A Shattered Heart

Afraid I would follow through with the rage that was taunting me, I abruptly turned on heel and strode down the shallow steps of the porch. Each step brought me some measure of control.

  "Kat." Her voice was whisper soft and yet it pierced through my head. I paused in mid-step but didn't turn around. "I love you more than butter bread," I heard her say. The ground around me tilted for a moment. I wondered if Satan was finally ready to claim me. My eyes slammed closed and I gripped the railing so I wouldn't fall. She was the cruelest person in the world. Her endearment was the sharpest of knives to my chest. I could feel the blood gushing from the only functional part that still felt. She'd somehow managed to pierce the one spot that had remained intact. I moved a hand to my chest, trying to staunch the pain leaking out.

  Breathing shallowly, I took another step from her, and then another, and another until I was running away from her and all her knives. I reached my car at the end of the block where I parked, gasping for breath with eyes that burned for release. Tears would not come. Those had dried up months ago. My tear ducts refused to produce even the smallest of amounts. I couldn't blame them. I cried an ocean of tears in the beginning. Silent tears that burned paths down my cheeks with no end in sight, until eventually my eyes were as dry as sand and raw to the touch.

  Panting, I hurled myself into my car and threw it in gear, tearing down Mackenzie's street as if the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels waiting to devour me. As my car sped by her house my eyes caught a flash of Mackenzie on her porch with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her protector had stepped outside and was standing behind her. I slammed my foot on the gas until her house disappeared from my rearview mirror.

  The buildings flew by me in a blur. I knew I should slow down. I should be afraid of the consequences if I hit something. The thought of another accident should have terrified me into obeying every traffic law set, but the thought only spurred me on. I merged onto the highway without slowing. I heard the blare of a horn behind me and saw the driver of a red BMW flash me the bird in the rearview mirror. My only response was to push the gas pedal to the floorboard of my simple—what my parents had deemed safe—Honda Accord. I was sure if they saw me driving now they'd be reassessing the safeness of the vehicle as I wove in and out of traffic as if I had a death wish. At the moment, I did. I wished it was a bike like the one I used abroad. Mom and Dad assumed it was a safe little moped. They had no idea it was one of those slick motorcycles built for speed. It had hugged the roads and curves as if it was a part of them. If I had one now I'd be able to reach the speeds I needed to help me escape.

  Long before it should have, my exit loomed in front of me. The idea to stay on the highway until it ended at the Gulf Coast on the other side of the state was tempting but at the last minute I jerked the wheel to the right, cutting off a semi truck. He laid on his horn, nearly barreling into the back of me. I could see the trailer he was towing fishtailing. The sight was ironic. It was a trailer such as that which had been responsible for ripping my life to shreds.

  The truck and highway were left behind as I shot off the exit, barely adjusting my speed. Only when a light turned red did I finally have to stomp on the brake. My Honda came to a shuddering stop next to a car that my grandparents would have found suitable. I could see the disapproval on the man's face in the old fart’s car next to mine as my car ground to a stop with a squeal of tires. The air smelled of burned rubber from tires that fought to find enough traction to brake.

  Only as I waited for the light to change did I realize my hands were shaking. I eyed them curiously, wondering how long they'd been betraying the emotions rolling through me. I gripped the steering wheel tighter trying to still them. A horn beeped behind me. I glanced up and saw the light had changed to green. The judgy old dude was already puttering down the road. I watched his car disappear from sight as the driver behind me honked again, more impatiently this time. I could see him raging at me in the rearview mirror. I watched dispassionately as he jerked the wheel and sped around me. I was pretty sure he called me a dumb bitch along with a few other choice words as he drove by.

  I sat through another light cycle before finally getting my senses back in order. Dr. Carlton would be ashamed of me. I would have to doctor up the story when I retold it. If I retold it.

