Broken (22 page)

Alex steps back, leav
ing me feeling weak and noodley, and oddly wanting to smack him for making me that way.
H
e pays the bill, then stuffs our cups into insulated cup collars
and a carrier
before weaving through the growing crowd to the door. Su
ddenly, all playfulness drops, h
is spin
e
stiffens and he ducks further into his hood.

“What is it?” I ask.

He scans the street through the fingerprinted window sporting the Mugz-n-Chugz logo.

“I thought I saw something.”

“We’re in a coffee shop across from
a
high school. I’m sure you saw a lot of somethings.”

Chill whisks in, claws prickling my skin
as
h
e pushes the door open
. I
nstead of walking in the normal direction of hom
e
, he cuts through the parking lot, past the line of feet-shuffling, ar
m-whacking
coffee freaks
at the Walk-U
p window.

“Not just anything,” he says over his shoulder in the back alley. “Something I don’t want to see, or be seen by.”

Wait a minute. What?
T
he old Converse rubber soles
of my tennis shoes squea
k when
I dig in my heels,
something
he seems bent to ignore. Tension pulls in my left hand and arm when he t
ugs. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Can we get out of here first?” Alex
shoots a glance past me, at the driveway feeding into the main street.
“
Please?”

T
he
‘p
lease
’
does it. He’s the raw, gouged-out guy in the culvert again, calling my name like I’m the only one who can help him.
R
esist
ing
Alex when he’s like this
goes against everything in me
. I might as well tell my own cutting ache no.

“Fine,” I mutter.

Surprise zips through me, set alight by Alex
. He reache
s
behind my head, and frees my hair from the messy bun I’d twisted it into this morning. Brusquely he stuffs the elastic band into the front pocket of my jeans
. Damn my hopes for piquing an interest in the proximity of his hand to my body. Then, he
grabs my hand again and hikes down the back alley in a vaguely homeward direction.
Alex sends long looks down each direction at every cross street
, weaving a bumble bee path to my house like he’s running to it and away from something.

Once inside, Mom casts a
half-hearted
glare at us and he blanches. He stares blankly, hand on mine loosening while the hand around the coffee cup
s
tightens.

A swift elbow to the ribs where Mom can’t see breaks him out of it.

“
Hello
, Mrs. Gentry.” A slight strain tugs at his velvet tenor.

“Mom, do you mind if Alex helps me with homework again?”

I can’t send him out there to face whatever he’s fleeing.

“Your
homework needs to be done, and he seems as good as any
friend
.”
S
he stresses the
‘
friend
’
like that’s all she
’
ll allow him to be by the sheer force of her will. “I suppose you’ll you be staying for dinner again?”

Pleading bl
eeds
from every line of his face
despite his neutral expression. “I would love to, if you’re offering.”

“It’s the least I can do to pay you back for helping Emma.”

“I’m happy to do it.”

A heavy sigh drags her shoulders down. “So I’ve noticed.”

She strides over the basement door, shouts down to Dad that “Emma and
that boy
” are in the dining
room and she’s going to pick up pizzas. Grabbing her battered purse, she eyes me from the back door.

“I’ll be back in a while,” never sounded like more
“behave or you’re
grounded
.
”

The door swings shut and I turn
on Alex.

“Look. I don’t mind taking the scenic route home, but either you tell me what that,” I
jab a finger
at
the living room window
and
direction we’d just come, “was all about or we won’t be walking together again.”

A puppet with cut strings,
Alex sinks to the chair he sat in last night while I did homework
. His gaze falls, as if the dark carpet holds the world’s secrets
, and shakes his head. “Sorry about putting you through that, Em.
I just didn’t want him ruining things.”

“Him who?” Was he talking about Josh
?
I would’ve heard his loud engine inside the coffee shop.

“My dad.”

His father? That horrid man who
squee
zed my hand hard enough to break bones
?
The will to stand leaves my legs, and I droop to the seat next to him.
Memory throbs in my hand, sharp and hot. Unconsciously, I lift my left hand to rub the
brace
on my right and Alex doesn’t miss it.

“Exactly,” he says. His tone, his face
..
. Alex’s ceding defeat.

“Why would he be following you?” My voice sounds far away, muffled by the waves of shock and fear.

“Your mom and him have a lot in common.” I watch while he opens my backpack, and pulls out the homework for me. The jittery motion in his hands says he needs a
n
activity to focus on. “Overprotective.”

“So what?”
A defensive, cornered feeling rises in me.
“H
e doesn’t like you making friends?”

Maybe it’s the last word, or the vehemence I pack into it.
Alex hits me with a wounded
look
, asking
“That’s all we are?”
without saying a thing
.

