Broken (31 page)

“Not a bad idea,” I say. Actually it’s an awful idea, but she’s being nice.

“I heard about the catwalk,” she says. “Alex going to be okay?”

Her pretty brown face softens in lines of concern, long curly eyelashes sweeping over light brown eyes when she blinks.

“I hope so.”

Mr. LaRue closes the attendance book, and digs around in his desk. I take the opportunity to ask Asia if she has any clear nail polish. She nods, rummages around in her bag, and then slides a bottle of polish over my Dune Eco book.

Only half-watching Mr. LaRue, I shake the bottle and paint over the tacky bloody heart on my cast. When he passes out paperwork on dune erosion, the bottle makes a return trip to it’s owner.

After our teacher calls the class to order, I zone out, batting around pieces of the Daniel-Alex puzzle until my head hurts. The puzzle pieces don’t fit together, or make anything pretty. None of it makes sense. Not in the real world. It’s almost like Daniel’s haunting me through Alex. Or he’s attacking me for liking Alex, and using Alex as the weapon of my heart’s destruction.

#

Mrs. Ransom offers me a ride home, rather than let me walk alone in the late fall storm. I droop against the backseat, left hand on my head, pushing back against the ache pounding there. Bree’s not sitting safety-belt safe in her seat. She’s turned sideways looking at me with sad eyes, and down-turned lips.

“I heard about the catwalk,” she says.

“You and the rest of Shelley High.” I rub one temple.

“He’ll be okay, Em.” She reaches into the backseat and pats my leg. “Who knows what kind of accident he had. Maybe this is just a residual affect…”

I think she’s grasping at straws. Her mother seems to think it’s a fun game.

“What accident?” Her mom asks. She’s dressed in a smart business suit, and is as well put-together as Bree. “What boy?”

“Alex Franks,” Bree answers.

“The boy from your kindergarten class?”

“Yeah.”

“Word at church is he was nearly crushed to death in an accident in his father’s lab. Lots of internal damage. If it weren’t for his father, he would’ve died.”

He did die,
I think,
for
a few minutes.

“See,” Bree says, “He’s survived worse.”

“And I suppose,” her mom continues, “head trauma, or lack of oxygen might cause lingering affects.”

Somehow, it’s not as comforting as the Ransom women think. I “mm-hm,” politely, try for a smile and fall short. I let the false expression bleed off and return to mulling over what happened on the catwalk until Mrs. Ransom pulls into our driveway.

“Thank you for the ride, Mrs. Ransom.”

“Anytime, Em.”

“See ya tomorrow, B.” I pull my jacket up over Alex’s hood, pray for my backpack to stay dry and then hurtle for the porch door. The house already smells like beef roast when I burst in.

“Wipe your shoes,” Mom calls from the kitchen, then adds, “Hi, Alex.”

“He’s not here, Mom.”

Silence. I struggle out of my backpack, and shake the water from it like I wish I could shake today from me. Drops of water hit Renfield, and he growls and stabs me with one of his cat glares. Mom peeks from the kitchen doorway. “He’s not here?”

“No. He’s…not feeling well.”

“Well,” she says, “That’s a shame. Need help with homework?”

“No. The teachers made check-the-box work sheets for me this time.”

Doesn’t matter. I can’t focus. I try, but I can’t wipe the images of my two boyfriends out of my mind. Daniel fell out of life. Alex fell in his mind. He’d gone past the raw, hollowed out guy to someplace I couldn’t understand or begin to follow. Chills run up my spine, tighten my scalp. How can someone living experience the death of someone else? There’s no doubt in my mind Alex lived Daniel’s death. He called me by Daniel’s nickname, the exact way Daniel had moments before he died. He mentioned me wearing my favorite white tank top under Daniel’s red hoodie.

And possibly the worst thing—red trails in his eyes when the light died. Like the doe two weeks ago, Daniel died with his eyes open and fixed on me. Only Daniel’s blood coursed over his eyes, one red streak over his left iris.

Mom breaks through my musing with dinner after hours of me pushing a pencil attached to my cast with a rubber band.

My appetite died on the catwalk with Alex’s break down. Still, I scoop the roast, beans, and potatoes and gravy onto my plate. Dad pokes at his slab of beef, grabs the salt and pepper, and then decides for hot sauce instead.