  The light turned green again and this time I moved. A mile later I jerked the wheel and turned into a familiar parking lot without giving conscious thought to it. The dirt lot was relatively empty—it was early in the day. The building that stood dead center in the middle of the lot looked like it had seen better days, like a decade ago. It was stout and windowless, which made it perfect. It might have looked like a hole in the wall, but by the end of the night it would draw a crowd. I liked it for its seclusion and privacy.

  Climbing from my Honda, I approached the building with anticipation. In a few minutes my emotions would be dulled. Inside those walls, I would forget the events of the day. I would be able to erase the familiar house from my mind along with the tear-streaked face I didn't want to think of.

  It took my shoulder and half my body strength to push the heavy door open. Light from the outside flooded the dim building, which was basically one large open space. A small office and an even smaller bathroom butted against the back corner, but that was the extent of separated space in the dank bar.

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light once the heavy door swung closed behind me. Fred, the bartender and owner, nodded at me from behind the bar that ran the length of the bar. He did not call out a greeting. That's why I came here. Fred was not one for idle chitchat, and since he ran the bar himself with the exception of Jaime and Pamela, the two girls he employed on weekends, Fred ran his bar as a one-man show. His alcohol was cheap, cold, and served without fuss. Best of all, Fred didn't care about carding anyone. His bar was far enough off campus to stay off the radar of the law, though I secretly believed he had an inner connection. Not that I would ever ask. Fred and I only exchanged words when I was ordering a drink, otherwise he left me alone.

  I shuffled across the wooden floor that was beaten up from years of wooden chairs and feet scraping across it. It looked as if it'd seen better days, like the exterior, but I knew Fred prided himself on having a clean bar. You wouldn't find puke in the bathrooms or foreign sticky spots on the floor. If he wasn't pouring drinks, he was cleaning up.

  Maneuvering around a table, I made my way to the bar and the lone stool that sat on the side of the bar. The bar jutted out just enough to allow one stool. It was my spot. I wasn’t sure if Fred scared other people away from it, but it was always open for me. Plopping down on it, I accepted the beer Fred sat on the counter in front of me without asking. That was why I came here. Words weren't necessary.

  The first beer disappeared without me even realizing it, along with the second one. It wasn't until I placed the empty bottle of my third on the counter did the events of the day begin to release their tentacles on my head. By the fourth one, I felt like I could breathe again without fear of my lungs collapsing in on themselves. The fifth and sixth beers became my favorites. They erased Mackenzie's tear-streaked face from my mind. By the time I tilted the cold lip of the seventh bottle to my lips, there was a nice level of numbness and I forgot the name of Zach's replacement.

  "How about I call you a cab?" Fred said as I placed the eighth bottle, which was now empty, on the counter. A pleasant buzzing had filled my ears somewhere between beers five and six, so it took me a moment to focus on his words. His face was etched in uncharacteristic concern. I frowned up at him, realizing at that moment I was slumping on the counter. Surprised to be all but laying on his counter, I tried to use my elbows to raise my torso off the bar. My elbows had turned into spaghetti somewhere along the way. I realized the last few beers had been a mistake. My cutoff was usually four. Four normally did the job.

  Fred was looking at me with concern. I opened my mouth to chastise him. He was ruining our arrangement. My tongue refused to work though. Someone had
obviously shoved wads of cotton into my mouth when I wasn't paying attention. The room tilted as I made the mistake of shaking my head to clear it.

  "I got her," a deep male voice said.

  "The hell you do," I slurred, pivoting around to glare at my unwelcome intruder. All air escaped my lungs as I took in the sharp, familiar features of the boy peering down at me with concern. Except he wasn't a boy anymore. When had that happened? And what the hell was he doing in Fred's? He wasn't old enough to be here. I opened my mouth to tell him just that but my stomach, which had dined on nothing but beer in the last twenty-four hours, picked that moment to rebel. The beer that had gone down so smoothly came up in a rush, soaking the bewildered familiar boy who stood in front of me—the boy I never wanted to see again.

  A horrified giggle escaped me seconds before I succumbed to blissful darkness that came in to rescue me. Darkness that protected me from the features of the boy who nearly gutted me.

