Текст книги "Best Kind of Broken"

Автор книги: Chelsea Fine

Соавторы: Chelsea Fine
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13 Pixie

I hate bowling.

The shoes are uncomfortable, the balls are gross, and I never win. But when Matt called yesterday and suggested we meet in Tempe tonight to go bowling, he seemed so excited that I didn’t bother confessing my severe dislike for the activity. And honestly, after the way things ended last weekend, I’m just happy he wants to do anything with me at all. So bowling I shall go.

I hang up my apron and check the time with a frown. I quickly grab two leftover brownies from the lunch rush and head upstairs. I have only an hour to get ready. My hair still needs to be straightened, and I still need to pick out some clothes for bowling and anything that might happen afterward.

My stomach dips a little as I think about later.

Am I going to sleep with Matt tonight? Am I going to sleep with him ever?

Why is this so hard for me?

At the top of the stairs, I come face-to-face with Levi as he’s exiting his room.

Ever since the toothbrush incident—yes, that’s what I’m calling it—my heart’s been doing this sad lurching thing every time I see him, and right now it’s lurching like crazy.

“Hi, Levi,” my overactive mouth says.

He stares at me, mid-door-closing.

Yeah. It’s weird. We don’t usually greet each other in the hallway. Or anywhere for that matter.

“Uh… hi.” He closes the door and eyes me curiously.

“Want one?” I hold out the plate of brownies like they’re a peace offering. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re my way of saying I’m sorry I have a boyfriend and condoms in my purse. And if that doesn’t scream dysfunctional, I don’t know what does.

“That depends.” He eyes the brownie plate suspiciously. “Did you make them?”

In junior high, I went through this baking period and was determined to make the most delicious brownies ever. Every Saturday, I would slave in Levi’s kitchen making brownies from scratch, and every Saturday they would end up tasting like bars of sour salt. I don’t know how he did it, but I know—I just know—Levi was responsible for my disgusting brownies. I’m pretty sure he switched the salt and sugar, but I could never figure out how he made them sour.

I narrow my eyes. “No, I did not make them.”

“Then… sure.” He reaches for the smaller of the two brownies.

I shake my head. “Jackass.”

He shrugs. “It’s not my fault you make god-awful brownies.”

“It’s completely your fault.”

“Oh yeah?” he says with a hint of a smile. “Prove it.”

I’m on the brink of a smile myself when our hallway powwow is interrupted.

“Hey!”

I turn to see Matt at the top of the stairs and, for a moment, nothing in the entire universe makes sense.

I blink. “Wh—what are you doing here?”

“I came to pick you up.” Matt smiles as he nears. “I wanted to surprise you so you wouldn’t have to drive by yourself.”

I keep blinking. “How did you know where to find me?”

And why the hell do people keep dropping in to pick me up? I know how to drive, dammit.

“The girl at the front desk told me you were up here.” He leans in and kisses my cheek.

Levi’s blue eyes shoot to mine, and I find myself irrationally angry with Haley.

Matt’s staring at me. Why is he staring at me? Oh right.

I swallow and start gesturing back and forth. “Levi, this is Matt… my, uh, boyfriend. Matt, this is Levi… my, uh…” Neighbor? Handyman? Toothbrush partner? “My Levi.”

Someone shoot me. Please.

Matt looks at me funny before holding out his hand to Levi. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

Levi slowly moves his eyes from mine to Matt’s and it’s like watching two worlds collide as they shake hands.

What is happening right now?

I feel sick to my stomach. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. Matt can’t be here, in the same space with Levi, in the east wing of the inn.

Matt turns to me and wrinkles his brow. “You look different. Did you do something to your hair?” He gently pulls at a loose curl.

Levi’s eyes are back on me, piercing me through like sapphire spears.

“No. This is just my hair,” I say, functioning on autopilot because my brain is in shock. “My real hair.”

What is happening right now?

“Oh.” He smiles again. “I like it. You ready?”

“For what?”

“To… go bowling?”

Levi stifles a cough.

“Oh,” I say, dragging my eyes back to Matt. “No. I’m not ready yet.”

I’m not ready at all.

Levi nods at Matt. “It was good to meet you, man.” He scoots past us and hastily exits down the stairs. He doesn’t look back at me.

“Hey, you okay?” Matt tucks the loose curl behind my ear. I hate it when he does that. Maybe I like my hair all out of place and unorganized. My hair isn’t his goddamn desk.