“So, where’d you say Alex is?” he asks. I know by the slight elevation in his eyebrows he’s prodding. But nicely. Mom would’ve used her filet knife, or maybe her meat cleaver.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh. Well… He was becoming a fixture a round here.”

“Maybe tomorrow, Dad.” I stab my roast, twisting the fork to watch the tines shred the muscle fibers. My left hand isn’t as skilled at random roast destruction, though, and my fork skids and screams across my plate. “Alex wasn’t feeling well this afternoon.”

I’m
not feeling well, either. The few forkfuls I manage to chew and swallow slop and stew in my stomach. My head still pounds. And, God help me, there’s a weight on my chest I can’t get off. I can’t breathe with it and I want to cry.

Mom eyes me, a long careful glance. “You aren’t catching what he has, are you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Is crazy catching? I can’t think he’s completely sane if he’s channeling someone else’s habits and death.

“And you’ve hardly eaten your dinner,” Mom points out. I nod, and feel the weight of the motion dragging on my face, rocking my head. “Maybe you should have one of your pain pills and go to bed early.”

Hopefully painkillers stop heartache. “Maybe you’re right.”

Mom hops up, and hurries into the kitchen. Beneath Dad’s normal layer of silt-fine sawdust, he looks concerned. It’s the same expression he had shortly after Daniel died, when they realized I wasn’t going to “just get over it.” I give him a weak smile, which he returns. When Mom comes back, she has a fat pill on one palm, and a warm cup of milk with vanilla and cinnamon to wash it down.

The pill catches in my throat, not surprising with all the tears I’ve been fighting today. The sweet creamy milk chases it down and soothes the tightness.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Just get some good rest.”

“I’ll try.”

Renfield races in front of me, a white moving obstacle all the way up the stairs. The crazy cat nearly knitted himself to me, now he looks like he’s contemplating it again.
Is it that bad?
I wonder. I refuse to look in a mirror for proof, though. Instead, I indulge in a long, hot shower, then pull on some flannel pajama pants, and a warm hoodie. I don’t need to worry about plugging in my cell phone—Mom has it. Watery moonlight trickles between the crack in my curtains, and I open them wide before crawling under my fairy quilt.

I’m not sure of the hour when I close my eyes.

I am sure I won’t sleep well.

#

Constant
plink-
plink, plink
-plink
s
sift me little by little out of a heavy sleep. Thoughts are fractured bits of fuzz. I blink as I try to drag the fragments together and become coherent.

Plink-plink, plink-plink!

With the sounds came shadows cutting incisions in the moonlight on my carpet.

Plink-plink
and shadows.

I turn toward the moonlight, wondering foggily if bugs are committing suicide on the glass panes.
Plink-plink
!
Where I sit now, it’s clear the little noises issue from pebbles hitting my windows.
What the heck?
My muscles feel like sand bags when I stand and shuffle to the windowsill.
Who is throwing rocks at this hour?
Then another thought comes.
What time is it? Are my parents awake?

2:00 AM according to my clock radio.

The snoring across the hall says my parents are both sleeping.

Washed in moonlight one story down is Alex Franks. My heart leaps into a sprint, and tears tighten my throat. He’s really here, and he’s fine. Pebbles from Mom’s well-tended flower beds fill one hand. The other hand is raised, wrist cocked back to launch more stones. When he sees me, the wonder lights his face and pulls his full lips into a smile. The hand with the stones waves me to come down.

The horror of earlier today undermines my joy of seeing Alex. I grab a sweatshirt from my closet, then creep down the stairs with Renfield on my heels. Silent dark fills the first floor, eerie in the moonlight coming through the windows. Suppressing a shudder, I slip on a pair of Dad’s slippers and step onto the porch.

Alex climbs the stairs, my heart pounding harder with each step. I want to launch into his arms and trust him to never let me fall. His breakdown in the catwalk roots me to the porch floorboards.

“Emma,” he says my name with all the reverence of a prayer. “I’m so sorry about today.”

“You really freaked me out.”

“I freaked myself out.”

