Breaking Her (Love is War #2) (3 page)

Jason laughed harder.
 
"I'll get into trouble."
 

"It's five bucks!
 
Just say you tripped and spilled it.
 
Hell, some tomato soup on her head might make her smell better."
 

They both went into loud peals of laughter.
 
I thought they sounded like nasty, little hyenas.
 

I felt sick.
 
I didn't even have to hear any more, I knew what they were planning and to whom, but I did hear more, I listened and collected my food, then quietly followed them.
 

I set down my tray on the first table I passed.
 

Jason's giggling friend sat down at the next one and waved him on.
 

With an evil grin, Jason approached Scarlett from behind, still holding his tray.
       

With quick furious steps I caught up to him, grabbed his tray, stepped on his foot, and sent my elbow hard into his chin all at once.
 

He went down with a gratifying cry.
 

Very calmly, I took his tomato soup and poured it right into his bratty, dismayed face.
 

"Is it funny now, you little shit?" I spat at him right before a teacher started dragging me away.
 

I glanced at Scarlett as I went.
 

She'd turned at the commotion, looking bored with only a touch of interest in her big, dark eyes as she looked at me, but no comprehension on her face that I'd just saved her from a headful of soup.
 

Still, that didn't deter me.
 
Her plight ate at me.
 
I'd lie in bed, hands clenched into fists, and stew about it.
 

I was a lonely, solemn boy, more sensitive than I'd ever admit, and I couldn't stand what was happening to her.
   

Anytime something was really bothering me, I took it to Gram.
 

"It's not right," I told my glamorous grandmother.
 
"It's
wrong
, the way she's being treated.
 
The kids are monsters, and the teachers don't care until it's gotten so bad that Scarlett gets herself into trouble.
 
It's every
day
, Gram.
 
Every
day
she has to put up with these little
shits
picking on her."

She was studying my face in a way that I liked, the way she always did when I was reminding her of Grandpa.
 
She didn't even reprimand me for cursing, that's how intently she was listening to me.
   

"You've gotta help her, Gram.
 
It's bad enough the way they talk, but she's got no one at home taking care of her.
 
She needs
clothes
.
 
Soap.
 
Someone to wash her hair and brush her teeth, or yanno, teach her how to do it."

She touched a hand to my hair, purest love pouring out of her eyes.
 
"Yes, yes, of course she does, Dante, my sweet, sweet boy.
 
We will work on all of that."

"They're
awful
at school.
 
They won't let up on her.
 
Maybe if you talk to her about . . . taking a bath or somethin', it'd make it easier on her."

"I will.
 
I absolutely will, you darling boy.
 
I'm ashamed that you even had to point it out, but you leave it to me, okay?"

I nodded.
 
I had absolute faith that Gram would do anything she promised, so I was done worrying about that part of it.
 

"Thank you," I told her.
 
"But . . . what should I do?
 
How do you think I can help her?"
     

"How about just being her friend?
 
Friends can make life a lot better."

I flushed and looked down, embarrassed to tell her that the girl I was so worried about would barely say two words to me.
 
"I'll try," I muttered.
 

"And Dante?"

"Yes?"

"You're strong.
 
And brave.
 
I have faith in you. I know you will find a way to help her.
 
If you see she needs defending,
defend
her.
 
Do what you think is right and you won't have any regrets."
 

A few weeks later, I pounded a guy that I heard making a joke about her, and I got my first smile out of her.

I loved that smile that seemed to belong only to me.
 
I felt like I'd been invited into a special club that consisted of just the two of us, and I wanted to stay there.
 
It was the
only
place I wanted to be.
   

From that day forward, it was my job to protect her.
 
Her feelings.
 
Her body.
 

Her freedom.
 

I look back on it all often, I think about it too much, and my life has fallen into categories—in spite of everything—gradations of
her
.
 

Life before Scarlett.
 
Life with Scarlett.
 
Life after Scarlett.
 

Wanting her.

Needing her.

Having her.

Losing her.

But always,
always
, there was a cloud looming over our heads, a storm on the brink, and in my mind, at least, there is only one person to blame for it.

*****

From my earliest memories, I had a complicated relationship with my mother.
 

She taught me to knot a tie, play chess, and to never, ever turn my back on her.

I kept Scarlett from my mother as much as I could for as long as I could.
 
Hid the one I held most dear from the one I most feared.

I sheltered Scarlett from her.
 
Protected her as much as I could.
 
She had enough to contend with in her life without my terrifying mother adding to it.
 

I kept her hidden as best I could, but of course, that couldn't last forever.
 
Scarlett and I were inseparable.
 
There was bound to be some overlap.

It was the strangest thing, if you ever caught my mother off guard it was like walking in on a corpse.
 
There was not one ounce of animation to her.
 
She was inanimate, staring off into nothing, and if you startled her, her face went on like an alarm going off.
 

Like stepping on a snake, she struck before you fully understood what you'd done.
 