Oh my God, I’m losing it.

I force out a smile. “I’m fine. Let me just get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

I don’t wait for him to agree. I just dart into my room and shut the door behind me, wondering why I’m on the verge of tears.

* * *

“But I don’t want to bowl!” The pudgy little girl in the lane next to Matt and me stomps her bowling shoe on the glossy floor as she speaks to her mother. “Bowling is boring and the balls are really heavy.”

Amen, sister.

The balls are ridiculously heavy. Fourteen pounds? What do I look like, He-Man?

“Quit making that face, Amanda,” says the girl’s mother as she sits with the small group of people they’re with. “It makes you look ugly.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should,” the mother says, raising her voice to be heard over the party music blaring from the overhead speakers. “You’re already fat. The last thing you need is an ugly face to match that body of yours. Don’t you want people to like you?”

I stare at the woman in horror as everyone within earshot shifts uncomfortably and looks away. The little girl bows her head in shame and silently collects her ball before rolling it down the lane. She keeps her eyes lowered as she makes her way back to her seat and the next person up gathers their ball. The little girl stares at her small hands.

I know that little girl. I was that little girl. Provided for, but unloved. Innocent, but resented. My mother was the queen of cruel words.

The first time I realized my mom hated me—and yes, I know that sounds dramatic, but the woman truly does despise me—was when I was five years old.

She was speaking on the phone to someone, I have no idea who, and I heard her say, “I hate being a mother. Sarah is so clumsy and messy and I swear she’s retarded. She’s scared of everything and cries all the time and she’s annoying as hell. And she’s not even pretty, so I can’t even look forward to a beautiful teenage daughter. She’ll probably be fat too.”

I was five when I heard this. Five.

I was so startled and confused by the words coming out of my mother’s mouth that I don’t think the true maliciousness behind them registered. I walked into the room where she had the phone to her ear and stared at her questioningly.

She rolled her eyes at me and spoke to her listener. “And now she’s eavesdropping on me like a little bitch. God, parenting is like a prison sentence.”

It was so surreal to feel hated by the person I loved most in the world. And that was just the first of many hurtful words that would fall from that woman’s lips. She didn’t physically abuse me—at least not often—but sometimes words can be more damaging than wounds.

So when I met Levi’s family, and his mother, Linda, loved me like her own and showered me with kind words and affection, I spent as many days and nights as I could in the comfort of the Andrews home. Linda and Mark Andrews were always trying to protect me from my miserable mother and give me what she wouldn’t. They showed me love and family and compassion and all the other things I was starving for.

My heart twists as I think back on all that happiness, that warmth.

God, I miss them.

“Striiike!”

I blink over to Matt, who has his arms raised in victory as he stares down the lane. He spins around with a giant grin. “Did you see that?”

I smile and clap and pretend I saw the whole thing. “Whoo-hoo!”

“Your turn,” he says.

Oh goodie.

I begrudgingly rise and lift my fifty-pound ball from the dispenser with an exaggerated grunt. I step up to the shiny lane—my feet sliding a bit on the polished floor so I have to catch myself like I’m baby Bambi—and halfheartedly throw the ball toward the white pins.

I knock over two. Thrilling.

I retrieve my ball for round two and knock over another three pins.

“Way to go, babe!” Matt says. “That’s your best frame yet.”

I pinch out a smile as we switch places and he prepares for his turn.

I hate this game.

As I take my seat, I glance at the neighboring lane and see the mother fussing with a barrette in the little girl’s—Amanda’s—hair. My mother always hated my hair. The curls drove her crazy. A disgusting rat’s nest, she’d call it.

By the time I was in seventh grade, the rat’s nest had grown to the middle of my back and I freaking loved it. It was wild and difficult to style, but it was my trademark, my identity. Pixie with the long blonde curls. Pixie with the happy hair. It made me feel girly and pretty.

My mom was always trying to get me to pin it back or twist it up into something that looked halfway respectable, but it was almost impossible to tame my unruly ringlets, so rarely ever did I cooperate.

One weekend I refused to pull my hair back and my mom threw a massive fit, but I didn’t care. It was my hair and I was going to wear it down. Nothing could stop me.

Except a pair of scissors.

Sandra Marshall grabbed a thick fistful of my proud curls and swiftly cut them clean off. I watched in horror as the front left side of my identity fell to the floor in a sad heap of golden spirals. Then I cried.

There was nothing I could do to rectify the damage except cut the rest of my hair just as short to match.

