Maybe that’s how friends act.

“Big deal,” Angie says. “I’ve talked to him, too, every time he comes in for groceries.” Angie’s dad owns the only grocery store in town. “He’s more interested in Allie than you.” A familiar jealous hatred settles into Hannah’s eyes. “I mean, that’s what they brought him for anyway, right? To investigate the accident?”

I look down at my tray.

Angie points at me with her fork. “He asked me whether I knew you and Trip. If Trip was a big drinker—like I’m going to answer that.” She sticks a forkful of salad in her mouth, chews, and then points at me again. “He wanted to know if you were back at school yet. I told him I didn’t know if you’d ever be back.” I’m still looking at my tray, but I can see Hannah giving Angie distinct “shut up” signals. She doesn’t seem to notice, because she swallows and keeps talking. “There was
a rumor that you were in some hospital in Seattle. That your brain wasn’t right after the accident and you were in a wheelchair like your brother. Someone else said it was a mental hospital. That you went crazy after Trip died.” She looks at me and shakes her head. “You look pretty normal. I guess it wasn’t true.”

Hannah and Megan look somewhere between embarrassed and irritated. Angie finally catches their expressions. “What?”

My face burns. My eyes water. I stand up so fast I knock over my chair. “I have to go. I forgot I was supposed to go in for tutoring.” I spill my uneaten fries on the floor when I pick up the chair. I leave them and dump my tray on the way out. I’m moving so fast that I don’t see Blake on the other side of the glass doors until I run into him.

“Hey!” He catches me in his arms. “Are you okay?”

I pull away and shake my head. I mean to say “yes,” but with the tears gathering in my eyes it probably looks more like “no.” I’m not sure why I am so close to crying. I don’t cry anymore. Not ever. I’ve gone through way worse than Angie’s stupidity.

“What did they say to you?” Blake looks through the doors toward the table I just left.

“Nothing.” I keep my eyes down. “I just … I need to—”

“Allie.” Angie comes through the door behind me. “Hannah told me I needed to apologize. She thinks I upset you.”

“It’s okay,” I mutter. “No big deal.”

“Hannah seems to think it was.” Angie rolls her eyes. “The Queen is so PC these days.” She sees Blake and wrinkles her little freckled nose. “Oh, hi, Juvie, I thought I smelled something.” She turns back to me, like I didn’t hear her insult Blake—like
he’s nothing to me. “So we’re okay, right, Allie?” I can only blink in response as she reaches into her purse to pull out her cell phone. “Later.” She waves and heads down the hall.

“Some friends.” Blake pushes his earbuds into his ears, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

Chapter
7

“You about ready to go? School starts in a half hour.” Dad pours coffee into his silver “Go Army” thermos and checks his watch.

“Just a sec.” I pull a granola bar out of the box from the cupboard, wondering if I’ll actually have the stomach for this one.

He watches me, then pours the last of the milk into a cup and hands it to me. I drink it because he’s watching. “Looks like we need to add milk to Mom’s list.” He picks up the pen next to her “Things We Need” tablet and writes “milk,” then looks over the list. “This is getting pretty long and I know Mom’s working late again. What are you doing after school today?”

I have to think about it before I answer. My time after school used to belong to Trip. He’d get mad if I had something to do that didn’t involve him. But that’s not a problem anymore. I shrug. “Nothing.”

“Could you go to the store?” He rips the list off the notepad.

“I guess so.” Going to the grocery store in Pacific Cliffs is the last thing I want to do, but saying no to Dad isn’t usually an option.

“You can drop me off at the shop so you’ll have the car to get groceries on your way home. Just make sure you come get me at five thirty sharp.” He pulls a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet, looks over the list again, and adds a twenty. “I expect change back.”

“Yes, sir.” I stick the money in my pocket, next to the tigereye. At the high school I went to in Texas I would have been scared to have that much money on me. In Pacific Cliffs it’s no big deal.

If Dad had dropped me off at school and I’d gone to the main entrance like normal, I might have noticed the car—black, immaculate, expensive. Maybe if I had been paying attention when I came in from student parking, I’d have seen him in time to duck into a bathroom. But after a week of unwanted attention and sympathy I was trying to be invisible—head down, hands buried in the pocket of my sweatshirt, clutching the tigereye between them. That’s why I don’t see Mr. Phillips coming out of the office until I’m almost on top of his Italian leather shoes.

