Breaking Her Bad by Michelle Mankin

 

 

 

 

 

Claire

At the end of the day, I closed my locker and spun the lock.

I was exhausted. I couldn’t ever remember being more tired. More than anything, I just wanted to return to Addy’s apartment, curl into a ball on the couch, and pull the covers over my head. My heart hurt, and my throat ached from holding back sobs. The only good thing besides Missy that had happened was that I hadn’t seen Kyle the rest of the day.

After shoving the textbooks I needed for homework into my backpack, I zipped it. Sliding the strap onto my shoulder, I turned around, relieved that only a few other students lingered. The corridor was practically empty. Apparently, most took off once school let out.

I’d been disappointed to discover there were very few extracurricular activities at Southside High that didn’t involve sports. There was no chess club or debate team. Choir or band, I wasn’t allowed to participate in both, so I’d chosen band. My transcript my senior year would be lean. My mom would have to accept that things were different here.

I glanced across the hallway at Missy, who was at her locker. Thankfully, she had a car and was giving me a ride to my aunt’s apartment. I was so relieved I didn’t have to ride the bus.

But Missy wasn’t alone. Chad’s palms were planted on the red metal over her head, his body leaning possessively near hers. There was something going on between them, though she denied it.

Chad was a nice guy and handsome. He was into her, but she was keeping him at arm’s length. Before today, I might not have understood her reluctance, but now I knew following your heart led to pain, not happiness.

My skin began to prickle as I waited for her. Nervous after what had happened with Belinda, I glanced toward the south end of the building and let out a relieved breath when I didn’t see anyone watching me from the La Rasa side of the school.

Turning the other direction, I went completely still. My heart nearly leaped inside my chest, and my breath froze inside my lungs.

Kyle.

At the northernmost end of the hall, he stood casually, one denim-clad leg bent at the knee. The sole of his black motorcycle boot was propped against the red locker behind him, and an unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth.

My focus narrowed on his sculpted lips, and I remembered how good his mouth felt pressed to mine. Knowing the truth didn’t change how he looked. He was as sexy as ever. Just looking at him made my body tingle with awareness. I remembered how warm his skin was, how hard his muscles were, the ecstasy he gave me.

What I couldn’t seem to recall was how badly he hurt me.

I counted one beat of my heart, then another, but he didn’t look away, and neither did I.

Longing swirled within me. Thoughts about him had comforted me. Every day since we’d parted, I’d missed him. Parched after that drought, I drank my fill.

I took in his handsome face and the refreshing spill of his midnight hair. Glossy black, it shone like moonglow in the day. His cheekbones were high, like he’d once made me feel. His jaw was hard, though, as hard as he appeared to be in this setting. He was my Kyle from the fantasy, but he was different. In Southside, he was all dangerous and not safe at all.

Yet I longed for his embrace, for one more kiss.

For a long moment, our gazes held, and briefly, I thought that within his was a desire that matched mine. Frozen in place, I held my breath as he shifted toward me.

Kyle.I begged silently, clasping my hands together.

He’d been hurt in the fight. A white butterfly bandage covered the cut on his cheekbone, and a new gray T-shirt stretched over his chiseled chest in place of the Led Zeppelin one that had been sliced through earlier.

Claire.His lips seemed to form my name.

I blinked, thinking I’d imagined it. When I refocused, all that remained in his gaze was a tempest.

“Ready?” Missy asked.

“Huh?” I startled, forgetting for a moment where I was, what had happened, what Kyle had said.

As I remembered, icy hurt smothered the longing inside me, and I focused on my friend. She gave me a long, searching look. Her eyes narrowed and she turned her head, glancing at Kyle and then me.

“Fucking Kyle. He’s gonna get busted for dealing on school property one of these days. C’mon. Let’s go.” Shaking her head at him, she hooked her arm around mine, turning me away. “My car is in the student lot. I warn you now, it’s nothing to look at, but it gets me from point A to point B. Maybe points beyond if I ever work up the courage to leave this place.”

“I’m grateful for the ride.” Proud of myself for the evenness of my tone, I clenched my fingers into fists so I didn’t glance back at Kyle.

“No problem. Your aunt’s place is on my way.” Missy threw her arm around me and steered me down the corridor.

Her steps were quick. She might not be serious about school, but she was about being on time for her parttime job at Janet’s Design, a consignment shop. She’d scored a clerk position due to a vacancy that had opened over the summer. Saving her salary, she hoped by graduation she would be able to leave Southside behind. Her dream was to have a clothing store of her own one day.

“You’re so lucky to have a car,” I said wistfully. We’d had to sell my Land Rover, my mom’s Volvo, and my dad’s Audi.

“You say that now.” She rolled her eyes. “Wait till you see it.”

As we stepped outside, a breeze ruffled my hair and cooled my body that had heated just from eye contact with Kyle. I untied his hoodie from my waist and set my backpack down on the concrete stoop to put it on while Missy dug a sweatshirt out of her bag.