“Maybe walking around like an ugly boy will give you some perspective on properly caring for your hair,” she’d said.

I was thirteen and I thought I looked like a boy. I was thirteen and believed I was ugly.

I spent that weekend at Levi’s house, crying to his mom about how kids at school were going to tease me and how no boys would ever like me. Linda did her best to style my hair in the most feminine way possible, but it was a lost cause.

Monday morning came around and I cried all the way to school. Junior high is hell on girls—especially in a small town—so with my head hung in shame, I braved the front doors and steeled myself for the endless teasing and whispering that was sure to ensue.

But it never came.

It seemed everyone in school was too preoccupied with a certain eighth grader’s hair to care about mine. I traveled through the halls, listening to giggles and following wide eyes to the source of the school’s entertainment.

Levi.

His hair was longer back then and he had dyed it purple—neon purple—and spiked it up all over his head. The school’s star football player dying his hair a silly color wasn’t jaw-dropping or mind-blowing, but it was outrageous enough to keep any attention off of me.

Levi and I didn’t speak that day, but once, as we passed in the hall, he gave me a crooked smile and that’s when I knew.

I was his completely.

Bowling pins crash against the floor and the loud noise ricochets in my ears as Matt jumps in triumph over his eight-pin knockout.

I glance over at Amanda, whose head is still down as she and her group finish their game and leave the bowling alley.

I hope she has an Andrews family in her life, or at least a Levi.

Especially a Levi.

“Earth to Sarah.” Matt waves his hand in front of my face.

I look up at him. “My turn again?”

“Yep. Go get ’em, tiger.”

Rawr.

Matt and I bowl for a while longer and we’re having a perfectly pleasant time—and by “we” I mean Matt—when he throws a giant-ass wrench into the evening.

“So,” he says after throwing his fifth strike. “What are you doing Fourth of July weekend?”

I stand from my plastic seat and walk to the ball dispenser. “I haven’t really thought about it. Why?”

He doesn’t sit back down, but instead watches as I pick up my sixty-five-pound ball and insert my fingers into the dark holes of other people’s dead skin cells.

Have I mentioned I hate this game?

“I was thinking about flying back home to San Diego for the weekend. And I want you to come along and meet my family.”

I look up. “Wow. Random.”

He laughs. “Not really. We’ve been together for a while and I think it’s time to show you off. I’ve told my parents all about you, and they can’t wait to meet you in person.”

He told his parents all about me?

My mother doesn’t even know Matt exists. Hell, Ellen barely knows. Should I have been prepping my family members for a Matt meet and greet? Shit. I really suck at the girlfriend thing.

I swallow. “I don’t know…”

Am I ready to meet his family? Am I ready to go on a weekend trip with him? Wouldn’t a weekend trip mean sex? My fingers start to sweat into the ball holes.

“Come on.” He smiles. “I really want you to meet my family.”

I scrunch my nose. “But… why?”

“Because you’re important to me.” His smile stays in place, but his voice lowers in sincerity. “And because I love you.”

I almost drop my eighty-pound ball as I stare at him. We’ve never said the “L” word to each other.

Obnoxious party music and the loud echoes of falling pins fill the silence between us as he waits for me to respond.

Up until this moment, I wasn’t sure if Matt and I would have a future or not. But standing here, in these ridiculously slippery shoes, with my fingers wedged in the sweaty holes of a ninety-five-pound sphere of nasty, I’m completely sure.

14 Levi

It’s late and the kitchen lights are dimmed as I lock the back door. Just as I’m turning to head for the east wing, the dining room door swings open and a pissed-off Pixie flies past me, knocking into my shoulder as she huffs to the sink.

“Whoa.” I turn around. “Who pissed you off?”

“Matt,” she says through clenched teeth as she washes her hands. She yanks some vegetables from the fridge, grabs a sharp knife, and starts hacking away at mushrooms.

“Matt?” All my guard dog instincts immediately go on alert. “Why? What did he do?”

I’ll kill him. If he hurt her, I will kill him.

“He told me he loved me!” She thrusts her arms out, the sharp knife in her hand glinting under the kitchen lights.

I lift a brow and wait because, surely, that’s not the reason for the broken expression on her face. But she doesn’t elaborate.

I pause. “So…?”

“So…” She laughs without humor as she goes back to hacking. “Just when I think I’m making progress in my life and might be able to get back to normal, or finally have sex with someone other than drunk Benji, or just move on from this deep, sad place I’m in all the time, Matt goes and tells me he loves me and totally screws everything up!” She starts chopping more aggressively.

