Best Kind of Broken

  My last class of the day was art, and I had paint on my shoes. When I climbed in, I accidentally left a blue shoe print on the floorboard of his new truck, and Levi was pissed.

  I felt super bad, but I totally laughed at his attempt at anger. He was awful at staying mad at me. I took my shoes off and held them in my lap the whole ride home, my bare feet feeling oddly intimate against the soft floorboard beneath me.

  It seems like a lifetime ago.

  The wipers cut across the windshield again and I look down at my feet. The blue shoe print is still there. It’s a little faded by time and dirt, but I can still see it. A reminder of me.

  I reach down and trace a finger across the brightest splotch of blue. It’s a gross floorboard and completely grimy, but I can’t help myself.

  We stop at a red light, and I can feel Levi’s eyes on me as I stroke the blue stain. He probably thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I am.

  Why didn’t he just get new floor mats?

  I sit back up and chance a glance at him. The red stoplight glows into the cab as we stare at each other, listening to the sound of rain falling on the windshield. Constant. Steady.

  Red turns to green and our eyes pull apart.

  40

  Levi

  I haven’t been in a car with Pixie since the night of the accident, and it all seems too familiar. My shoulders are tense and my knuckles white as they grip the steering wheel.

  I clear my throat. “I’m sorry. For taking off after Charity died. I shouldn’t have left.” I clear my throat again because it’s starting to close in. “I should never have left you.”

  She watches me for a long moment. “It’s okay. It’s not like I stayed by your side either.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  Silence.

  I inhale deeply and attempt to make light conversation. “So Ellen says you might transfer to NYU this fall.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. If I get in. What about you?” she asks. “Ellen said you dropped out of college after the season ended and haven’t reapplied yet. What happened?”

  Dropped out. That’s a nice way of saying it.

  “Studying wasn’t exactly my top priority last fall, and I don’t know if I really want to return.”

  A long lull follows as we stare at the dark road outside and the rain that blurs it. I manage to get her back to the inn without maiming her and slowly pull into a parking space. I don’t move to get out and neither does she, so we’re sitting in the dim light shining in through the windshield from the inn’s front porch. I can smell her lavender shampoo.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she says, still not moving from the car.

  I nod. “I’m sorry about everything tonight. Sorry I implied that you were mine. That was lame. I know you’re not anyone’s. I wasn’t trying to be a Neanderthal, I swear. I was just… God, I was pissed at Daren for trapping you in that car and scaring you like that and—”

  “I’m glad you were there.” She smiles and shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry I hid my scar from you. That was… immature.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know why I pounced on you about it. It’s really none of my business.”

  More silence. More rain.

  She shifts again. “Do you still want to see it?”

  I blink and then nod, even though the idea scares the hell out of me.

  She slowly unties the dress cover thingy she has on and slips it down her shoulders until she’s wearing only her bikini top. And cutting a thick diagonal through her chest is everything I did wrong. Red and jagged, it looks out of place against the flawless skin of her breasts and stomach.

  I can’t pull my eyes away from it. I can’t.

  “Levi.”

  I broke her. I broke everything.

  My heart starts to pound in my ears.

  “Levi,” she says again, and I meet her eyes. “I’m okay.”

  “I’m so sorry.” My voice cracks as my eyes fall back to the scar. I can’t help myself as I touch a hand to her skin. I lay my palm flat against the center of her chest, my fingers in line with the diagonal, and feel her heartbeat pulsing beneath me.

  She covers my hand with hers. “I’m okay.”

  I stare at her small hand, covering mine, for a moment. Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, I gently slip my hand out from under hers.

  She looks down and puts her hand on the door handle, biting her lip before looking back at me.

  “And I am yours,” she says quietly. “Even when you don’t want me. I’m still yours.”

  She exits the truck and walks inside the inn as rain continues to beat on the windshield.

  41

  Pixie

  I don’t regret it.

  I’ve been so afraid of Levi seeing my scar, so scared that the red reminder of Charity would destroy him, that I failed to realize how healing showing him might be for me. The sight of my scar might have cut into Levi, but it patched up a bleeding piece of my soul that I didn’t think I’d ever get stitched; the part of me that refused to see Charity’s death in Levi’s eyes; the part of me that denied his pain.

  So I don’t regret it.

  Even now, ten days later, when Levi still won’t look at me or speak to me, I don’t regret it. Charity is dead. I am scarred. Levi is haunted.

  These are the real things, the true things.

  And the truth is easier to breathe in than the lie. Uglier perhaps. But far less suffocating without the cloud of denial I’ve kept around me all this time. Denial is thick and sweet, and for the past year it filled up my lungs until they threatened to burst. But truth… truth is clean and pure. And yes, it hurts when I inhale it, it hurts to cleanse out the sweet smoke, but breathing out is like new life.

  With black paint staining my fingers, I step back from the small canvas I’ve been working on all morning. It’s not perfect. It’s not even close. It’s a mess of gray, with shards of black and slits of white, but it’s what I want to see.

  With careful hands, I hang the canvas up to dry beside the three other similar paintings I’ve been working on for the past few days.

