Love Me Broken (20 page)

And then I think of how Conner will never have a gorgeous day again. How he’s never going to see this. Because of me.

I have to sit down on the bench. I can feel the splintery wood through the thin fabric of my skirt, but I don’t care. I take my head in my hands, and just breathe for a moment.

When I regain myself, I look up to see Adam staring at me. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are full of a mixture of pity and confusion. I think I make him feel uncomfortable. Guys like to be able to fix things. I’m too broken for that.

After a moment, he looks back to the town, his face a blank mask to hide his emotions. I think about ending the date early. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not ready for anything.

But before I can speak, I hear the ringing of a bell. It’s the trolley. I stand, unable to think of an excuse to leave while the little red car makes its way toward us.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop,” Adam says.

“It won’t normally,” I tell him, and reach down into my purse. I take out a dollar and hold it up, waving it above my head for the trolley driver to see. The vehicle slows and creeps up to us at a snail’s pace. Then it stops and the door opens.

“Thank you,” I tell the driver, and hand over my dollar, and then an additional one for Adam. We climb onto the trolley and find a seat in the back row on the side facing the town. We’ve barely sat down when the trolley begins moving again.

I’m on the seat by the window, and I gaze out as we leave Adam’s motorcycle and start to make our way across the town.

“Where exactly does this go?” Adam whispers to me.

I open my mouth to answer, but I’m cut off by the screech of the trolley’s intercom system. The driver, an elderly man dressed in a vintage trolley conductor’s uniform, blares out a welcome to the new travelers—that is, us—and continues with a peppy narration of everything we’re passing.

Which, naturally, only forces Adam and me closer in order to talk without disturbing anyone else.

As we pass by the sights, my mood lightens. I point out a restaurant on the pier with a great view and even better baked Alaska. “It’s kind of pricey,” I tell him, “but it’s fun.” We stop a few times as we pass by the hotels. Some people get on, some get off. And before I know it, my hand is in Adam’s and we’re both blissfully looking out the window at the town.

“There’s where Nicole works,” I say as we pass the coffee shop.

“There’s Watson’s!” Adam whispers excitedly a few blocks later, and points up the road to his repair shop.

Someone in front of us snaps a picture, and I realize we might be the only locals on the line. I look out again, at my home and the streets that hold so many memories, and wonder how it looks to a stranger. Does it look like any other town to them? Do they think it’s a dumpy little place, and that they should have stayed in Portland? Or is it “quaint” and “cozy,” in a way that makes good pictures but they’d never actually want to live here?

I don’t know. To me, it looks like home. And that is both its biggest plus and its biggest minus.

We travel past the downtown. The narrator is quieter here, and we pass by a newer housing development with properties facing right out to the water.

“Wow,” Adam says. “Imagine what it’d be like to live here. The view.”

I look out at the freighter ships and the view of Washington state across the water.

“Yeah,” I say, “it’s very pretty. But you should see it in the fall, when all the leaves change. Or spring. Spring is the best, when everything’s blooming.”

Adam stares out the window, and it’s like his body shrinks into itself. His shoulders hunch and he takes his hand from mine. His eyes, oh his eyes are painful to see.

I could kick myself. He won’t be here for the spring. He’s leaving at the end of the summer, and I don’t even know where he’s going. I’m almost afraid to ask. I don’t want to talk about it at all. But I have to say something. I’m trying to think of the way to phrase it when suddenly Adam’s eyes open wider, and life flows back into his face.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing out my window.

I turn and look at the hill. It takes me a moment to see what he’s talking about. Then I see it.

On the top of the hill is a high column. It’s one of our few actual tourist attractions—a tall cylinder with a lookout tower on the top, visible from almost any section of town.

“That’s the Astoria Column,” I tell him.

“Can you go up there?”

“Yeah, it’s open to anybody. I used to volunteer there sophomore year, in the parking lot. I still have the key, actually, even though I haven’t been up there in ages.”

“What’s it like?”

I shrug. “I haven’t been to the top since elementary school. All I remember is a lot of spiral stairs, and how Stephanie Barnes freaked out because she stepped in gum, and was whining at the top of her lungs the entire time like it was the end of the world.”

I look up, and Adam’s looking at me. “It must be pretty nice to have lived in one place all your life. To have one place that holds all your memories.”

I think of Conner. Adam must see the change in my expression, because he takes my hand again and squeezes it.

“I guess it goes both ways,” he says. He leans past me and pulls on the cord to request a stop. It buzzes, and the trolley slows down. “Let’s get off here,” he says.

We make our way off the trolley, and I realize we’re probably the only people under sixty on this thing. We step down onto the gravel that surrounds the tracks and wait a moment, watching the trolley continue down the line. Then Adam takes my hand and leans down to my ear.

“You want to check out the Column?” he asks. His voice is husky, his breath tickling my ear. I shiver a little but don’t move away.

“Sure,” I say, and we start the long winding walk up the hill.

To my relief, we’re far enough away from downtown that there’s only one street that’s even got cars on it to cross before we’re practically the only people within view. This is an older residential neighborhood, and we make our way up with no particular hurry, our fingers laced together.