I'd caught her like that once and learned to avoid it.
 

Still, I thought about it.
 
It creeped me the hell out.
 
What did she do when she was so deep in her own mind that she seemed to leave her body?

I was young when I pondered that, very young, and the older I got the more apparent the answer was.
 

She was plotting.
 
Always plotting.
 

An enemy's downfall, a friend's humiliation, a rival's shame.

A husband's misery.

A son's ruin.
 

She never lived in the moment.
 
She only lived for her latest trap to spring.
 

And she always had some web to spin.
 
Everyone in her sphere played some part in the spinning, whether they knew it or not.
     

There was one thing of value about being her only son; I did learn to deal with her.

Or so I thought.
 

When I was young and stupid, I thought I'd gotten the best of her, thought I had the keys to keeping her in check for the foreseeable future.
   

She let me think so, I later realized.
 
She was playing a longer game than I could have anticipated.
 

The key when it came to my mother was control.
 
If you broke it all down that was all she wanted from anyone, to have power over them.

But that didn't work until you had a weakness to exploit.
 

The answer to controlling me was always there, from the time Scarlett became my first and best friend, but I was too naive to see it.
 

I thought I had it all figured out.
 
I thought
I
was in control.
 
I thought I was the one that had something on
her
.
 

I found the thing my mother found the most important without even trying.
 

For her, the woman who had no animation when she was by herself, it was all about appearances.
 
Her entire life was a sham, a play, and that's all she wanted it to be.
 
She cared more about what the world thought than she did the actual reality of it.
 

Once I knew that it was a simple thing to figure out what she wanted from me.
 
And once I had that, I figured I had the power to keep her from taking what was important to me.
 

She loved to bring me out at parties, loved to show off her strapping boy, with his perfect teeth, his good looks, his blond hair, blue eyes, and straight posture—the very image of his handsome father.
 
Thanks to her expectations, I was better at making conversation with adults than other kids, and her 'friends' found this endlessly charming.
   

She was very happy with that.
 

I let her have it for a while.
 
She'd taught me well.
 
I even went out of my way to ham it up, her charming little boy, but I made a note of how it pleased her, how she expected,
needed
my impeccable behavior to help illustrate how perfect, how
complete
of a person she was pretending to be.
 

I kept that little card to myself until I needed it, because I always knew I would.

And I did.
 
It was the first time she got an inkling of how close I'd grown to what she referred to as,
"That Theroux girl,"
in her most derisive tone.
   

She didn't beat around the bush.
 
The day she found out we walked home together from school, she forbid me from ever speaking to Scarlett again.
 

With a somber face I told her calmly and simply, "No."
 

She smiled smugly, like she'd been expecting that.
 
"I'll talk to that little piece of trash myself.
 
I'll keep her from ever wanting to so much as look at you, that I promise."
 

That set me off into the biggest rage of my young life.
 
I could see I even shocked my always a step ahead mother as I began to throw things, going from calm and somber to livid and violent between one breath and the next.

I did have a temper, and it was an ugly thing, but on this particular day there was more than a trace of calculation in it.
 
I'd been expecting this for some time.
 

I'd been preparing for it.

Plotting it.
 

There would be no do-over.
 
I'd only get one chance.
 
I couldn't risk not taking it far enough, so I let her have it.
 

We were in her favorite sitting room.
 
Every single thing in the room was meticulously placed, chosen by her.
 
On a normal day, I knew better than to so much as misplace a pillow in this particular room.
 

This was not a normal day.
 

I began by reaching down and picking up a prized object on the glossy mahogany coffee table.
 

It was a Fabergé egg, worth a lot of money, I knew.
 
It was possibly the most valuable thing in this room full of valuables, and that's why I went for it first.

Our eyes met, hers narrowed and disbelieving, mine full of pure, desperate spite.
 
I held her gaze for one meaningful moment just before I turned and threw the thing, with all my might, straight into the wall.
 

She gasped and started screaming.
 

I started screaming louder.
   

That was only the start.
 
I kept going, breaking things until I felt I'd adequately gotten her attention.
 

That was when I really let her have it.
 
"FUCK.
 
FUCK.
 
FUCK.
 
FUCK!" I screamed into her face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she screamed back.
 

My voice got deadly quiet to show her that I was in control of myself.
 
"If you embarrass me to Scarlett I'll make you sorry.
 
Every time you want to show me off at some stupid party, I will put on the stupid suit, I will let you do my stupid hair, and then the second you try to introduce me to someone."
 
I pitched my voice louder suddenly, back to near hysteria.
 
"I'm just going to shout FUCK at the top of my lungs."
 

Her hand was at her throat.
 
She looked horrified.
 
"What has gotten into you?"

"FUCK!
 
FUCK!
 
FUCK!
 
FUCK!" I repeated, again and again.
 

"What is
wrong
with you?"
 

"FUCK!
 
FUCK!
 
FUCK!
 
FUCK!"

"I don't even—"