  Four paintings. One subject. A million unspoken things.

  42

  Levi

  When she was nine, Pixie found a dog on the side of the road and brought him to my house out of pity. She was always finding stray, ugly animals and taking them in like she was some kind of angel of all living creatures.

  Of course we fell in love with the mangy puppy immediately, and Maverick—Charity named the mutt Maverick—became a member of our family. But two years later, Maverick died, and everyone, including myself, was devastated.

  The night we lost Maverick, Charity and Pixie crept into my room and crawled into my bed with tears streaming down their faces, convinced the heartbreak would hurt less if the three of us stuck together and slept beside one another. They were right.

  And in junior high, when Charity and Pixie snuck into that horror movie and were terrified that an ax murderer would come for them in the night, they crawled into my bed again, sleeping soundly under the illusion of my protection. They came to me for bravery and strength.

  I don’t feel brave or strong anymore.

  It’s the crack of dawn and I’m in the garden fixing a planter wall that’s been lopsided for two months. Ellen didn’t put it on my list of things to do, but it’s been driving me crazy, so… yeah. The planter will be fixed today.

  An elderly guest named Paul is sitting on the nearest garden bench, watching me re-lay the bricks for the planter.

  “I used to garden,” Paul says, eyeing me carefully. “Still do, actually. But only during certain seasons. Do you like to plant things?”

  I lay a new brick down. “Not really. I’m more of a ‘fixing things’ kind of guy.”

  He laughs and the sound is hoarse and gritty, like he’s been smoking for fifty years. “That’s pretty much all planting is¸ fixing. You grow a flower or a vegetable—you spend months watering it and protecting it from the sun and crit
ters—and then one day it starts to die and you have to fix it.”

  My thoughts go to Charity. I banish them.

  Then my thoughts go to Pixie, and I don’t banish them.

  Paul leans forward on the cane in his hands. “It’s the damnedest thing, a dying plant, and it makes a man want to give up. But that’s the beauty of gardening, son. You can revive the things that wither.”

  I lay another brick and shovel back some dirt from the flower bed. “It sounds like rewarding work.”

  “Oh, it is. It is.” He’s silent for so long I think maybe he’s fallen asleep, but when I look over at him, he’s wide-awake and watching me lay the last brick down.

  Finished, I stand and dust my hands off on my jeans and pick up my supplies.

  “They’re stronger, you know.” Paul looks up at me.

  I shield my eyes in the morning sun. “What’s stronger?”

  “The plants that you revive,” he says. “When you bring something back from the brink of death, it fights harder to thrive.” Paul leans on his cane again and smiles. “So is the story of life, I guess.”

  * * *

  “Ellen says you still have the spare keys?” I say outside of Pixie’s open bedroom door. This is the first we’ve spoken since the Fourth of July Bash.

  “Oh. Yeah,” she says. “I found my own set yesterday. Now, where… did I put… the spare keys…?” She glances around. “You can come in. This might take a minute.”

  I step into Pixie’s room, not sure if I want to be here. It feels personal. And it smells like her, which makes my chest feel funny.

  There’s a tension in the air I’ve been trying to ignore all day, but with every passing minute it growers thicker and tighter. Tomorrow is almost here.

  I can’t think about it, so I concentrate on mundane objects as she searches for the keys.

  Dirty clothes on the floor.

  Paintbrushes in glass jars. Stained. Frayed. Chewed at the ends.

  She’s always been such a mess. I like her messy.

  My eyes wander and land on four paintings strung up against the wall, and my feet absently take me there. I blink as I take in the dark-haired girl with light in her eyes and mischief in her smile. She’s fearless and pensive. Laughing and free. She’s everything I remember and more.

  Charity.

  My stomach fills with longing, but not the sad kind. The meaningful kind. The kind of longing you feel when you think about your first roller coaster or your first perfect game. The longing that makes you wish you could experience it again, but so grateful you had it in the first place.

  I touch a finger to the closest painting. “These are beautiful.”

  Pixie hesitates. “Thanks. Sometimes I see her and I just want to remember.”

  I nod because I get it. “I like that you remember.”

  She finds my eyes, and all I see is a sad little girl who lost her friend. Everything inside me wants to cross the space between us and pull her into my arms. The last time I felt this way was at Charity’s funeral. There were people in dark clothes everywhere, saying things to me I couldn’t hear. There were tears and prayers filling up the cemetery. And then there was Pixie.

  Seated in a wheelchair five people away with bruises on her face and a thick bandage peeking out from her purple dress. The girl wore purple. Charity’s favorite color. Tears fell down her cheeks, but her face was expressionless.

  I wanted to hug her then. I wanted to pull her close and tuck us into each other, where there was no one else to mourn Charity. Just us. Because no one else understood. Just us.

  “I found the keys.” Pixie looks up at me, and I’m suddenly looking at Charity.

