Broken (10 page)

“Arlene, please,” my dad says in his best diffuse-the-situation voice. “I think this is a good thing. Maybe not this particular boy, but at least Emma’s coming out of her…funk…”
since Daniel died
isn’t said so much as felt.

“I don’t like this.” She scoops up Dad’s empty water glass and uses it as an excuse to put distance between us. Water splashes in the sink, then the glass. “Not with that boy. Look at her, Merle. She was filthy. She had to get a new brace.”

“
That boy
has a name,” I huff. I scoop up my plate and shove the handles of my utensils into my brace. “His name is Alex. And he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“New brace,” Mom ticks off on her fingers, “missing school, and a different shirt.”

“Because we were trying to save a wounded animal.” Too many emotions today, I’m a raw nerve and Mom’s strangling it. I can’t just hang my head and clam up. “Forgive me for making a friend! Something you’ve pushed me to do for months.”

Mom doesn’t say anything. The flush in her cheeks speaks volumes.

Head held high, I walk from the dining room and carry my plate up to my bedroom where I can eat in peace and not have Mom bitching at me about trying to help Alex. Yelling at me for being friendly with Alex is just stupid.

My door slams behind me with a good shove of my foot. I can always blame it on both hands being occupied, one with dinner, one with a fresh, clean immobilizer.

I shove aside my laptop and sit at my desk to eat. It’s all mechanical, scoop, chew and swallow, scoop, chew and swallow. My taste buds are numb, burned by frustration, or the lengthy exposure to the stink of blood. The last clod of mashed potatoes sits on my spoon when a knock rattles my door.

“I don’t feel like talking, Mom.”

“It’s not Mom,” Dad says through the crack, “and I do. Are you decent?”

I heave a sigh, and immediately wish I had Daniel’s hoodie on as a barrier between me and Dad. He never comes to my door, never comes into my room. The spoon falls back to the plate, potatoes splatting across the surface.

By the time Dad comes in, I’m on my bed, with a pillow hugged to my chest.

“Emma, I know your mom upset you,” he starts.

“Ya think?” Okay. It’s a smartass response, but I’m doubly on edge now.

“You have to understand. We were really worried about you this summer. Things just start looking better and along comes another boy.”

“Wait. Stop right there, Dad.” I curl my legs into a crossed position. “Alex has just been nice. He’s not ‘coming along.’” I make air quotes with my left hand.

“Mom’s just worried you’re going to end up broken-hearted again.”

I cast my eyes down and away, and follow the seam of the quilt pattern Mom had sewn for me when I was nuts about faeries. Now I hate faeries and don’t have the heart to tell her.

“Just be careful, okay, Em?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” He fishes in his chest pocket, and produces my pain meds. “Mom figured you’d need these.”

Even when I’m a jerk, and shout back, Mom’s still watching out for me. Guilt fills the place indignation had burned out and I want to cry. I don’t, I scrub viciously at renegade wetness on my cheek. “Thanks. Tell her I said thank you, too, please.”

“She figured you’d say that.” Dad pats my head like I’m two again, and a pat and a kiss on the cheek would make everything better. “Get a hot shower, kiddo. You’ll feel better.”

“That’s my plan.”

I toss the pill into my mouth, swallow some water with it, then stand when Dad walks out. The siren call of Daniel’s old comfort is too strong to resist. I gather his sweat shirt into my arms, noticing the contrasting color and fabric of Alex’s shirt encircling it. From there my gaze lurches to the blood beneath my fingernails, and staining the whorls of my fingerprints. Heaving a sigh, I grab a pair of flannel pajama pants and tip toe to the bathroom.

Once upon a time, a hot shower could make everything better.

No amount of hot water will wash away the things I’ve seen, or purge the thoughts I’ve had. Things are not right with Alex Franks. And I can’t stay away from him.

Chapter Ten

Cemeteries, broken, bleating deer and two dead boys haunt my sleep.

