Broken (18 page)

“So…?” says Bree, her bright voice at odds with her
moody
gray and black outfit.

My shoulders sink. I can’t play this game today.
“You were right.”

A smile spreads, slow
pretty
poison across her face. “Right about what
exactly
?”

“Alex
and I being connected
.”
A
heavy sigh drags my shoulders
further
. “But I don’t want
it
.”

“Don’t want
it
?” She repeats, her voice scaling up, making my confession sound crazy. By
her
shocked expression, I have to think that was Bree’s in
tention. “
How can you not want it?
He’s smart, he’s good-
looking, and totally into you. Plus, he got into a fight.
For you
.”

“I know.” I start toward the side door, dreading the surging halls and cutting glares. “It’s just…” How can I tell Bree about his similarities to Daniel? She’ll think I’m crazy, creating excuses or something. I finish lamely, “It’s all happening so fast.”

“What’s happening? Him driving you to the clinic for a new brace? ‘Cause that’s just crazy to do when a guy hardly knows a girl. You two dancing? ‘Cause you didn’t look like you were complaining…” She steps in front of me. “Help me out here, Em. You guys seemed
totally into each other
on Saturday, and now you’re all ‘I don’t know’ about him?”

“I
do
know about him,” I huff, and edge past her.
My heart knows, and i
t scares me.
“I know I like him. A lot. And I know I don’t want to.”

Warm air blasts my face when I jerk the door open.
Inside, the hallway
c
onstrict
s
,
narrowing as I watch like something out of a horror movie.
Or does knowing Alex won’t be here
drain
the life from my Monday?

Bree’s going on about how I need to wake up and let go of the dream I had and see what’s right in front of me and…and… But I’m not hearing her.
For once, I
zone out when she starts to compare
my
life to dramatic plot lines
, rather than buck her attempts at making me a character in one of her productions
.
A
commotion in front of my locker accompan
ies
a m
et
a
llic smell and screech
,
and
wrench
es
my attention completely from her.

“See you at lunch, B,” I mutter and walk away.

“Damn right you will,” she says, no vehemence in her tone.

A few students cluster in a loose ring around my locker
, an arc of whispers and bent heads
.
The
slightly
battered sl
ab of
a
metal
door
leans against Alex’
s locker,
the heart Daniel ha
d scratched into the inside reflecting the harsh lights. The
internal mechanism
hangs
exposed l
ike entrails of a locker
disembowelment. In its place stands a pristine, brand new d
oor. No chipped paint. No heart.

On instinct, I reach for the pale broken heart under my brace. Another aspect of Daniel unceremoniously ripped from my life.
I hardly notice the man in the grease-stained coveralls standing by my locker.

“You Emma Gentry?” he asks, voice sounding like a two-pack-a-day habit.

“Yes
?
”
I’m not questioning my identity
, more why he’s asking
about it
.

He thrusts a piece of paper at me, full of barcodes and price info.

“Hold up.” I raise my immobilized right hand. “I can’t pay for that. I didn’t order it.”

“No charge. He already took care of it,” he rasps. “This here is the work order, with your new combination on it.”

“Oh,” is all I manage as I pluck the sheet from his fingers. “Who ordered this? Shouldn’t the
office
get these papers?”

“Private job.” He grabs the paper back, finds what he’s looking for and turns it around, one dirty digit indicating the billing info. “Name’s Alexander Franks.”

Alex did this?
Damn my heart for flip-flopping in my chest.
My cheeks burn, the heat rising and pulling a stupid smile with it. The man gives me a curt nod, then heads to the main office, three locker doors and a few feet of plaster wall down from where I stand.

I scan the information again. His full name, home address and phone number, and the last four digits of a credit card are in the billing box. Then handwrit
ing in the
N
otes section grabs my attention.

Emma,

I can’t be there to open the old door for you,
so
I got you a new
one
.

See you after school.

Alex

The warmth in my cheeks flushes
through
me, dribbling into the shrinking hollow
inside.

It remains
sloshing inside, keeping me company. The Ugly Room’s nasty chatter hardly touche
s my good mood. Which, I notice, Ally Rhodes’ voice i
s entirely absent from. Jealousy still pinche
s
her face into something less Cheerleader Barbie and closer to Cheerleader Harpy, but
her shellac
k
ed mouth twists a little when I catch her eyes
. The
soft heat
resurge
s
at lunch
when the Thespian Crowd recounts
Alex’s valor of Saturday night.
Jason Weller blowing up the tale till Alex sounds like a hero laying his life down for me
than the villain he was dressed as, or the
gossip
made him out to be
.