  I’m watching her play with dolls and dress up like a princess and ask for a kitty every Christmas. I’m hearing her tell on me for lighting firecrackers in the backyard and whine when I get to stay up later than she does. I’m watching her cry on her first day of junior high when some girls made fun of her outfit, and lock herself in her bedroom when Jason Hampton broke up with her. I’m seeing her grow up, I’m sharing my banana splits with her, I’m watching scary movies with her in the upstairs bedroom so Mom and Dad can’t hear us, I’m giving her a ride to the mall and yelling at her for taking my credit card. I see Charity and she’s beautiful and happy. And worth reliving every memory.

  I blink, and it’s Pixie staring back at me.

  “I miss her,” I blurt out.

  It’s the first time I’ve felt safe enough to admit that to someone aloud. It’s the first time I’ve been able to say that without feeling guilty.

  Pixie nods like she totally gets it. “I miss her too.”

  She gets it.

  43

  Pixie

  There is nothing extraordinary about today.

  It is just a day. A Saturday, to be exact, at the end of July. The morning birds are chirping outside. The wind is blowing through the fields out back. And I am alive.

  Lying in bed, I roll onto my side and stare at the four gray paintings hanging on the far wall. Sadness does not flood into me like I anticipate. Nor does anger or peace. The only thing I feel, as the waking sunbeams slide over my sheet-wrapped body, is longing. Deep, wailing longing.

  Not for the girl in gray—that girl is at peace and unbroken—but for the boy next door, who is anything but. And yet the boy next door feels farther away than the girl in gray.

  I let out a long, slow breath as I stare at Charity’s face. Today marks the one-year anniversary of her death. A year has gone by, but somehow no time has passed. I’m still here, at the precipice of my future, waiting for life to happen. I’m still the broken girl who woke up in a hospital bed without her best friend, without her hero.

  I thought time stopped for me, but time is not something I ever had or ever will have. It simply is. It never begins. It never ends. So the sun rises and sets, and my scar heals and fades, and the morning birds chirp on.

  There is nothing extraordinary about today, except that it has come and I have lived to see it.

  But perhaps that is precisely what makes today more extraordinary than any day before.

  With a deep breath, I get out of bed.

  44

  Levi

  I’m sitting against a log right at the edge of the lavender field with my back to the trees beyond. The air smells like Pixie.

  The inn lights are mostly off, giving darkness over to the night and showcasing the many stars in the clear sky. It’s quiet out here, no guests milling about the grounds or taking late-night walks, no storm.

  I light the cigarette in my hand, take a drag, and tilt my head up to the stars as I exhale.

  Everyone kept a wide berth around me today, no one brave enough to start any conversations with me or make direct eye contact. I’m not sure what they were afraid of. Me breaking into tears?

  Angelo was the only person who even acknowledged the shittiness of today, and even he didn’t use words. He simply walked past me as he was leaving for the night and handed me a single cigarette and a lighter.

  He’s a scary bastard, but he has a soul.

  I’m not a smoker. Sure, I’ve smoked before. But I’ve always been an athlete, and a smoking athlete is a weak athlete. So I’m not big on cigarettes.

  But today hurts.

  So I’m smoking.

  I hear crickets in the distance and the sound of wind sweeping through the purple fields.

  I’m alone. I’m thinking. I wish I wasn’t thinking.

  I hear the back door to the kitchen close and see a form step outside with a trash bag. I know that form. I’ve felt that form against my body.

  Pixie starts to turn away, but freezes when she catches sight of me in the shadows. How she sees me I’m not sure, but she’s on her way over.

  I stay seated and rub a hand down my face.

  Her walk is slow and deliberate until she stops beside me, dressed in her work clothes. Even though we both had the day off, we still decided to work. Work keeps the demons out.
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  She watches me smoke for a moment. “Got one for me?”

  I exhale a cloud of smoke. “No.”

  She plucks the lit cigarette from my hand. At first I think she’s going to stomp it out and lecture me on the health ramifications of smoking. But she doesn’t. She takes her own slow drag and breathes the smoke in before handing it back to me.

  I take it from her, both annoyed and turned on. “You shouldn’t smoke.”

  She sits on a rock in front of me, just a foot or so away, and I can feel my body respond to how close she is.

  “I shouldn’t do a lot of things.” She looks at the stars. “Charity hated cigarettes.”

  I shift against the log.

  “She would always try to smoke, but end up coughing and gagging.” She tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “It was fun to watch her try, though.” A small smile plays at her lips.

  I take another drag, watching her carefully. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t think she ever wanted you to see her try. You were her hero, you know?” She plays with a lace on her shoe.

  “I don’t remember that either.” My lungs are shrinking and I can’t quite get the air I need to keep my eyes from stinging.

  “You were my hero too,” she says softly. “You still are.”

  She drives her eyes into me, and all the memories I just ran away from, all the thinking I wasn’t doing, it all comes swooping back in, picking me up with razor-sharp claws.

  It feels like Charity is right here, sitting between us. It’s tense and it’s heavy, but, somehow, it doesn’t feel wrong. Pix must feel it too because I see her shift on the rock.

  I wish I could protect her from everything bad, always. I want to protect her from drunk driving and asshole guys, of course. But I also want to protect her from the sadness of losing Charity. The guilt.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say.

  Her eyes glide to mine in the darkness.

  “What happened to Charity,” I continue, “wasn’t your fault. Not at all.”