Daniel’s always out of my reach, drifting between the graves.
M
ud slips beneath my feet as
I run
and
reach for him, but
he
passes like mist through my fingers.
Eroded mausoleums jut from the ground, compound fractures of granite and stone.
A shovel handle trips me,
the world lurches up to swallow me,
and I
land with a wet crunch on a
rotten
corpse
.

Worms wriggle in the snout of the doe, her eye
s
dilated and fixed on me.

No matter how I struggle, I can’
t get free of
h
er mangled limb
s
.
M
y
feet break through
her ribcage
,
tangle in
her
deflated lungs. When I look down, the doe is nothing but ground meat, tuffs of hair and that dead eye watching me.

An raptured
sigh draws my gaze up. Alex stands at the head of the grave, every one of his scars open
. Veins dangle
in waves of dripping red lace
from his arm
incision
s,
intestines spill from his abdomen but
his eyes
are
feverishly bright.

“
You’re perfect
, Emma,” he says.

His odd left
eye pops from its
socket, and blood gushes from his mouth and nose. Laughing, or sobbing, I can’t tell with the fluids pouring from his throat. Whatever noise he makes, it precedes Alex, the sour stink splashing on me before he buries me alive in death.

I scream myself awake, arms flailing to throw the weight and warmth from my chest. Renfield hisses and bolts from me, a white furbearing missile aimed for the safety of the hallway. He lands in the puddle of light outside my door, spins on his haunches, leveling a scathing, indignant cat glare on me before tearing a path for the first floor.

Points of ache burn beneath my collarbone, almost at the hollow of my throat, where Renfield used me as a launch pad. Pulling down the neck of my t-shirt displays groups of angry red puncture marks, sticky and shiny with blood.

My parents’ bedroom door flies open and Mom hustles into the hall, her hair standing on end and slippers on the wrong feet. Dad’s voice issues muffled from their darkness, but she waves away his offer to check on me, and ties her robe like she’s girding her loins for battle. Her gaze searches my face as she pushes against the wall I built between us. Sniffling, I reach for her, and the wall comes down.

Mom’s at my bedside in an instant, arms around me. She’s all warmth and flannel and rose linen spray. I slump on her shoulder and inhale deeply.

“Bad dream?”

“The worst.” My fingers curl in the folds of her housecoat.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Why do people always ask that? Talking drags the jagged ugly truth out and tosses it into view of anyone who cares to listen. My silence isn’t enough answer for her.

“Daniel again?” Bless her for not sounding annoyed.

“Not really,” I hedge. Then I sigh, and give in. “Well, not just Daniel. There was a cemetery, too. And I couldn’t catch him.” I inhale a shaky breath and severely edit the rest of the dream. “Then, I fell into a grave and was buried alive.” My voice breaks on the last words, and I hate it.

“Oh, Emma,” she says. “I know losing him was hard. Letting go is hard, too.”

If she knew the rest of the dream, would she still pooh-pooh it? Downscale it to a little heartache? This is so much more than Daniel’s death and me failing to get past it. Alex was there, alive and dead at the same time. A quiver threatens to run down my back when the image of him flashes behind my eyes. I suppress the shudder, and the urge turns inward, twisting my stomach instead.

“It is hard,” I agree, “But I’ve started.”

The cutting sensation lacing through me agrees.

“I know,” she says and her embrace tightens. “I’m here to help, if I can.”

I nod, not wanting to commit more than that. Missing Daniel is woven into every section of my life, flooding my spine and wrapping my nerves. I’m afraid to share, to show how deep missing him has dug into me. Inviting someone in to my empty ache would diminish it, and diminish him.

Mom’s hug loosens and she tilts back to look at me, smoothing hair from my face. “It’s almost time for me to be up,” she says. “Want to help me in the kitchen?”

On a normal nightmare morning, I might have agreed. This morning I sigh and hold up my broken hand.

“Okay. Maybe not. I guess I’ll let you try to sleep some more.”