I told myself that I felt only a slight twinge of pain as Kyle’s moss and evergreen scent drifted to my nose. What I refused to feel was regret about having his jacket and him being cold. Kyle had won the fight with Neto. Everyone was talking about it, when they weren’t talking about me.

Hearing about the blade his opponent had pulled on him made my heart skip a beat. But I tried not to think about what could have happened to Kyle, and instead focused on what he’d said. Comments like the ones I’d heard in the band hall had followed me throughout the day.

“Ready?” Missy asked, her blue top now covered by a Southside High basketball sweatshirt.

“Ready.” I gave her a nod and tried to look at my situation differently.

Kyle had my bracelet now. It was what he valued. I was warm and had his hoodie. It wasn’t an even exchange in monetary terms, but maybe I could convince my aunt to let me work at the bar, and then convince Kyle to sell me the bracelet. For now, I had to be satisfied knowing that Kyle had it and not Belinda.

“It’s me who should be thanking you, really.” Missy hooked her arm through mine again. “It’s a lonely drive by myself.”

Descending the steps together, we navigated the cracked sidewalk that I knew divided the La Rasa Prima side of the school from the unaffiliated side, where Missy told me Kyle reigned as king. Just on the other side of the barbed-wire-topped fence that went around the parking lot, she stopped and gestured to a large rusted red sedan.

“It’s a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme,” she said, and my eyes widened. “It mostly sat in a garage until the old lady who owned it died, and I got it. It’s not much to look at.” She pursed her lips. “The muffler has a hole. The frame is rusted to hell, but the bones are good. Or they mean to be good. Intentions matter, right?”

“Of course they do.”

Remembering our conversation from earlier and noting the crease between her brows, I knew the intentions she referred to weren’t only about her car.

I’d heard the terrible things whispered about Missy. Girls were mean, and guys were harsh. It made me mad, though I didn’t fare much better after what Kyle said. Opinions, their wrong ones, seemed to be set in stone like the faction boundaries inside the school. But I was more than they chose to see, and so was Missy. To me, in her case, it was obvious.

“So, fuck ’em if they can’t see past the way my car looks to see her functionality.” Missy offered me a valiant smile while coming around to the passenger side and using a key to unlock my door.

“Thanks.” I climbed in, trying not to wince when the hinges protested and rust flecks rained down on me as I shut my door.

I found and clicked my lap belt. Shifting on the oxblood velour seats, I tried to find a comfortable position where the exposed springs wouldn’t poke my butt. Missy had placed towels on her side over the worst of them. When she got in, her door creaked as badly as mine. I set my backpack on the floor that had a few holes in it, and she placed hers in the backseat.

Noticing blankets and a pillow behind us, I frowned at her. “Do you sleep in your car?”

Her lips flattened. “Sometimes.”

“That’s not safe.” In Southside, it could be a death sentence.

“It’s safer than the alternative.” Her icy eyes went dark with shadows I didn’t understand.

But I didn’t need to understand everything to offer comfort, so I reached across the space that separated us, a space emotionally that seemed to grow smaller the longer I knew her.

“Next time you feel that way, come to my aunt’s place.” I squeezed her hand. “Okay?”

“I dunno.”

“I do,” I said. “It’s just me in the apartment at night when my mom and aunt work at her bar. It’s much lonelier than a drive to work. You’ll be helping me out. Most nights, I get scared.”

“Me too.” Missy nodded, her expression bitter. “The world isn’t the fairy tale they make it out to be in all the stories they feed us as kids, is it?”

“No, it’s not. But there are pockets of good,” I said, believing it important to point out.

For me, there’d been my dad, my parents’ relationship, and the life we had together as a family before it all went bad. I also wanted to place the night in the treehouse with Kyle in the good category. If I left out what happened today, I could do that, so I did. He never had to know how often I retreated into that memory.

I smiled at her. “You’re one of those good pockets, Missy.”

Missy was a blessing I hadn’t expected to find, but I planned to hold on to her. In my mind, I tucked her into a metaphorical pocket near my heart for safekeeping, but I was no longer naive. There were real dangers in Southside, and I was prepared to keep her safe for real if necessary.

She looked down, and I knew she didn’t believe me.

“It’s the truth,” I said firmly but gently. “I hope you’ll allow me a chance to be good in your life too.”

“Friends?” She lifted her head, her eyes bright with emotion. “Even though I’m a—”

“Friends. Me and you. What anyone else thinks or says about us is irrelevant.”

It wasn’t completely irrelevant. We both knew that the opinions of others could cut deeply.

Missy’s expression turned solemn. “We’ll make it irrelevant. Me and you.”

I nodded. “Starting today.”

“Starting right now.” She gave me a pointed look. “So, you need to tell me about you and Kyle.”