Broken (23 page)

“You have no idea.” Another glance down the way he came.
“You
can’t date him
.”

“Excuse me? Who died and made you judge of who
I can date
?”

“Daniel did.”

My response is immediate. I whip a hand out and slap his face, the purpled, bruised side.
The tape pops off the side of his nose, and Josh covers his cheek with his hand. He doesn’t have the decency to look remorseful, just resigned and angry.

“How dare you?”
I growl. “You were best friends!
You were right there
on the balcony when
Daniel
fell. How the hell can you make a mockery of his death?”

“You don’t understand!” Josh shouts, and
fists his hands in his hair. “I
f you had any idea what I’ve done to
be with you!
”

“I don’t.” I put every bit of venom and anger I can fit into my words. “And I don’t want to.”

I leave him there, fingers knotted in his wiry carrot curls, eyes wide, haunted by ghosts of the accident that stole Daniel from us. Hell with that, from
me
.
Josh doesn’t miss him, doesn’t mourn him like I do.
Swearing under my breath and wishing desperately for Alex, I stomp across the street
. O
dd houses drift past my heavy-footed
march on a side street
parallel to the alley Alex had half-dragged me down yesterday.

Where does Josh get off saying what he said? Daniel died and left
him
to judge who I’m supposed to date? And what in the world could he have possibly done
to
be with me? He lost out on that one long ago. Daniel beat him to it.

B
u
s
y mentally bitching
,
the guy standing beside the old livery barn on the alley edge
goes unnoticed
until he wraps his arms around me.
Instinct kicks in, flood
ing me with adrenaline and forcing
a shout up my throat.
A cuff-covered hand
settles
over my mouth
and
cuts short my yelp of surprise. The smell of leather fills my nose.

Alex.

I sag against him, then blindly tur
n and bury my face in his chest
. I yearn for him to c
hase away the darkness eating like acid at my day.

“Where were you?” I say over his heart. “I looked all over for you.”

“Sorry, Em. I didn’t want my dad to see
us together
.” His fingers leave no tingle when they slide under my hair, but it feels wonderful anyway. Safe and comforted and cared for, despite what Josh said about me walking into trouble.
When I look up, the shadows have returned under Alex’s eyes. His skin seems paler.

“Hey,” he says and gives me a wan smile.

“Hi.” I smile back. Yes, a warning alarm rings in my gut, screaming be careful, that something’s not right with Alex. But I
’ve
know
n
that.
If Alex Franks is trouble, I want it.

“Come on.”
He knits our fingers together, then says,
“
I know a place we can go for a while. His shift at the clinic starts soon.”

I follow Al
ex down familiar side streets
vacant of jack-o’-lanterns to a chain link fence that
I’ve
cut my finger
on
four times since June.

“Memorial Gardens Cemetery?” Surprise drags my voice up a couple notches.

“Yeah. My dad can’t stand to come near Mom’s grave.” The metal screeches in protest when he lifts the lever and pushes open the gate. “
He didn’t even go to her funeral.
It’s like if he denies it long enough, she’ll just come back home.”

It isn’t until he’s inside the graveyard that he notices I’m not with him.

My heart clenched the moment my
fingers touched that cool metal. The rift, cobbled closed with moments with Alex, cracks and opens, visions of me and Alex tumbling into the dark Daniel left behind in me.
This is
my
place. This is where I’ve mourned Daniel for months. Being here with Alex feels wrong. Memories, faulty and empty as they are, stand strong as the rusted fence between me and the guy beyond.

“Emma?” Alex’s voice sounds miles away. “You okay?”

In a vicious flash, d
ead-and-rotted Daniel is Alex,
blood coursing in shiny red trails over his hazel eyes,
then he’s gone. Still
, I recoil when Alex’s hand reaches for
me.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft and soothing like he’s coaxing a feral animal. “Come on, Em, you’re freaking me out here.”

“S-sorry,” I stammer.
“It’s just that… well, I…”

“It’s okay,” he says
, and takes my hand again. “We don’t have to stay.”

“It’s just that I used to stay here.” I jut my braced right hand toward the section of fencing I leaned on
,
mourning Daniel for weeks. “I came here every day.”

“Why?” His mismatched eyes widen, the scar tugging at his left eye
. The black freckle in that pool of hazel
only makes me think of Daniel more.

I sigh, and
for once in four months, I
breech the barrier between the living and the dead. A shudder ripples up my spin
e
, coa
t
s my skin in goosebumps.
I’m cheating on Daniel’s memory,
I think.

Once inside,
my gaze plummets
to the crushed
gravel
path
leading
off into the shadows by the trees. We walk together, but we’re
worlds
apart. Inside, I see all the times Daniel and I came here: the urn he knocked over and we straightened, the pot hole on the little drive that
popped his dirt bike tire
, and God, the mausoleum where we sat so many evenings.