“It’s a shame he got kicked out,” says Amber Miller
. H
er bother adds, “Someone shoulda give
n
him a medal.”

Despite Asia Folley’s return Fifth hour
,
Dune Eco lays limp and wounded in Mr. LaRue’s room, nearly gutted by the absence of Josh and Alex shooting daggered glares back and forth. Discussions of upcoming projects bounce around, grazing the inside of my skull. The only thing sticking is the blood on my thumb
—a
purposeful
cut from the blade of d
une grass
—and
the fact the lab partnerships will remain till
semester’s end
.

My last two classes pass in a blur. The pressure of anticipation builds like the pain of a heart attack in my chest. The clock hands drag, lethargic and mocking me. Taking notes fills my notebook with information that bypasse
s
my brain. Then fi
nally the End-of-Day bell rings.

I dive into the rush of bodies, fighting the surge to get to the stairs and down to my locker. The stairwell pumps in a squared spiral to the first floor, closest to the main office. It’s also the least used.
My footsteps ricochet in the relative silence until I hit the second floor, close to the doors to the catwalk between this building and the gym complex. I cast a glance at the doors, a ghost of Daniel fleeting like a beautiful lie over my heart.

Shaking it off, I launch down the last section of steps and surrender to the
main hall
flow. A few jostling steps and I pull free of the tide, and find my locker.

A bright white piece of paper flutters from
the vents
, and
smells like leather when I pull it free.

Waiting on the Bree Bench. Want a
b
reve for the walk home?

The new combination is ridiculously easy
. A
nd with each number
I click in
, I snip
a thread connect
ing me to the memory of Daniel opening the old locker.

In minutes
,
I burst from the side door, and into the weak light of a gray afternoon.
Heavy fall haze thickens the air. People move in dark
ghostlike
blurs.
My gaze lasers to the Bree Bench, as Alex called i
t, where Bree usually waits for
me in the mornings
.
The painful anticipation uncoils in flash of sweet release, and I can’t beat back the smile. Rebound or not,
Alex Franks affects me
.
His profile is paler than the vibrant, healthy color of Saturday, his hood is up, his shoulders curled against the cold.

Wonder and joy
flash
across hi
s face
,
brief
and still very
there
.

“Hey,” Alex says, voice husky
as he stands
.

“Hi.” At this angle the
watery
sun halos him, his mismatched hazel eyes framed in the dark hood.
His grin tugs a
t
the hair-thin scar at the corner of his eye.
Words crowd my mouth and die. H
e tugs on the zipper of my jacket, pulling it down a
couple teeth
and loosening my voice a lot.
“Thanks for the new locker door.”

“
You’re welcome.
It’s the least I could do, seeing as I got myself suspended for a week.”

“
You’re
not
,” I stress, “
required to open my locker for me, y’know.”

He pauses, cold light hit
ting the planes of his face. “You
’re
right.
I
’m not
. But I feel like I should
be
.”

“Helping a damsel in distress?” I tease.

“Don’t talk like that!
” His smile turns devilish, and he winks. “
It makes me think about your dress and…
” he leans whisper-
close and says in a husky voice, “
villainous things.”

Hea
t floods up my throat and cheeks. A tingle sparks along my nerves. Any smart remark I might have burns off and
turns to ash o
n my
tongue
. I snap my mouth shut on the soot of my emotions: embarrassment and excitement.

“Speechless?”

I smack him with my left hand and mutter, “Shut up, Alex.”

“Shutting up.” Of course,
the promised silence
doesn’t last long. Alex
points
across the street. “Want that coffe
e for the walk home?”

I cast a look across the quad towards Student Parking.
“What about your car?”

“
Cars
,” he shrugs, “
they’
r
e so hasty.
”

“
True…
And if I came home too early my Mom would get suspicious.” We step off the curb and cross the street. Instead of queuing in the Walk-Up line at Tiny’s window, we walk inside, where there’s only two other people in line. “Heck,” I add, “if I show up later than she thinks I should I’ll get texted to death, too.”

“What’s up with
your mom
? She over
-
protective?”

“
Only all the time
.”

Conversation dies as we step to the counter. Before I can answer the new girl’s question, “What can I get
y
a?” Alex orders for us.

“Two b
reves with caramel, and
two
vanilla
biscotti
.”

How did he know how I take my coffee? Or that I only like the vanilla
biscotti
?

Alex must sense
—because he doesn’t see—me
grab f
or my backpack to get money. He reaches behind him, c
atches my elbow with
his fingers
sending a little tingle through to my skin
and
says, “I offered, Em, I’m buying.”