Love Me Broken (26 page)

I don’t want to lose him. More than anything, I don’t want to lose him.

He waits for me to continue.

“What’s going on?” I ask, keeping my voice level. “Everything was going fine a minute ago.”

He looks at me like I’m stupid beyond belief.

“Okay,” I say. “I know what
happened
, but I don’t get it. I mean, it’s none of that guy’s business what we are to each other, and, yes, we haven’t talked about it ourselves so I understand if... but it’s... The way you reacted, it sounded like you were sickened with the idea of me being your girlfriend.” His face is motionless, but his eyes are softening. “And,” I continue, “I’m not mad, really. I’m just confused. Because I thought that’s where we were headed.”

Adam looks at me, pained. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath that he lets out in a sigh, then runs a hand through his messy hair. “Erica,” he says, “you know how I feel. I’m crazy about you. But this,” he makes a gesture, indicating the space between us— “We both knew this would never work out.”

It’s like I’ve been punched. All the air seems to leave my body, and I have trouble breathing for a moment. “What?” I ask, and I feel my eyes begin to water. Not quite tears yet, but I’m sure he can see them glistening. “What are you saying?”

“You’re
leaving
, Erica. You’re going to college. And me, I’m not sticking around either. I thought—I thought we both knew that.”

My mouth is open, unable to find the words. It’s like the whole world is spinning around us. “But, but...” I can’t even talk. My mouth tenses up, and I feel like I’m going to start crying and I fight it. I suck in a breath. “But I thought—I thought maybe that might...” I have to take a moment. “I thought it might
change
.”

Adam is motionless as he looks at me. His face looks long and old. “It can’t change,” he says, and his voice is barely a whisper on the wind. “You know it can’t. We—we only have the summer.”

I shake my head. “No. No, that’s—it can’t—” I stop talking and make an effort to pull myself together. A few deep breaths later, I say, with a much firmer voice, “But it doesn’t have to be that way. We aren’t locked into anything. We can—”

“No,” Adam interrupts. “We can’t have a future. I can’t. Not with anyone. Can’t we just—” his voice cracks— “Can’t we just enjoy today? Can’t we just pretend like this never happened?”

I shake my head. “I can’t do that,” I say, and I have to close my eyes. If I have to look at him, I’ll lose it. “It—it hurts too much.”

He’s silent next to me. I can hear his body shift. The wind blows, and I hear another crack of thunder in the distance.

Then Adam gives a long sigh. It’s the sigh of defeat. “Okay,” he says.

I look up at him, more confused than ever. “Okay?” I ask.

“I guess that’s it then.”

What? I move my mouth, but can’t make the words. It’s like a dream where you want to scream, but can’t make a sound.

He runs his hands through his hair. “It’s too hard, on both of us.”

I gasp, trying to come up with something to say. Everything in my body is yelling at me to stop this. To make things like they were.

“I’m sorry,” I finally manage.

His eyes move to mine. “No,” he says. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the weak one, Erica. I’m the one with the problem. You deserve so much more.” He shakes his head. “We have to end this.”

“But why?” I ask. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

He opens his mouth, about to say something, and then stops. His face tenses. “Just forget me, Erica. Forget me.”

Before I can ask anything else, he picks up his meal off the table. He avoids my eyes as he drops it into the open trashcan a few steps away. Then he continues on down the sidewalk, toward the water.

What is he doing? It feels too abrupt to be real. He’ll turn around. He’s got to turn around.

But he keeps on walking, now almost at the street corner. I’m in complete shock, watching him. I can’t move. He’s crossing the street. Forget him?
Forget him?

I want to call to him. But I can only stare as he turns a corner.

He doesn’t even look back.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fucking shit fuck.

I walk down the street, my eyes clenched shut and my hands at my head, holding it as if trying to hold my skull together. I bump into someone. A man’s voice calls out, “Watch it, kid!” I stumble on, barely hearing him, and walk all the way down to the riverfront.

“What am I doing?” I ask myself. I open my eyes and stare at the blank emptiness of the water. The rain has started across the distance, sending dark choppy waves to the shore. I look out, and it’s like looking within at the emptiness inside myself. I feel like my chest is going to cave in. Then, a moment later, I feel like it’s going to explode.

I turn toward the town. I want to go back. I want to take Erica in my arms and kiss her and tell her everything’s going to be all right.

But it’s not going to be all right. I’m a ticking time bomb, and ignoring that fact isn’t going to help anyone. I should never have gotten involved with her in the first place. Wasn’t that why I came here? To save everyone from myself?

My hands are back on my head, and I start to get a terrible headache from the stress. I start moaning. Making sound feels good, even if it hurts my throat, and soon the moan turns into a cry of pain. I scream out into the harbor, and the thunder crashes back in response. There are a few tourists walking by along the pier. A man puts his arm around his wife and moves her along, giving me a dirty look. I give him a sneer and he quickens his pace.

I’m such a fucking idiot, I think. If I had any guts, I’d jump into this water and end it all now. But I’m a coward. I can’t face things. I run from them.