“Excuse me,” he says, and steps sideways. When I look up, he gasps. “Allie.” Mrs. Phillips, the green leather pumps to his right, gasps, too. I haven’t seen them since cotillion, the night of the accident, before Trip died.

I’m face to chest with Mr. Phillips’s dark suit and silk tie. Farther up are the same broad shoulders that Trip had, then the square chin. I don’t dare look higher than that.

He puts his hands on my shoulders, heavy. I brace myself to keep from pulling away. “It’s good to see you, Allie.”

“What are you doing here?” I blurt out. I punish my tongue by biting down on it hard.

Mrs. Phillips sniffs. She pulls her brown fur coat around her, like she’s cold. I’ve never seen Mrs. Phillips without a fur coat—her way of showing everyone she’s above them. She’s the sole heir to the oldest money in town. According to Trip, she didn’t think I was good enough for him.

Mr. Phillips drops one hand from my shoulder and pulls his wife against his side. I look up. Her eyes—crystal blue, like Trip’s—are swimming. She catches my gaze, then looks at the ground.

Mr. Phillips clears his throat and swallows. “We came to talk to Mr. Barnes about setting up a scholarship fund in Trip’s name.”

“Oh.” I put my hand over the side of my face and study his shoes. They could be brand new. There isn’t a scratch or a speck of dirt anywhere on them.

“We would like to help you with school, too, Allie,” he says. “If you choose to go to college.” He puts his hand back on my shoulder. “And I’ve been meaning to reinstate your phone on our plan.”

I step back, still within his reach but farther away. “That’s nice, but …” My throat closes so the words can’t come out. “I couldn’t …” I’m dying for the bell to ring, anything to save me.

His hand gets heavier on my shoulder. My heart thumps against my chest like I was a cornered rabbit. “It would be no trouble. After everything you meant to our son—” He glances at his wife. “What’s the use of having all this money if we have no one to share it with?”

Mrs. Phillips twists the strap of her purse around her fingers.

Guilt and fear make the milk boil in my stomach. I could throw up, right here, on his perfect shoes. Then maybe he’d leave me alone.

The first bell rings. I almost slide to the floor in relief. But Mr. Phillips doesn’t let go of me, even as the sea of gaping faces moves past us toward class. “I’ll talk to your mom about it.” He lowers his head so I can see perfect teeth and his smile. “You should come by the house sometime. It feels so empty without Trip.” He finally takes his hand away and uses it to steer his wife toward the door. “We’ll be watching for you.”

I tug at the sleeves of my sweatshirt and force myself to nod, but the chill down my back comes way before the wind that blows in when Mr. Phillips opens the door for his wife.

After the Phillipses leave I just stand there, frozen in place, unable to move, like Mr. Phillips’s hand on my shoulder was some kind of freeze ray that sucked all the warmth out of my body.

The second bell rings. The hall empties. I slowly thaw back to motion, but instead of going to my locker, getting my books, and heading to class, I retrace my steps back to Dad’s truck in the parking lot.

The truck’s engine roars so loud that it makes me jump, but no one comes running out of the building to stop me from leaving school. I crank the heat up full blast to try to relieve some of the numbness that grips my chest. I exhale as I drive past the WELCOME TO HISTORIC PACIFIC CLIFFS sign and realize I’ve been holding my breath.

A few miles out of town I start to feel alive again. The highway feels free; the hum of the tires, the slap of the windshield wipers, even the feeling of control I get when I step on the gas and Dad’s truck responds with a roar. I can’t make myself stop.

Nearly three hours later I pull into a gas station in Olympia with the gas light on Dad’s truck burning bright. Only then does it hit me how far I’ve driven. Only then does it hit me that I did something really stupid.

I try to estimate how much gas I’ll need to get back to Pacific Cliffs and how much money I’ll need to buy all the groceries on the list. I even pull out the manual Dad keeps in the glove compartment to see how many miles per gallon the truck gets so I can divide it out, but math was never one of my strong subjects.