  Three

  I woke with a building sitting on my head. A building obviously under construction, considering the hammering in my head. Reaching for my extra pillow, I smothered it over my face in hopes of blocking the pounding. The pillow did little to muffle anything, though, as I tried to sort out how I'd even gotten to my bed in the first place. The last thing I remembered was being at Fred's. Everything after that was muddled as I tried to recall my time there. My brain was sore and stubborn as I tried to pull up the events that had resulted in me ending up in my bed. I remembered consuming more beers than I probably should have. It'd taken longer to erase the day's events than normal. A brief memory of Fred looking at me with concern filled my head. I frowned into the pillow pressed against my face. Fred had offered to call me a cab. I now remembered that, but I didn't remember getting into a cab. A terrible thought began to slither into my mind as the reason why I didn't get into a cab began to materialize.

  I shot straight up in my bed, ignoring the stabbing in my skull as the thought began to unfurl, consuming every single crevice of my mind. My eyes skirted across my tiny bedroom, terrified of what I would find. I thought fear was no longer an emotion I was capable of feeling as my eyes jerked around my room. Only when I saw I was alone in my apartment did my lungs agree to let air pass again. I'd imagined it. Fred had called me a cab and sent me home. Plain and simple.

  Climbing from my bed, I left my room and scanned the rest of my apartment, making sure everything was in its place. I didn't remember entering my apartment, which meant the cabbie most likely helped me. It was only when my eyes moved to the counter that separated the simple kitchen from the rest of the room did I spot the note written for me.

  My heart was now mimicking the pounding of my head as I slowly approached the piece of paper. Without reading it, I knew I hadn't imagined the intruder at the bar from the night before. It took less than a few seconds to read the simple words scrawled across the back of a flyer for an upcoming rave.

  Kat, your keys will be in your dead plant by your front door. I'll put them there after I lock up. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw you at Fred's. Call me. I want to catch up.

  PS: I think you need a new lock.

  ~Brian

  His number was scrawled at the bottom of the note. Not that I needed it. I'd had his cell phone number for years. I still remembered how excited he was when his parents gave him his own phone for his fifteenth birthday. Dan had razzed him about it, saying it wasn't that big a deal, though we all saw how much Dan had puffed up when he'd gotten his own phone exactly a year before for his own birthday.

  Dan and Brian. Closer than any two brothers I'd ever seen. Exactly one year separated them in age. My own group had included Brian when we were younger, but once we hit school his difference in age began to make a difference. Because of my relationship with Dan, I saw Brian more than the others. As we became teenagers the gap in our ages became even more pronounced. Brian was left to his own devices in elementary school his last year, and he was just adjusting to middle school when we were all heading to high school. Dan was all about music and becoming a musician at the time, while Brian had taken the athletic route. Once he hit high school, football consumed his life. During his sophomore and junior years, Brian gravitated toward Zach, who was a football god in his eyes.

  Brian had been there that night—after our graduation. He'd beamed at all of us with pride as we loaded up in Zach's SUV and left him behind once again, like we'd been doing for years. My thoughts had been so wrapped up in Dan that night I never even gave it a thought. I didn't see Brian again until the funeral.

  June 2013

  I tugged at the high collar of the black dress I was wearing. The material was hugging my neck too tightly—making it hard to swallow. A small voice in the back of my mind reminded me that not being able to swallow had nothing to do with the stiff fabric that encircled my neck but everything to do with the fist-sized lump lodged in my throat. A lump that refused to be dislodged no matter how many times I swallowed. It was filled with the endless river of tears I was trying to hold at bay as I sat sandwiched between Mom and Dad, who insisted on sitting too close to me. It was as if they felt their closeness would hold me together as I stared at the three caskets near the minister.

  The parents decided to do a shared memorial service. Their final tribute to our friendship. I think they figured we could all get our grief over with in one fell swoop instead of dragging it through three separate services.

  They were either naive or stupid.