The shadows of the neighborhood are getting longer now. Cool air rises off the lawns, and I feel it on my bare arms and through my leggings. It smells fresh, like honeysuckle and newly mowed grass. There’s still a breeze going through the air, and it’s just cool enough to keep this walk from feeling like an exertion. I take a deep breath, letting the air out slowly, and listen to the sound of our feet on the pavement, the sound of the birds calling to one another.

“So have you lived here your whole life?” he asks.

I groan. “Yes. I mean, it’s nice and all. But it’s boring sometimes.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m having a good time.”

He smiles at me, and my breathing quickens. He’s so sexy. I remember our kiss, and my body starts to ache a bit. The things he can do to me, with just one look—it’s almost frightening. Especially since I feel like he’s experiencing this too. But who is he? Is it wrong that I feel so attracted to him without knowing him better? Or should I just go with the flow with the time that we have left? I remember what Nicole said about how limited time adds a pressure to everything, and I definitely feel that now. I have so much to ask, so much I want to do; it feels like if I don’t do it now, I’ll miss my chance.

We walk on a little more. One of the yards has a faulty sprinkler, and we have to walk into the street to avoid it. When we get back on the sidewalk, I ask, “So, Adam, what
are
you doing in Astoria?”

His head ducks a little. “Working,” he says.

“I know that. But I mean, why? How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen,” he says, and the way he says it sounds like he regrets his age. There’s sadness in his voice that I don’t understand.

“It’s a bit unusual,” I continue. “I mean, what does your family think of it?”

His face hardens, and I immediately regret bringing this up. “It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, and he removes his hand from mine. “People shouldn’t live their lives for other people. It’s wrong. My mom will be better off.”

His mom? “Is that the only family you have?”

Adam’s mouth forms a hard line, and I know I’m not getting anything more out of him right now.

We walk on, and I’m confused about whether I did or said the right thing. Shouldn’t I be allowed to ask about his past? It’s a normal thing to ask about.

But then, I don’t know what happened to him. What if he was abused? What was so bad that it forced him to run away?

Then I think, maybe they weren’t such innocent questions. Sometimes people would try to ask me innocent questions and would only end up hitting a nerve. Even simple questions like “Are you okay?” got really annoying when asked repeatedly, and in such a way as to mean “Should I be worried about you?”

After another block of silence, I can’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just wanted to know more about you.”

He sighs with relief. “No,” he says. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” He puts his arm around me, and the whole world melts. “I just, I just don’t want to ruin today with all that shit about me. It’s not the right time.”

I lean my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as we make the transition from the neighborhood to the long winding road that leads up to the Column.

“Let’s just focus on us, all right?” he says.

“All right,” I say. And I mean it. There’s enough about us to keep us busy for a lifetime, let alone an afternoon.

The road to the Column spirals around and gradually climbs uphill. There are no cars here, and I can’t hear any other person nearby. We pass a series of orange cones blocking off the sidewalk. There’s construction ahead, and we have to walk in the street. Adam takes my hand and squeezes. I squeeze back.

“I hope it’s open,” I say, noticing more construction equipment as we move on: a bulldozer parked on the side of the road, concrete blocks and piles of torn-up dirt.

Adam’s eyes are focused on the peak of the Column. He keeps walking, and I can feel the heat coming off his body. He’s panting, and it makes my heart beat wildly. I realize I’m breathing heavily too, even though the incline isn’t that steep. It’s just being near him, being alone like this. I’m reminded of the first time we were alone, really alone, on the pier. And what happened there.

We turn the bend. The street is cordoned off with a large wooden beam. There is a sign on it: ROAD CLOSED.

I stop. “Damn it,” I mutter.

Adam looks at it a moment, then at the empty bulldozer nearby. He drops his hand into mine and pulls me forward. “Come on,” he says.

“But it’s closed,” I say, my excuse sounding stupid.

He turns back to me with a sly grin. “Nobody’s around,” he says. “We’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

I blush at the implications, and something in his eyes lights up.

“Now,” he says in a gasp, and leads me around the barrier. “Now.”

I can’t wait another moment. I need to kiss this girl, and I don’t want it to be on the side of the road, here within whiffing distance of the Port-A-Potties. The Column is where we need to be. It’s perfect—tall, isolated, private. We’d be able to see anyone coming for miles.

Erica isn’t resisting anymore as we continue up the road. It’s torn up in places, with the exposed dirt showing underneath. There are large concrete blocks on either side of the road, and we have to climb over one when we reach a gap that goes down two feet to a muddy puddle. Erica has no trouble with this, but I’m breathing heavily and feel sweat forming on my forehead. This long walk uphill has been harder on me than I thought. I need a good night’s sleep tonight.

Finally, we round a bend and come upon a circular grassy clearing. In the center is the Column, ascending into the sky.

“Do you think it’s locked?” I ask, looking at the heavy metal door at the base.

“Probably,” Erica says.

“But you said you had a key, right?”

“I think so. I mean, if they haven’t changed it.”

We cross the grass and approach the door. I try the handle, but it is definitely locked. Erica starts rummaging through her purse. She sticks her hand into a side pocket and pulls out a long copper key. She looks at it, then at me. Then she fits it into the lock.