I give up and spend sixty-six fifty of Dad’s seventy dollars on gas. Then I drive to a pier overlooking the Puget Sound, get out of the truck, and watch the water while I try to figure out what to do.

For a flash of a second I think about calling Trip. He would berate me for being stupid enough to drive all the way out here, but he’d come pick me up, probably even pay for the groceries.

Then I remember he’s gone.

Anyway you look at it, I’m screwed. I have no money. Period. Not here. Not at home. Not even in the bank. I wanted to get a job last year, but Trip said it would cut into our time together, that anything I would get at Pacific Cliffs was beneath me, and “don’t I take care of everything you need anyway?”

An ugly, scrawny seagull pulls a yellow fast-food wrapper with a little bit of cheeseburger stuck to it out of the garbage can in front of me. Before she can eat any of it, a bigger seagull
swoops down and snatches it away. Then a bunch of other seagulls join him. They tear the wrapper apart and squawk and fight over the pieces.

I think about what would happen if I kept driving and didn’t ever go home. I could drive until I ran out of gas again. Find a place where no one knows me.

Or I could point the truck toward the ocean and drive until I run out of land.

The truck has Davis Auto on the side and a big winch on the front—conspicuous. Besides, Dad needs it for work.

And then there’s Andrew.

The drive back to Pacific Cliffs is slower. The rain is coming down in sheets so the wipers can hardly keep up. Every mile that ticks by feels like a lead weight pressing on top of me. What is Dad going to do to me when I come back without the money, and grocery-less?

When I get to Hoquiam, a lit yellow sign catches my eye. PAWN X-CHANGE: ELECTRONICS, GUNS, JEWLERY.

My stomach clenches. I reach up and finger the diamond stud earring in my left ear.

“I got you something.”

I slow down as I pass the pawnshop. The neon sign blinks OPEN.

“They’re the real deal. Nothing’s too good for my girl.”

I keep driving for three blocks.

“I got them to make up for things …”

Three more blocks slip past.

“… to show you how sorry I am for what happened last night.”

I turn around.

“Please look at me, Al.”

I drive back and pull into the parking lot of the store next to the pawnshop. My freaky eye accuses me from the mirror, so I focus on the earrings—turn my head back and forth and watch them sparkle.

I remember his hand on my face, his fingers tracing my sore cheekbone.

“I just lost it, okay? The whole day with my dad—I can never do anything right when he’s around.”

I turn off the truck’s engine and stare at the yellow sign until the letters are burned into my retina.

“It will never happen again. I promise.”

I’ve worn the earrings since Trip gave them to me. The skin has grown around them so I have to twist to get them out. My right ear bleeds a little. I wipe it off with a napkin I find in the center console of the truck.

In my hand they seem so tiny. Trip said they were real. How much could they be worth? The grocery list is still sitting on the seat next to me. How much do I need? Fifty dollars? Dad thought seventy would be enough, with some change left over.

If I ask for seventy dollars, will they laugh in my face?

I hesitate, rubbing the rough spot on my stone. Then I go inside.

The man behind the counter is younger than I expected, like twenty-something. He has dark hair and a mustache and his arms are covered in tattoos. He’s trying to look respectable, wearing a clean blue polo shirt tucked into jeans, but not quite pulling it off.

I’m grateful for my gray-sweatshirt shield that keeps him
from seeing whatever his eyes are perusing for as they take me in. I cover the side of my face with my hand and keep my head down. My other hand is clutching the earrings, digging them into my palm.

“Can I help you with something?” He smiles, but it’s a slippery smile, like any minute it could slide into something more sinister.

I grip the earrings tighter but force myself to pull them out of my pocket. “I wanted to—” My voice squeaks, so I swallow and try again. “I was interested in what I would get for these.” I open my hand. The earrings have left angry red marks on my palm. I should have thought through the presentation better.

“Let’s have a look.” He pulls out a piece of black velvet and motions for me to set the earrings on top of it.

“They’re real.” I go for confident, but it comes out more like a question.

He reaches under the counter, pulls out some kind of magnifying glass, and studies the earrings. “You have a fight with your boyfriend?”