After about twenty minutes of mindless pacing along the pier, I realize that I was probably supposed to be back at work by now.

“Fuck,” I mutter. I can’t face the shop. I can’t pretend everything is okay and go on working the rest of the day. I can’t have Levi ask what’s wrong, because I won’t tell him and having him be concerned will only make it worse. I just want to get away. I want it all to end.

I manage to take out my phone. I open the address book. There are only three names. Hers is one of them, and seeing it causes pain to cut through my chest like a knife. I select Levi’s name, and then click to dial. He picks up after a moment.

“Hey, man,” he says. “What’s up?”

I squint my eyes shut and press my fist into my forehead. “I can’t—I can’t make it back today.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then he asks, his voice serious, “Everything okay, dude?”

I can’t think straight. I can’t even think up a lie. “I just, I just can’t go back to work today.”

Levi is obviously concerned. “No problem, man. You need me to call somebody? You going to be all right?”

I’m nodding before I can talk. “Yeah.” The word escapes and it sounds broken and choked. “Yeah. I gotta go.”

I hang up before he can say anything else. The pain is beating down on me now. It’s unbearable. I feel like my body is being crushed under a rock. Then I think of Erica, and the pressure becomes ten times worse.

I sink down onto the boards of the pier and can’t get up for a few minutes. I don’t want to move. I don’t ever want to move again. It’s only the thought of Erica finding me here that gets me struggling back to my feet again.

I just want to get out of this town. I just want to get away and never come back. I don’t want to see anyone here again. I don’t want to—I can’t—she—

I start stumbling along the pier in the direction of Levi’s house. My bike is there. My bike is there, and I can get away once I reach my bike. This is my mantra as I make it through the gray blocks back to his house. The world feels cold and empty, and my mind is in a black place. When I see that Levi isn’t at home, I laugh. It’s not a happy laugh. It’s the kind of pained laugh that someone makes when they see how fucking bad the universe is. It’s laughing at the chaos, at the nothingness. At your insignificance. The laugh scares me a little, and I make my way into the house. It’s only when I’m inside, dripping onto the floor, that I realize I must have been walking through the rain.

That’s funny, I think. I didn’t even feel it.

But looking down, I see that my body is wet and shivering. I take in the fact but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I make it through the house and grab the ring of keys off the kitchen table. I don’t stop, leaving the back door open and heading to the storage shed with the bikes, with my bike.

My bike is the only one in the shed at the moment. The little structure smells like moist dirt and motor oil. There’s a red toolbox on the ground, with the lid open, and there’s a table with random parts spread across it. I think of Levi back here, working, alone. Levi who can’t get a date, and I think of how shitty the world is. I grab my bike by the handlebars and start to wheel it out of the shed. I’m shaking from the cold, and it’s starting to rain harder. As I wheel out the bike, the back wheel bumps against a rock and I lose my grip on it. The motorcycle slides sideways, the tires bumping against me, and falls to the ground with a dull clank.

I breathe out through my nose and lean down to pick it up. Except that I’ve underestimated its weight, and only end up giving it a little tug before dropping it to the ground again. This time part of the exhaust pipe hits me on the leg, on my shin, and it fucking hurts. I lift up my leg to hold the spot with my hand, and the pain is like a spark that lights the fuse of my anger.

I look down at the bike and my vision turns red with rage. I kick the bike, my boot thudding into it. This hurts me more than I have damaged the bike, and this fact makes me even madder. I scream out, upset with everything and just wanting to hurt something. I kick the fucking bike again.

It barely budges, and I get so fucking furious that my eyes dart to the toolbox in the shed. I spot a wrench and immediately snatch it up. “Fucking bike!” I scream, and swing the wrench toward the metal, like I’m chopping wood with an axe. There’s a satisfying clang, and a solid dent when I pull the wrench away. This feels good, and I hit it again. And again.

When the wrench isn’t doing enough, I look back in the shed. I want to find a hammer, but instead I notice more tools hanging in the back.

There, leaning against the lawnmower, is a sledgehammer. I don’t even know why Levi would have this. If he’s like most guys, he has it because it’s cool to have tools, even if you have no use for them. I grab the sledgehammer by the handle, and its weight feels fucking nice in my hands. I take it outside and stand before the bike, staring down at it. It’s sad and dented in the rain.

The sight of its weakness fuels my anger again. I lift up the hammer far behind my shoulders, and then bring it down with a yell. It smashes into the bike, shattering the front axle. I laugh like I’m winning a battle, and lift up the hammer again. And again. And again.

I kind of lose control.

When I come back to myself, the water is streaming off my hair into my face. My muscles feel torn from the exertion, especially those in my chest. I look down and see I’m standing over a bunch of metal parts sinking into the mud. It’s not even a bike anymore. It’s nothing but junk.

“Fuck,” I say, realizing what I’ve done.

I drop to my knees, and the pain inside feels like it’s tearing me apart. I pick up a metal chunk and hold it in my hands, knowing I can never fix it.

I’ve broken it. I’ve broken everything.