Broken (24 page)

“It was right at the end of the string of disappearances in June.” Somehow I’ve gone cold and hollow,
and
the facts roll out. “
We were at a graduation
party.
He and Josh argued. N
ext thing I know
,
Daniel’s screaming my name and falling.
His skull cracked,” my voices catches, and Alex stretches a hand toward me, then to his head pushing his hair from his forehead. “The hospital couldn’t
save him, and his parents agreed to donate
his body.”

“That must’ve been awful,” he says, voice sounding oddly empty. His
expression is closed off
, like he’s seeing something inside rather than out.
Then, a contorting flash crosses his face, his left eye drifting closed before opening again. A sharp kind of clarity lingers there.
“I think I should get you home,” Alex says suddenly. “I’m surprised your mom hasn’t texted you.”

M
om? Home?

The concepts
are
foreign. There’s only me, Alex, and the story of Daniel between us.

“Okay,” I say.

Standing, my toe
catches
in the crack on the path
,
the brittle grass rushes at my face. And Alex doesn’t catch me. I lay for a second, renewed hurt pulsing in my hand and my heart aching. The smell of dry earth
coats my nose when I inhale. Not caring about my dignity, I scrabble to my hands and knees and see Alex staring at the mausoleum porch like he’s seen the ghost that’s haunted me since June.

“You used to sit there,” he says, face in shadow, voice quaking. “You sat on the tomb’s po
rch, laughing…
”
his empty
hand flexes at his side, holding nothing in a white-knuckle grip, “and drinking
.”

Does he see us, echoes of the Daniel and Emma that were
?
Shock and wrong siren inside
me
. The moment has taken life
,
and doesn’t listen.

“
How
did you know?
”
I ask, voice hardly above a
whisper
.

“I’m not sure. Good guess, I suppose…”
A half-hearted shrug. T
hen
Alex runs his hand over his h
air, rubs the back of his head and pulls me to standing
. “Let’s get you home.”

His hood slides up, and casts his face into deeper shadows.

He knows
. I saw it in his eyes. He
knows
we sat there.

I follow behind him,
mind reeling in disbelief, hands
brushing off the grass and dirt he was too busy staring at the mausoleum to notice.
Silent tears fall, blurring my vision, adding to the aching haze my day has become
. How could I say all that and expect him to just be okay with it? He doesn’t see me backhand moisture off my face before we step into the ring of the porch light either.

A faraway look
darkens
his eyes
. Alex
stands on the
middle
step
,
and I stand on the creaking porch floorboards.

“Em
…
” he says, voice soft
.
He’s wearing all his hurts in his eyes again, his scars only pulling
the skin tight over the gouged-
out boy.
Resisting his open, palm-up hand is impossible.
I can’t resist Alex like this
—I
can’t resist Alex at all.
M
y toes on the edge
,
Alex envelopes me in his arms, burying his face against my chest.

“Alex?”

“Shhh.” He cinches his arms around me tighter. “I’m listening to your heart.”

“It doesn’t beat for me,” I tell him.

“I know.”

I slide his hood from his hair, just skin on skin when I run my fingers under the long brown strands. Hidden scars reveal themselves to my fingers. He shudders as I touch them, touch him like he’s mine. I curl my head down until my cheek brushes his hair.
We stand like that until I can’t measure time anymore. Eventually, Dad opens the porch door and says, “Almost
dinner time
.”

“I should get going,”
Alex
mutter
s, suddenly gone tense and muscles tight beneath my fingers.
“Dad will know if I don’t show up soon.”

Alex’s fingers tighten on me, like his body refuses to do what his mind commands.
Reluctance exudes from him, heavy as his rich leather scent.
Alex’s arms release in little increments.
The puddles u
nder his eyes almost engulf the heterochromic hazels
. When he walks away, with no promises of tomorrow, I wonder if Alex Franks knows that my heart beats for him.

Chapter Eighteen

After dinner,
Renfield trails behind me,
mewing for attention rather than skewering me with a disdainful glare.
Darkness squats in the
kitchen,
Mom’
s
not there, no prep sounds for tomorrow’s cooking
.
Perhaps I’ve stumbled into an alternate universe.
Fine
with me.
I have no appetite, hardly even nibbled dinner.
My stomach pitched over the edge and abandoned me along with my heart. Sure, it’
s there, beating behind my ribs
but in a very real sense Alex took it with him when he left.

“Everything okay?” Dad asks from the arm chair by the TV.

I s
hould lie, slink past and climb the stairs. It’s close to bedtime and
my cell phone is almost dead.
Maybe there’s a text from Alex. Instead…

“I’m not sure,” I say and
perch on the edge of
the sofa.

“Want to talk about it?”