“Emma,”
Alex prods
gently, “why did you come here?”

“Because…”
Old sadness cinches my throat
,
itches my
eyes. The gulf in my chest threatens to go f
ull
-
blown and devour every little happiness I’d found with Alex. “Because this is where I came with Daniel. This was our place.
Then, a
fter he died…”

The lump in my throat rises, and I can’t swallow it down. Alex steps off the path and sits on a mossy bench, dragging me down beside him. The angel I’d often stared at regards me with a look close to pity
. Late afternoon light sits
on the curves of her cheekbones like tears. Alex waits, patient and silent, giving me time.
It
only makes me want to cry
more
. Here I am mourning the boy I lost with the guy who seems willing to do anything to be with me.

“Anyway,” I force pass the tightness and swallow again. “After Daniel di
ed, his parents donated…” I lose
the battle with the tears, and somehow it galvanizes me to finish my tale. “They donated his body to science.
They cremated his remains
, what was left,
and
keep them in their house in a
stupid, shiny u
rn Daniel would
be ashamed to be in
. I can’t see them because
his parents
blame me. He would’ve never gone to that party if
we weren’t dating
.
”

I wipe at my wet cheeks. Alex catches my hands, and dries my face with the cuff of his hoodie. He says all the right thing
s
, “it wasn’t my fault, his parents aren’t being fair,” but they don’t sink in.

“Daniel was everything to me, then
he was just gone. Fell from my life like a comet shoved out of orbit. I didn’t have anywhere to mourn him, so I
’ve been coming here since June
.”

“God, Em.” Alex says. “I had no idea. I’m so sorr—”

“Don’t apologize. You’re not responsible for his death.”

If I’m honest, here where Daniel should be buried, I can admit the darkest part of my heart believes
somehow
Josh is
resonsible
. He couldn’t
drop the damn beer and
grab Daniel’s hand fast enough when he fell.
I reached the rai
ling too late to save him, but
with plenty of time to see
him
fall and
hit the pavement
below
.

“
It’s not an apology,”
Alex says, that soothing tone still in his voice. “I was going to say I’m sorry you’re still hurting.”

“But I’m not,” I blurt. “Not as bad since you came to school.”

His features twist with an expression that seems surprise tempered with sadness. It radiates from his eyes.
The black freckle in his left eye more pronounced the way the sunlight hits his face.

“Y’know
…
You kind of remind me of him.”

When I look down, he’s inched away. Or, have I?

“What?”

S
h
ock
twists that
one word
, making it ugly and stunted
.

I would
be shocked
.
But
I’m too far gone
to notice if he wants to hear it, like I’ve opened a vein for bloodletting and can’t stop
spilling the
truth.

“Not in looks. Other than your eyes.
” The left slightly more dilated, when I look. “
It’s
what you do.
How y
ou wink
the same.
How y
ou opened my locker just like
Daniel
. The same push to the numbers, the same
nudge
with your hip.
”
Alex extends a long hand
across the space between us, despite me comparing him to my dead boyfriend, and I have to think I’m the one moving away. “
How did you know to do that
, Alex
?”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly
, taking his hand back, curling it into a fist and looking at it as if it’s untrustworthy
. The shaft
of air widens between us
, his ha
n
d falling just short of mine,
and his expression darkens. “I just did. It…
felt right.
” He prods his chest. “It felt right
here
.”

It doesn’t beat for me.

Alex
’s head pops up, ear tilted
like he heard my thought. With a shaky
inhale
,
he
jerks upright suddenly, like a bone and vessel marionette, nothing muscle or fluid about it. Daylight has poured from the angel’s face. Still, she watches us, like we are Romeo and Juliet about to drink the poison and
raise
the blade.

I shrink in o
n myself, suddenly wishing I were
anywhere in the world but here. Why did I say those things?
Alex
didn’t really want to know. G
uys never want to know the truth. They just ask to make girls feel better.

Alex’s expression doesn’t. It makes me feel worse.

He’s waking from the dream.

His gaze trails from my face to my hands to his chest.
It follows the length of his arms to his hands, open with the palms up and full of the
late
afternoon sun
.
When he speaks, I don’t think it’s for me.
“Why do I do things like he did?” He shakes his head,
paces
, smashing the sleeping grass to death
beneath his feet. “Coincidence,” he mutters. “
Just coincidence.”

“Daniel said there are no coincidences.”

We both recoil
, my words sharp and double-sided
.

“When did you say he died?” Alex asks. “How did it happen?”

Why would he ask? I already said how Daniel died.
My heart stutters, teetering on the yawning rift inside. When I look up, I expect to see Daniel’s echo sitting on the mausoleum’s porch. He’s not there. Alex stands in front of me, with the cloud-laden sky turning to blood and bruises when the sun slips beyond the cloud line.