Breaking Her Bad by Michelle Mankin

 

 

 

 

 

Claire

How many months does it take to transform a life, to make it so drastically different from before that it’s unrecognizable?

For me, the answer was three.

Three months ago, I followed my heart, naively believing that led to happiness. Three months ago, my life was secure. Now I knew there was no security, no happiness, no guarantees.

Don’t cry.

Gripping the cold, cracked porcelain bowl, I stared at my reflection in the pitted mirror over my aunt Addy’s pedestal sink. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. My eyes were red-rimmed, their light brown surface dull, their light extinguished. My mouth formed a frown. My lips were depressed like me.

Refocus.

The sink might be cracked and rusted, but it was clean. I might be depressed, but I took care of my hygiene.

I scrubbed myself and then the tiny bathroom. The entire apartment was pristine now that I’d voluntarily taken over the household chores while my mom and aunt worked. It was the least I could do. But cleaning didn’t take long. My aunt’s apartment was the size of our foyer back home.

No, Claire, not home. Not anymore.

Our house in Lakeside—along with my treehouse, our furniture, and nearly everything else my family had owned—belonged to someone else now. Everything had been sold at auction to pay our debt. Aunt Addy’s one-bedroom Southside apartment was where my mother and I lived now.

A gunshot rang out, and I jumped, scared. In the apartment, I was alone every night while Addy and my mom worked at Footit’s Place, the bar my aunt owned.

My heart thumping fast, I glanced at myself in the mirror to see my eyes were wide and shiny, reflecting my panic. Gripping the sink tighter, I waited and counted to ten to see if there were any follow-up shots like Aunt Addy had taught me to do after my first sleepless night alone inside her apartment.

“Don’t panic,” Addy had said. “Don’t call me or your mother unless you hear additional closer shots after counting to ten.”

“Like thunder?” I’d asked.

My dad had taught me to count between them and flashes of lightning to determine how close a storm was. The danger from a storm and the chance of being a victim of violence in Southside seemed equal in my mind.

“Something like that.” Addy had nodded, then she and my mother exchanged knowing looks.

Since we’d moved in, I’d noticed my aunt and my mother seemed to communicate telepathically.

Both middle-aged, Addy and Rachel were no longer teenagers. My mother, the younger sibling, had married and was already widowed. Addy had never married and remained single. She’d been alone her entire adult life.

I wondered if that would eventually be me. I felt more isolated than ever watching the two sisters resume their relationship where they had left it before my mom married my dad. Moving uptown, my mom left Southside, her sister, and everything to do with her former life behind. My mother had improved her life, but now it had deteriorated. She’d lost the man she loved, the life she’d led, and all she had left was me.

From my makeshift bed on the couch, I listened to Addy and Rachel talking together in the only bedroom in the apartment late at night after work. Their voices were muffled by the closed door. I couldn’t make out what they said, but the tone seemed warm. They seemed to be making up for lost time.

Had my mom’s marriage been the only cause for the rift between them?

Now that he was gone, that rift seemed to be mended. Or maybe it was just that they had forgiven each other. After all, once a sister always a sister.

Though, I wouldn’t know. I was an only child and would always be an only child. I had no hope of a sibling. No hope at all.

Bitterness stinging my eyes, I released the counter and laid my hand over my flat abdomen.

My cycle had been late after I’d had sex with Kyle, but I hadn’t said anything to anyone. Who would I tell? Depressed and grieving, I’d first been scared, then eventually comforted to think that maybe I would have a child, someone to love who was a little bit of Kyle and all my own. But I didn’t get that comfort.

Don’t cry.

The second time I told myself that was less effective than the first. My eyes burned as I stared into them. I wasn’t allowed to miss Kyle. He was in the past, like everything else good.

I miss you, Daddy.

There was still no answer to my pleas. From wherever my father was, and I knew it had to be a wonderful place, I longed for him to speak to me. I wanted to hear him say he missed me too. That everything would somehow be okay. I would give anything to hear his voice and have his arms around me one more time.