“Nah.” I scoot back and wiggle my legs free of the blankets. “I’m awake now. How about I keep you company in the kitchen?” Anything to wipe the sadness from her eyes. Mom looks like she lost her best friend, and I don’t want her to share my misery.

She tips her head, blinks like she’s considering something.

“How about we go out for breakfast?”

“Deal.”

After another battle with single-handed dressing, Mom and I meet in the kitchen. She’s cranked her hair into a bun, gray frizz springing out around her face. Her jeans are dark and look like they’ve been ironed, and her purse is worn and limp. Total teen embarrassment material. I’m in comfy jeans, Alex’s yesterday shirt, and my gray, glitter embroidered hoodie to counterbalance the guy-ness of the first layer.

I cuddle into Alex’s shirt, which Mom either ignored or missed. If I’m being honest, I’m wearing the shirt of a boy I barely know, and he ripped it off exposing more than his scars. In some way, I’m wearing his hurt and hiding in his shadows. The edges of the hollow inside quiver, feeling a lot like my heart fluttering. I push the impression away and slam the car door to shake the feeling loose.

“Where to?” Mom asks, sitting in the driver’s seat and starting the car. “Fast food? The sub place? Mugz-n-Chugz?”

My mom at
t
he
high school hang out? Everyone will know me. Everyone will see me with my frazzled, uncool parent. She’ll mother me, carry my tray, probably send back her breakfast and want to talk to the chef... But then, we would be inside. No Tiny acting heartbroken and weird at the Walk-Up window. No Alex buying my coffee, sending tingles down my spine, messing up my heart rate.

“Mugz-n-Chugz sounds great,” I say, knowing I’m sure to regret it.

I drag my backpack close, and liberate my cell phone. The screen is dark. The thin black cord of Mom’s charger snakes from the dashboard, coiled and waiting in the cup of her console.

“Mind if I use your charger?”

“Not at all.” She turns into M-n-C’s parking lot. “We can go through the Drive-Thru and eat in the car. That way it can charge, and I don’t have to worry about you stranded and one-handed.”

“Have I told you lately that you’re awesome?”

“No.” She cranks the wheel, steering the front of the sedan around the back corner of Mugz-n-Chugs and aiming for the Drive-Thru order window. “Given your behavior last night, I thought I was on your most hated list.”

Oh God,
I groan inwardly.
Do we really have to do this now?

“I don’t hate you, Mom.”

“I know.” She drops the conversation, rolls down her window and orders a coffee with cream, and a breakfast bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese. I lean toward the center of the car, and order the Pancake-on-a-Stick with tater tots, and a breve with a shot of caramel.

“Pancake on a stick?” Mom arches an eyebrow.

“Yeah. A big breakfast sausage the size of a hot dog, dipped in pancake batter and deep fried.”

“Sounds awful…and wonderful at the same time.”

Mom’s gaze shifts far away after she pays and drives to the Pick-Up window. I can see her surrounded by ground meat, sausage casings and batter, trying to improve on the recipe. She could do it, too, add a little cinnamon to the batter, make the sausage a maple sausage… Maybe next time Mom asks me to help in the kitchen, I will. When it comes to food, we seem to think a lot a like.

I wish she agreed with me about guys.

Lydia, Tiny’s cousin and daughter of M-n-C’s owner, hands the coffees through the window, and notices me in the passenger seat. “Oh, hi, Emma!” Then she does what I least wanted. She turns toward the inside of the restaurant and yells, “Hey, Tiny! Your girlfriend’s at my window!”

My groan is audible over the car’s motor.

Tiny’s bulk blocks out the light coming from inside when he waddles to the Pick-Up window.

“Hi, Em.” He takes our food bags from Lydia, and thrusts them through the shade on this side of the building. “You ever want a real man instead of that pretty boy, you know where to find me.”

He closes the window with a jerk.

“Do I want to ask?” Mom hands my breakfast sack to me.

“Not really.”

She casts a look back as she pulls away from the window. Tiny’s still there, watching, his bottom lip sagging in an obvious pout.