Unbroken (21 page)

Within a few moments, Bianca wrenches the door open. Taking in my stance and the flowers in my hand, she laughs.

“You guys are
so
weird together. I’ll go get Sabrina.” She closes the door in my face and then runs back and opens it once more. “Won’t you come in?”

I laugh, appreciative of the fact that she’s playing around with what I’m trying to do.

I want Sabrina to have one night where this doesn’t have to be our lives. Maybe I’m not the guardian of my two siblings trying to escape an abusive father, and maybe she’s not the girl who’s in the position to help me. I want her to feel like, just once, our relationship is different. If that means borrowing her parents’ car and pretending to pick her up, I’m willing to do it.

From my place in the foyer, I hear the precise moment when her bedroom door closes and she starts down the stairs. I watch every step she takes as the descends them, an ecstatic grin etched on her face.

“You look…wow.” I groan inwardly. I don’t know when my ability to speak correctly around girls vanished, but it’s apparent it has when it comes to Sabrina.

I drink in her appearance, from the lazy ponytail in her hair, to the flannel shirt she has tied instead of buttoned, to the short shorts showing off her legs, to the dark blue Chucks she wears, with the word ‘Eat’ on one of the white toes, and the word ‘Me’ on the other.

“What is with you and writing on your shoes?” I ask with an amused grin.

“It’s my way of giving people my messages without actually having to open my mouth.” She smiles shyly, because I know she knows I’m going to use that to my advantage later on. Her gaze travels to the flowers in my hands and her eyes light up. “Are those for me?”

I nod shyly, extending my hand to her.

She takes them and brings them up to her nose, closing her eyes and inhaling their scent.

She prances into the kitchen, presumably to put them in water. When she comes back to the foyer, she takes my arm. Wordlessly, I lead her out the front door. Her eyes widen when she sees the car, and she turns to stare at me, while at the same time swatting my arm.

“What the
fuck
? They let you drive the Denali? They’ve never even let
me
drive the Denali! You’ll have to let me take her for a spin just once before we come home tonight,” she says, releasing my arm and climbing into the car. I close the door behind her and she grins at me.

Walking around the front of the car, I take a steadying breath before I climb in.

As I drive off, I grin. “What’s your middle name?”

I don’t even have to look at her to know she’s raising her eyebrows at me. My question came out of nowhere, and I never really asked her anything personal before. I realize I’ve done everything all backwards, screwing her first, taking her on a date and getting to know her second. I suppose I’m trying to make up for that.

“Yarida, why? What’s yours?”

“Michael. What’s your favorite color?”

I sense her grin. “Green.”

Nodding, I continue our drive. “Mine’s red.” Pausing, I turn onto a small residential street. “Favorite movie?”

“
When Harry Met Sally.
You?”

I smile at her. “
The Lord of the Rings
:
The Return of the King.
”

She laughs, loudly, and my heart swells with adoration at the way that sound affects me. “Dork.”

“You like it, and you know it.”

Her laughter ceases. “A little bit.”

We drive in silence for a couple of blocks before I start asking more questions. “What’s your favorite song?”

“Okay, what up with all the questions?”

I shrug.

I glance at her momentarily when we approach a red light. “Before my mom died, she gave me a bunch of phenomenal advice. The first piece she gave me was to never fall in love with someone who didn’t care what my favorite song was. And she followed that up with, ‘And if
you
don’t care what
her
favorite song is, you dump her as soon as possible because she’s not the one for you. There’s no point wasting time with
someone
if they’re not
The One
.’” I laugh at the memory, because I was only twelve, and I wasn’t thinking about soul mates or The One or anything like that. I was thinking about how I was going to give my mother all the memories she was going to miss in the few months she had left. “The last piece of advice she gave me was to never buy a girl roses. Hence the peonies.” I pause, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. “So. Favorite song.”

She’s silent for a long time, and I wonder if she’s even listening. I happen to peer over at her for a moment, and I catch her wiping a tear from her eye.

“
Non-Believer
by La Rocca,” she whispers. She takes my hand and pulls it into her lap, clasping it between both of hers. “I’m sorry to hear about your mom. How did…how did you lose her?”

This part’s easy. My mom is my favorite subject to talk about. She was vibrant, beautiful, phenomenal. All my best memories from childhood were because of her. Because she smiled through her pain and laughed through her tears. And she made sure what time we
did
have with her was memorable.

“Cancer. First it was in her breast when I was eight. But she went into remission and stayed that way for three years. It came back, spread like wildfire, and finally took her just after my twelfth birthday.”

She nods, squeezing my hand. “Did she try to fight?”

I nod in response. “She fought as hard as she could for as long as she could.”

I realize this is the first serious thing I’ve told her in the short amount of time we’ve known each other.

“That sucks, Brody. But at least your mom was brave. I’m not sure I can say the same for mine.”

This strikes me as odd. I’ve watched her interact with her mother. I’ve seen firsthand how close they are. They talk about everything, there are no secrets between the two, especially not now that we’re together.

“What do you mean?” I ask cautiously, wanting to broach the subject as carefully as possible.

“My mom died, too,” she whispers. I must go rigid or something because she sighs. “Ana’s not my biological mother. She’s my stepmother. My mother’s name was Catalina, and she committed suicide when I was four.”

Pulling into the parking lot where the first half of our date is meant to take place, I turn the car off. I turn to look at her.

“I’m sorry, Dove. That’s…that’s rough.”