Tears that were never far off gathered. I closed my eyes, letting them fall. Silently, they slid down my cheeks. My tears were a familiar companion, along with the cold hollowness inside me. Wrapping my arms around myself, I didn’t bother to swipe the wetness away. More tears would only follow.

Today, I’d lasted almost a full twenty-four hours without crying. A small victory that felt more like defeat.

You need to sleep, Claire.I had school in the morning, my first day at Southside High. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I lifted my glasses from the small glass shelf. I couldn’t see far without them. And now we couldn’t afford the expense of contacts should I want them, or anything else to try to look better, to improve my chances of being accepted by a new group of peers.

Was there even a chance that I would be accepted? I didn’t think so. I was an odd duck at Lakeside High, and I remained an odd duck. Nothing would probably be any different at Southside High.

Sighing sadly, I unlocked the bathroom door. Even inside my aunt’s deadbolt-locked apartment on the third floor, I locked the interior door whenever I went into the bathroom. An additional lock was another layer of protection. In Southside, every layer could make the difference. Here, it wasn’t only locks, walls, and bulletproof glass that kept a person safe.

On our drive into Southside with Addy driving her ten-year-old Explorer and my mom in the front seat beside her, I’d learned a lesson about affiliations. While idling at a stoplight, I watched a shopkeeper roll back metal security fencing from the front of his business. Another man with the hood up on his sweatshirt had approached him. Shouting ensued, and the shopkeeper had shoved a wad of cash at the hooded man.

“Did that shopkeeper just get robbed?” I asked, horrified as I watched the hooded man run away and jump into a nearby waiting car.

“No.” Aunt Addy’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Not technically. He was paying for the privilege of running his business in La Rasa Prima territory.”

“I don’t understand.” My brow creased in confusion.

“La Rasa Prima is a local Latino gang. That shop is on a corner that belongs to them.” Addy steered the vehicle through the intersection and pointed to the gang’s name spray-painted on a vacant building. There was a lot of graffiti in Southside. “Every business operating inside their territory pays something.”

“Do you pay La Rasa Prima for Footit’s Place?” I asked.

“Not them. But I pay.” Her gaze moving away, her tone roughened. “I continually pay. But my protection comes from a different source. In Southside, everyone pays in one way or another to someone with more authority for the privilege of breathing air.”

I wondered then, and I wondered again now, who protected my aunt. And at what cost.

No answer coming to me, I exited the bathroom and stepped into the small but tidy main living area. Late at night, the interconnected living-dining space was shadowed and silent. Eerily silent, but I was grateful for that silence. Grateful for a place to live. Grateful that there was no more gunfire. After only a few weeks in Southside, I understood that there was a thin, fragile-as-glass margin between peace and violence.

Careful not to disturb that margin, I tiptoed to my bed. Reaching the couch, I climbed on top of my sheets and pulled my cover over my head. I removed my cell from my pajama pocket and clutched it to my chest. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Gunfire again. My eyes growing large, I counted to three. Angry shouting broke out that sounded like it came from right outside the apartment. But by the time I finished counting to ten, it was gone.

Breathe, Claire. Just breathe.

I glanced at my guitar, still in its case beneath the coffee table. Since my father’s death, I couldn’t bear to play it anymore. I couldn’t even listen to music. For me, music was a heart issue, and my heart was broken. For processing, I just withdrew into my mind and memories. I thought about my dad, my knight in shining armor in an idyllic world where I’d rarely needed one. I also thought about Kyle and remembered how right I’d felt with his strong arms around me.

I didn’t hate Kyle. He’d said I might grow to, but even with no word from him since that night, I couldn’t hate him. Midnight hair and starlight eyes, he was my dark prince from an enchanted dream. Our time together was a fantasy. It wasn’t his fault that I wasn’t who he needed.

I closed my eyes and imagined Kyle at a park, watching birds with the relative he’d mentioned who liked birds like me. Surely, Kyle was in a better place than me. Maybe he thought about me in that better place and remembered our time together fondly.

“Good night, Kyle,” I whispered, relaxing my grip on my phone. But though my eyes closed, I didn’t sleep.