The distance between us must be too much for him. Energy tickles over my skin when Alex slides his arms around me and lifts me into a hug. For a moment, I hang stiff, but my heart needs him like I need air. I soften, and droop against him burying my face in the collar of his jacket. He smells like warmth and Alex, and lightning. Tingles spill across my face when he kisses my cheek.

I nuzzle deeper into his collar and whisper, “What happened to you today?”

Muscles stiffen beneath my hands. His embrace tightens like he’s afraid he’s going to lose me.

“Red hoodie,” he says, an almost absentminded tone weakening his tenor. “You were wearing this sweatshirt in my…vision.”

“But that’s not possible.” I was there when it happened. How could he know anything of that moment?

“I know what I saw, Em.” He’s arms loosen and he places me back on my feet. “And I know what I felt.” He runs his fingers over my hair where it pours in a blonde fall over my shoulder. “What I still feel.”

“What did you see?”

He turns, paces in the milky column of a moonbeam. The light plays on his hair when he takes his hood down and pushes a hand through the long strands. A new scar, pink skin and not a scab, cuts across his forehead.

“I’ve seen you in my dreams since I woke up from surgery,” he says. “And in a recurring nightmare. I thought that’s all they were, until I came to school and saw you.
I saw you
. Can you imagine? God, my heart started thumping, Em, thumping like it knew you. But I didn’t. I had no clue who you were.

“The dreams come every night, then I see you every day and the amazement is still there.” He heaves a breath, clenches his fists, then continues. “Then today, something happened, and the nightmare came back. Only I was awake through it and you were there, in my head and right in front of me.”

His bottom lip trembles and his eyes shine with moisture.

I know before I ask. I need to hear his answer. “What’s your nightmare?”

“I’m on the edge of something,” he says in a far away voice, and steps to the edge of the porch. He spins to face me and I’m not sure if he sees me now, or then. “I don’t feel right. Like drunk, or something, and mad. Then someone pushes me. I lose my balance as you come running, screaming my name. My last thought is “I love you” and then I hit bottom. Pain explodes, and is snuffed when blood streaks over my eyes and the lights go out.”

“That’s…impossible,” I whisper. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do!” He paces back and forth. “Details are so clear. Your hair is down, blowing in the warm breeze. The white lace edge of your tank top peaks out above the zipper of my sweatshirt.” He grabs the sleeve of Daniel’s hoodie I’d picked from the closet on instinct. “This sweatshirt!”

Alex’s hand falls from the sleeve, then flies to his mouth and he shakes his head. A tear beads and rolls. “I told you not to wear that tank top because—”

“I’d be too cold when the sun went down,” I finish. Where is this knowledge coming from? Alex wasn’t there, those words weren’t his. “But, you didn’t say that. Daniel did.”

“Daniel?” Disbelief colors his tone, darkens his eyes.

“Yes. You just described—except his thoughts and someone pushing him—the night he died.”

“But it’s my nightmare,” Alex says, hand hitting his chest. “My dreams, and my feelings. They are in
me
.”

“That was Daniel’s death,” I insist. Damn his sad face for making me feel guilty for knowing the truth.

“It’s mine. I see it in here.” Alex places a finger atop the star-shaped scar on his temple. “And I feel things here,” he says, taking my hand and putting it over his heart. “It doesn’t beat for me, Emma. It was never mine. This heart has always been yours.”

Tears threaten, moisture fills my nose. I sniff, and swallow against the lump in my throat. “What are you saying?”

He exhales a strangled sob. He releases my hand, and unfurls both of his like he’s begging me for something. “That I love you, Emma Gentry. I have since I woke up.”

“You can’t,” I argue. He looks at me like I slapped him “You hardly know me.”

“But I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

“You can’t,” I repeat, desperate to put distance between me and the beautiful lie Alex Franks turned out to be. He was supposed to be new, and different, and capture my heart all on his own, but he’s tainted. He’s Daniel’s death in his left eye, Daniel’s dying emotion in his heart. I step back until my hand finds the door knob. “And I can’t.”

“Emma, please,” he begs.

“Go home, Alex. I need to think and I can’t do it if you’re here reminding me of Daniel.”

“Emma!”

I turn the knob, stumble in and shut the door.

Leave, please. Leave and take Daniel with you.