She shakes her head. “Nah, don’t be. There’s nothing valiant or brave about taking your own life, about removing yourself from your children’s lives
permanently
and on
purpose
when I’m sure your mother would have given anything for just one more day with you. And it’s funny, I didn’t realize until this precise moment how pissed I am at mine for being so selfish.” Shaking her head again, she releases a haughty laugh. “I guess we have something to bond over, now. I was beginning to think you only liked me because we have good sex.”

“We have
great
sex,” I point out. “And I liked you before I knew that.”

She releases my hand and unbuckles her seat belt.

“What’s your favorite song?” she asks in a low voice.

“
Home Sweet Home
by Motley Crue.”

With those words I get out of the car, close the door, and walk over to her side. I open the door for her and take her hand as she climbs out. She pulls down her shorts and looks up at the sign of the place we’re at.

Harlow Uncaged
was one of my favorite places to come as a kid. Mom would bring me twice a week before I tried out for Little League, and she’d talk to me and coach me through every session.

I haven’t played sports since junior year, after a particularly rough showdown with my dad left my throwing arm all out of whack. I sometimes get in on the games at the park or play one-on-one basketball with Colin, but besides that, I won’t even pick up a ball.

Today, though, considering the fact Sabrina’s an athlete and so am I, I figured we could do something fun, and on neutral ground. Plus, it’s like letting her see, firsthand, a little piece of my childhood. I get to kill two birds with one stone.

“What the Hell is
Harlow Uncaged
?” she asks.

“Come inside, and you shall see,” I reply.

Taking her hand and intertwining it with mine, I lead her inside. I pay for our admission and scope out an empty cage for us to sit at. I affix a helmet on my own head and help Sabrina maneuver hers over her ponytail.

“Batting cages? Really? This is the best first date
ever
.”

The excitement in her tone is more than enough to make me happy. As long as I know she’s enjoying this night so far, I don’t care what else happens. I watch as she picks a bat, and then I do the same.

“Every time you miss a hit, you have to tell me something about yourself. Every time you make one, I have to tell you something about myself. And vice versa, when I’m up to bat.”

She grins at me, taking her stance at the fake plate. She looks incredible, and her sculpted ass calls to me from beneath those shorts. Watching her, about to engage in an activity involved with my favorite sport, makes me want to carry her right out of this place, and to the Denali so I can have my way with her again.

“Why do you wanna know so much about me anyhow?” Sabrina asks.

“I like you. I want to know what things make you happy, and what things make you sad. I want to know what infuriates you and I want to know what touches your soul like nothing else can. Maybe a little competition can help spin it so we know everything there is to know about each other.”

With a laugh, she turns to face me. “What makes you think you want to know all the deep, dark corners of my soul, Brody Michael Durham?”

“I want to know everything there is to know about you, Sabrina Yarida Matteo.”

By the end of the night, after keeping score, I’ve made twenty seven hits, and Sabrina has made thirty two.

I now know that she’s allergic to mushrooms. She hates to wear underwear period, but if she has to, she wears thongs or boy shorts. She wants to go to Coachella and Bonnaroo. She could spend the rest of her life in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She was placed in Gifted and Talented Education courses when she was seven, and she’s been in the program since then. She reads, but she hates the classics. She’d rather watch black and white Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe movies than the cliche romantic comedies they release each year with the same plots over and over again. Peonies are her favorite flower. She used to be a chronic nail biter. She secretly loves country music. Her hair is her crowning glory, and she hasn’t had it cut in five years. She got to name Mila. She’s never called Ana anything but ‘Mom’ or ‘Mommy’. She likes musicals. She hates any seafood that isn’t shrimp, catfish, tilapia, or crab meat.

There are so many things to know about her, so many stones left unturned where knowing her is concerned. I can never know enough about her. And although she knows a lot about me, there’s still more to know. I look forward to the late night conversations, the early morning talks over coffee, where we unearth each other’s deepest, darkest secrets.

As I lead her out of the batting cage and back to the car, I assure her that our night is far from over. There’s this place I used to go, back when we still had our car. It was this mountain, up high. If you found the right spot, you could sit atop it and look down at Harlow. It takes half an hour to get there, and Sabrina and I quiz each other the entire way there.

I pull up to the perfect spot, which I discovered all by my lonesome about a year ago, and put the car in park. I leave the headlights on, then climb out. Heading to the trunk, I pull the items for the second half of our date. Setting a blanket down on the floor, I grab my cell phone and plug in the auxiliary cable and press play on the only country song I know—and the only one on my phone. When she hears it, she turns to glance at me with a ghost of a smile playing on her face.

I extend my hand for her, and she takes it gingerly. Wrapped in my arms, she brings her hands up to release her hair from its ponytail. Leaning back against my embrace, her hair drapes over my arms. I pull her to my chest and she sighs deeply.

We actually dance this time, the headlights shining bright before us, Harlow behind us, and the sounds of Rascal Flatts’
I Won’t Let Go
surrounding us. We move in perfect sync with each other. The words hit me, saying precisely what I feel. Whatever goes on in her life, in mine, no matter how bad things get, I won’t ever let her go. I’m going to forever hold on to my unbroken girl.

Her head tilts upward and her brown eyes meet mine.

“I think you just made this my new favorite song,” she whispers, a second before she leans up on her tiptoes and kisses me.

This is the first kiss she’s initiated, and I love it much more than all the other ones for this very reason. Gripping her tightly, I place a hand in her hair and kiss her back with every ounce of love, faith, and strength I have inside me. I can tell she was holding back before, but she isn’t now. She’s giving me all she has, and I’m going to show her that she won’t regret it.