  Having a shared service was the ultimate blow to my heart. It was glaringly obvious as my parents led me to the front pew that I was the only one from our group there. Zach was in a coma with a broken back, and Mackenzie was recovering from her own injuries. The sour taste of bitterness filled my mouth. I was jealous they still had each other. They would be able to lean on each other through this, but I had been left alone.

  The mahogany box in the middle held the only boy I had ever loved.

  Tears streaked my face as Tracey's father got up to speak. His voice was thick with tears, and I could hear her mother sobbing next to Mom. Their pain saturated the room so thickly I was surprised the walls weren't streaked in it.

  Sobbing filled the church. I began to doubt its capability of containing so much grief in one structure. Maybe it would implode, taking all of us with it. I wished it would. Anything would be better than seeing the three identical wooden boxes for even one second longer.

  I could hear someone wailing in the next pew—Jessica's mom. It was a siren of pain filling the church, piercing every heart that beat within the walls. It was the cry of loss and suffering. Heavy and suffocating, it dragged me in. The lump in my throat became a brick, making it hard to even breathe. I gasped, trying to drag air into my lungs, which seemed to be closing in on themselves. Maybe I was dying. Is this what death felt like? Did Tracey know she was dying in those milliseconds before her head slammed into the window? Did Jessica feel her neck snap and know that the end was there? Did Dan …? I couldn't even think the thought. I did not want to remember what happened to my Dan, the other half of me. The person who knew me better than I knew myself. The person who could always make me laugh. He had lost that ability. Dan would never make me laugh again. The thought was a tsunami of pain crushing me—obliterating everything in its path.

  Unable to handle the sounds of sobbing in the room a second longer, I surged to my feet and stumbled for the emergency exit positioned near where we were sitting. I wondered if its placement was deliberate. Did the engineer know that one day some broken girl would need it as an escape?

  I shoved the door open as betraying sunlight bathed my face. It should have been dark and stormy out, not bright and sunny. God was an asshole. We deserved weather to match our grief. Didn't he owe us that after what he'd taken from us? I hated him for doing this to me. How dare he take everything I'd ever loved.

  I dropped my hands to my knees, bending over and trying to catch my breath. The lump refused to budge as a torrent of
sobs tore through me. My sobs filled my ears—thundering. I didn't hear the door open or realize I wasn't alone until a pair of arms wrapped around me—holding me up, trying to ease my pain. I wept against the hard chest of the boy who was hurting as much as me. I was hardly able to stand, but Brian had the strength I didn't as he held us both up. His own tears fell hot and fast against my neck. I could feel him shaking with his own pain.

  Our shared tears drowned me, holding me under. Pushing me to the bottom of a dark abyss. My heart refused to beat normally—it laid in tatters in my chest. I knew I would not survive. How could I? I was now missing a vital organ.

  I had to leave. I needed to get away from there. I needed to find a place where I could breathe again. I wrenched myself from Brian's arms and turned on heel. I did the only thing I could do.

  I ran.

  I ran from the pain.

  I ran from the memories.

  I ran from the life that no longer existed for me.

  I didn't stop running until an ocean separated me and that old life. Only when miles of ocean separated me was I able to breathe again.

  All the memories of that day crashed down on me as I held Brian's note clutched in my hand. I tried to recall the events of the night before but they were a vague, murky mess. I still didn't understand what Brian was doing at Fred's last night. If Dan was around he would have thrown Brian out by his ear. The thought was a sharp stab at the small section of my heart where I encased all my painful memories.

  Still clutching the note, I sank onto one of the bar stools at my counter. I rubbed my finger over the words written, each one made the knife dig in just a little further. Blood gushed from my heart, filling my lungs and drowning everything else.

  Living was a bitch. Lives that mattered were lost, and the survivors were left with scars they couldn't hide, except my scars all existed beneath the surface. Invisible to the naked eye. I'd walked away from the accident seemingly unscathed, but if you looked inside you'd see something different. Physical therapy would not help my scars. Nothing would. Not my family, not Dr. Carlton, or visiting ghosts from the past. The pounding in my head made it clear that alcohol wouldn't do the job either.