Pixie hasn’t had sex with anyone other than Benji? I’m outrageously pleased by this information.

“I mean, who does that?” she continues. “Who declares their love for someone they don’t even know? Does he know about my pet turtle when I was nine? No.” Chop, chop, chop. “Does he know that my mother is evil incarnate? No.” Chop, chop, chop. “Hell, five hours ago he didn’t even know my hair was naturally curly! He knows nothing about me. And yet he wants me to fly away with him to meet his parents because he loves me? No. Just no!” Chop, chop, chop.

Pixie has been with only one guy, one time. Why am I so happy about this?

“And you know what else?” She points the knife at me violently. “I am not Captain Hook. If anything, I’m Tinker Bell.” She returns to her wild dicing. “Tinker Bell!”

Tinker Bell?

Shit. I need to start paying attention.

“He’s a crazy person,” she says. Chop, chop, chop. “So clearly I had no choice but to break up with him.”

I squint at her. “He told you he loved you… so you broke up with him?”

“Yep,” she says, popping the p.

“Why?”

“Because Matt doesn’t love me. So it’s all just bullshit. Him. Me. Everything. Bullshit.”

“How do you know he doesn’t love you?”

“Just because.”

“Because why?”

She throws her arms out again and yells, “Because love isn’t something that needs to be said out loud!” Her face flushes with passion. “It’s something you just know. It’s an unspoken thing. It’s humble and quiet and constant…” She goes back to slaughtering the mushrooms, but lowers her tone a bit. “I mean, you can’t just say you love someone and make it true. That’s not how it works. Real love doesn’t need to be declared or confessed. Real love just… is. You know?”

My throat constricts because I do know. God, I know. I know so much it’s hurting me to look at her.

“So yeah.” She swallows. “Matt doesn’t love me and I don’t love him and now I’m right back to where I started, which is exactly nowhere and I’m just so”—chop—“freaking”—chop—“sick”—chop—“of being nowhere. And nobody gets it. Nobody!”

I watch her for a moment, wishing I could take away the pain in those big green eyes of hers as they viciously hack up the remains of the mushrooms. She looks the way I feel inside most days. Hurt. Stuck. Desperate.

“I get it,” I say quietly.

She stops chopping and looks up.

I press my lips together. “I know all about nowhere.”

Our eyes meet beneath the dimmed lights, colliding in a tangle of shared emotions too raw to touch. How did we get so broken?

We might be legal adults now, but lately it feels like we’re just as helpless as children. Just as lost and scared.

If my parents were here, they’d know what to do. How to heal Pixie. How to fix me. They always knew what to do. But since they didn’t stick around for the fallout, we’re navigating this thing on our own. And failing miserably.

Pixie stares at me for a long moment.

“I know you do.” Her voice is barely a whisper, drifting through the air and gliding over my skin. She looks me over with longing and dammit if that’s not everything I want in the world.

My eyes drop to her mouth, her throat, her hands. Every instinct I have is screaming to touch her. To cross the space between us and wrap my arms protectively around her small frame. To shield her from all the bad things, the sorrowful things. All the things I’m made of.

But that can’t happen. We can’t happen.

Neither of us moves as reality seeps in, slow and steady, and the moment evaporates into the dim kitchen. It’s sad in the room, like there’s something very much alive but fatally ill breathing in between Pixie’s broken heart and mine. And we don’t know how to fix it.

We need more distance between us. Distance is painless. Distance is safe.

She clears her throat and washes her hands. I double-check the door to make sure it’s locked. And we go our separate ways.

15 Pixie

Two days later, I’m still not heartbroken.

I’ve never broken up with anyone before so maybe I don’t really understand the concept, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be feeling sad or lonely by now.

Nope.

All I’ve felt since my post-bowling meltdown in front of Levi—did I really blab to him how I hadn’t slept with anyone since Benji? Ugh—is frustrated. And of course supremely embarrassed.

God, I can’t believe I just lost my shit like that the other night. For a moment I forgot things had changed between us, and I just unloaded on Levi like I used to. He’s done a good job of steering clear of me ever since and it’s probably for the best. Who knows what I might blab out next time. My throat-biting desires? My unhealthy obsession with his forearm muscles? I need a muzzle.