“Since the accident…
” he slides his hood off and shoves a hand through his longish brown hair. “Since I woke up, Dad
hasn’t liked anything, or anyone, that takes
me away
.”

“I’m taking you away?”

“
According to him
,
I’m throwing myself away on any girl in high school.”

Why does that statement sting?

“Am I just
‘
any girl?
’
”

“No!” Anger sharpens his word. “You’re…” he
pauses
, casts glances around, then looks at me.
The grind and scream of power tools cuts off in the basement, and the door to my Dad’s workshop creaks open. Alex says, voice barely above a whisper,
“You’re everything, and he knows it.”

Once Dad reaches the top of the stairs, any personal talk d
ries up to a shriveled husk of “So what else happened at school?”
My heart and head chatter back and forth debating his words
,
You’re everything, and he knows it
,
and what he meant.
We do my homework like the night before, with him brushing his
sock
toe
s
on my f
eet
. When Mom comes in, arms laden with carry-out boxes
, Alex beats my Dad to the kitchen to help her. Her thank-you is
only mildly
disgruntled
—progress.
After dinner, Mom doesn’t dismiss Alex, and Dad invites him into the living room to watch some game.

Alex and I
start side by side on the sofa.
The polite Mom-is-watching one-full-cushion distance and quiet between us is maddening.
There’s so much to talk about.
Eventually,
I realize Mom isn’t moving and Alex is trying his best to fit in. S
tuff
ing
away the question
s
plaguing my mind
, I
slide to the floor and lean back against his
shins
.

Mom peeks up occasionally, not missing a thing happening across the carpeting from her chair.
Her eyebrows go up when
I wriggle between
Alex’s
legs and rest my head on his lap.
A tickle of energy
zip
s
along my scalp as he strokes my hair.
I close my eyes and float in the odd new/old connection we have.
By the end of whatever game
they’
re watching, I’m
more than
half asleep, with one arm looped around Alex’s calf, and my head resting on his inner thigh.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he says
, nudging me
. “Game’s over.”

“Yes,” Mom agree
s, using her finger for a book mark in some paperback with lusty cover models on the front. “And you have school tomorrow, Emma Jane.”

Warm and heavy with drowsiness,
I drift to
the door with
Alex’s fingers twined in mine. Then, hand on the doorknob, and chilly air rushing through the cracked-open gap he says, “See you tomorrow, Em.”

He compounds the heat and comfy feeling, w
rapping me in a hug
. His heart beats a steady rhythm, one I feel an echo of in my chest when he presses my head to him
.
“Sweet dreams, Alex.”

“I’m holding mine,” he whispers, then places a light kiss on my forehead.

T
ingles dance across t
he skin beneath
his lips
.

After the door closes,
and I lean my back against the wooden panel, I sort through hazy thoughts to the one
too
bright and impossible to ignore.
I know what he meant when he said his heart didn’t beat for him. I don’t think my heart belongs to me, either.

#

Clouds smother
Wednesday
’s sky, leeching the sunlight and heat
.
The world outside my house has drifted into an alternate, horror movie state.
Chilly haze
muffle
s, mutilates
or
devours sounds
.
The color of trees and cars and houses—everything—has bled off into the faint black smudges of shadow beneath them. I watch for Alex all the way to school, and flinch whenever fancy cars roll past.

A
nticipation threate
n
s to suffocate my heart when I open the side door after school
. The empty Bree Bench all but kills the emotion
. I scan the quad, people tucking tighter into their winter jackets
, leaves scraping and whispering over the pavement
. No Alex.
No hybrid in the
Student Parking Lot
, either
. One block past the gym complex, though, a black SUV drives across the intersection and away from my neighborhood, followed directly by Josh Mason.

As if
today
didn’t suck enough
already
…

He pulls to a stop at the curb, throws his Camaro into park in a post
ed
No Parking Zone, and then climbs out.
Maybe I’m used to staring at Alex now.
Josh
looks awful,
stringy thin, his hair seems even redder, his skin paler. And a haunted look fills the creases made by the swelling from his fight with Alex.
I can’t muster enough snark to play our old insult game.

“Hell bent on annoying me?” I ask.

“Not fair, Em. Not fair.”
Josh
casts looks up and down the street
, fidgets with his jacket cuff
.
When he shifts his gaze back to me I know he’s not playing games, either.
“You need to stay away from Alex Franks. You have no idea the trouble you’re walking into.”

“What? And you do?” I tip my weight back on one hip and away from him. “Wait,” I peer closely at the tape over his broken nose. “I guess you do know.”