With my dad? Oh God, no. The
vein I cut open in the cemetery i
s still spurting truths, though
, and I can’t stop now that I’ve started talking. “I think I committed a major dating sin.”

“Oh really?” An eyebrow arches above his glasses.

“I talked about my old boy friend
with
my current.
” Then I realize what I said
—Daniel as my old and Alex Franks as my new—and
add, “Not that Alex
is
my boyfriend. We’re just friends.”

“Oh. Of course you are.” I hate that parental father-knows-best
timb
re
in his voice.
The expression on his face a physical echo of the you-are-more-than-
friends
tone.
“Look
, Em
. Daniel was a big part of your life. Any guy interested in you has a pretty big shadow to fill. If they can’t understand that, then they aren’t worth your time.”

In some ways, Alex overshadows Daniel.

“Thanks, Dad.”

I stand, and yawn as an excuse to retreat to my bedroom. Dad doesn’t know the depth of what’s going on
, though
I love that
he
can give me his angle on th
is
.
I
don’t
even
know the depth of what’s going on. The line between Alex and Daniel has become so blurred,
the question of who he is and why he’s so much like Daniel, I’m not sure there’s any separating the two.

Renfield remains behind me, a slick white shadow. I bend to gather him into my arms,
but
apparently it’s not dignified to be carried like a baby
. He
uses his back claws in readjusting to an upright position in my arms. The sadistic beast is bent on making me bleed. The hot stitches in my arm are welcome, though,
real physical sensations to draw attention from the tumult of emotions rattling like
buckshot in my head and heart. I cradle the cat, stroke his ears and listen to his purr as I climb the stairs.

I wish he could talk and explain why he likes Alex
the way
he liked Daniel. Maybe then I’d know, too.

Light
lies in a puddle
beneath my parents’
bedroom door, and I know Mom’s in there reading. I pause outside the door, then knock and open it. Sure enough, Mom’s leaning against the pillows, blankets pulled up, and her finger marking her place in her romance novel.
A frown and a smile war on her lips, then she settles for one of her blank, tired expressions.

“You didn’t answer my texts,” she says.

“Phone’s dead again. I think I need a new battery.” I poke my toe at the door jamb,
worried that she’s madder than she seems. Things need to be better between us. Especially with whatever’s going on with me and Alex
. “I’m sorry
,
”
for
worrying you
, I don’t finish.

“It’s okay.” She fluffs her blankets. “
I noticed
you d
i
dn’t eat anything fo
r
dinner.
You just
push
ed
things around on your plate
like you used
to
.
You are
n’t
getting sick are you?”

“I don’t think so.”
Not physically anyway. Heartsick maybe, not know
ing
how Alex feels.
“I just wsn’t hungry…”

“
Well, I hope that’s all it is.” Her tone implie
s
she thinks it’s more, but won’t say it. “
I
would
hate to have you missing school so close to Thanksgiving break.”

“
Me, too.
Good night, Mom.”

“Night, Emma.”

Things a
ren’t perfect between
us, but at least they a
re fix
able.
Mom’s one of the few constants in my life, and I want
it
to stay that way.

My bedroom is a study in shadow and texture, dark and moonlight, hard and soft. I leave the light off. Once inside the
bedroom
door
, Renfield leaps for the bed, paces circles on my pillow
,
then drops
down.
He regards me through slitted eyes while
I plug in my cell phone,
debate firing up my
computer and then grab pajamas
instead
. By the time I’ve made it back from the shower, the
notif
i
cation
light is bleeding red light into the shadows over my desk.

One text.

Alex Franks.

My hands tremble as I open the message.
He held me on the porch as if he needed me, and still fear burns in my veins, thinking I’
d
said too much
, he had time to think,
and this is the brush-off text.
The letters hang innocuous and black on the screen, and my mind
struggles
to fight
free o
f the
thorny
emotions
of this evening
and read
. The first time through they are just letters, then I focus on what they say
:

When you said those words I realized it isn’t just me. I want to ask you something tomorrow. See you after school.

I check the time stamp. Alex sent
it
minutes ago, while I was in the shower. How could he send that and think tomorrow would ever be good enough?

No,
I type,
it isn’t just you.
Then I hit Send.

And follow that text with:
Tomorrow?
I type.
Ask me what?

The cat gives me a surly I-was-here-first meow when I sit on the bed by my pillow. “Deal with it,” I tell him. “I’m bigger than you.”

He stands, lifts his tail to an arrogant angle and struts to the end of the bed where he usually sleeps. My cell phone vibrates in my hand. I have it open before the ring tone is finished.

Patience, Emma. This isn’t something to say over text.

Okay. He knows how to push my buttons at a distance.

Being
patient
is overrated
. Give me a hint.