This is what I’m thinking about as I reach the bottom of the east wing stairs. My face must be twisted into a look of utter shame and repulsion because Daren stops me on my way to the kitchen and says, “Hey, everything okay?”

I know Levi’s not crazy about him, but Daren’s not a bad guy. He’s just a typical guy. He’s one of those broken bad boys whom every girl wants to fix: guarded, cocky, desperate for approval but emotionally unavailable. Typical.

And he’s way too attractive for his own good. The guy’s not just hot. He’s freaking beautiful. And he knows it.

But he hasn’t had it easy, which is probably why Ellen gave him a job here and why I tend to give him a break. Even when he implores me with those pretty brown eyes of his—like he’s doing right now.

Seriously. Too attractive for his own good.

“I’m fine,” I say and move past him.

He follows after me, and it’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. This is just how it is with Daren. He’s always checking on me during work. I know he means well, but gah. Sometimes I wish my aunt wasn’t such a softie when it came to hiring cute boys with damaged pasts.

I touch a hand to my chest.

Sometimes.

“Hi, Daren.” Mable looks up from flipping pancakes as we enter the kitchen and smiles at him, but it’s different from when she smiles at Levi.

“Hi, Mable.” He turns to me. “So the Fourth of July Bash is coming up.”

I put my apron on. “So?”

“So are you going?”

“No.”

“Come on. It’s tradition.” He flashes his smile, and I’m reminded why every girl in high school put out for him. Every girl but me, of course. That smile is dangerous. “Everyone will be there and everyone misses you.”

By everyone, he means all the random kids we grew up with. And by people missing me, he means people are curious to see if I’ve stopped being a hermit yet. As far as my hometown is concerned, I’ve been keeping to myself like a shut-in lately. My friends in Copper Springs were cool about my social absence for a few months, but then their patience ran out and most of them stopped calling and inviting me to things. Not Daren, though.

“It’ll be fun,” he says. “You can bring your boyfriend. What’s his name again?”

“Matt.”

“Bring Matt.”

“We broke up.”

“Oh.” He rubs a hand over his dark brown hair. “Okay, then bring a friend. Or, better yet, come with me.” He’s grinning again.

I shake my head. “I’m not feeling very festival-ish this year.”

“Sarah,” he says seriously, dropping his smile as he puts his hand on my cheek. “You can’t be sad forever.”

Screw you. Yes, I can.

I gently pull back from his hand. “It hasn’t been forever. It’s been less than a year.”

“I know,” he says in a quieter tone. “But this might be good for you, seeing people, seeing friends.” His eyes scan mine. “Just think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, mostly to get him off my back. I don’t need to think about it—I don’t want to think about it.

“Excellent.” His eyes flick to something behind me. “We’ll talk more later, okay?” He moves past me, but not before giving me a swift kiss on the lips.

What the…?

I turn around to bitch him out—because I’m not a kissing booth—but my words catch in my throat when I see Levi at the back door, glaring at us with a dark look that’s probably supposed to say I don’t give a damn but comes across more like I will shred Daren with my bare hands.

Daren gives me a covert wink as he heads for the dining room door, and I make a mental note to scold him later.

I act casual until Daren is gone, smoothing down my apron and tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear; then I look at Levi and wait for the storm.

He stares at me.

I stare at him.

Mable stares at pancakes.

Well, hell. Storms, I know how to handle. But this—this heavy silence bullshit—I don’t know what to do with this.

He continues staring.

“What?” I snap.

“Don’t be a whore,” Levi says coolly.

Mable looks at him in horror, the spatula frozen in her hand as her mouth falls open.

“Excuse me?” I see red and suddenly know exactly where every knife in the kitchen is.

I know Levi doesn’t like Daren, but why would he—how could he—I can’t even—

“Look who’s talking,” I sneer. “I don’t really think you have any right to pass judgment on whorishness. And besides, my life is my business.”

He shrugs. “Fine, be a whore. But you can do better than Daren.”

I slowly nod, anger and hurt filling up my lungs. “What, like you?”

His eyes sharpen as he looks me up and down. It’s not a gross look, more like a refresher in who, exactly, I am to him. A refresher that breaks my heart more than any words ever could.

He finds my face again and lowers his voice. “Never me.”

And then he leaves. The bastard just leaves.

I want to run after him and scream and yell and cuss, but there’s a piece of me that knows I deserve his anger, his rejection. And that piece keeps me in my place and stings the back of my eyes for all the things I can’t take back.

Things like Charity.