Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 13
If Pietro has contributedone good thing to my life so far, it’s his jacuzzi tub. It takes me a while to figure out the jets, and to dig out my mom’s bath salts from a moving box, but when I sink under the water, her relationship with him almost feels worth it. Just for this.
The whole house is pretty great, actually. If it was in any town other than here, or I was any person other than me, I’d be loving every minute.
After an eternity, I am finally warm and clean and back to feeling tentatively positive. If I look at things objectively, last night proved two things: Gunnar doesn’t actually want me dead, and also, that kiss. If you can call it a kiss. The hardness he pushed against me when I didn’t want to let him stop. I don’t exactly know what that proved, but I know it proved something.
I’m towelling my hair in the bathroom mirror, and despite being washed twice, there is a pale and sickly tint of color in the paler parts, in a splotchy pattern.
On a whim, and maybe feeling almost as crazy as everybody thinks I am, I grab a box of hair dye from one of my boxes. I was saving it for Halloween, for when I could think of a perfect costume, and Halloween is coming up, anyway. Maybe candy-pink streaks in my hair will get me expelled, which is a huge plus.
I set the timer on my cracked phone, wrap myself in my hair dying towel, and relax until it’s time to wash it out. When the timer goes off, I see more notifications. I’m about to delete them without looking, but something prompts me to read them. Barkley seemed really off all morning, and with a swirl of fear in my gut, I wonder if he might actually need some help. How awful would I feel if I had ignored him?
Would it be the second time that happened?
Barkley: I need to talk to somebody. I can’t talk to anyone else.
Cold fingers close around my heart and I scrub my hair as dry as I can get it, ready to head out. Even if I would almost rather do anything else.
Andie: Can you meet me near Oak? I don’t have a car.
Barkley: Shouldn’t drive. I’ll walk. 15 mins.
Barkley: Andie. Thanks for replying.
I turn off the cracked screen and look at myself in the mirror. The pale pink highlights look pretty damn cool, especially for something I threw on in the bathroom in a moment of desperation. I can’t wait to get suspended for it. I laugh, to myself, alone in the bathroom. That’s not something I ever would have imagined wishing for.
* * *
Barkley hasa bottle in a brown paper bag in one hand, his Letterman jacket slung over the other arm. He’s sitting on the swing in the playground, looking out at nothing. The air smells delicious, cool, and misleading. Like it wasn’t just storming hard enough to drown me.
“You look punk rock,” he says as I swipe water off the swing beside him and sit down. I snort.
“You look different too.”
Chris Barkley is the varsity quarterback of Westerley High, our rival school. The Redhawks. He’s built like a brick wall, six foot tall and some change, with a shiny shaved head and dark skin. He looks the same as he did when I saw him at the Palace six months ago, physically, but it’s impossible not to see that something has shifted in him. Rainclouds still drift overhead, and Barkley somehow almost blends in with the swirling grey sky.
I’m glad I came out to see him tonight.
“So, what’s up?” I ask, hooking my hand around the swing chain. “You wanted to talk?”
But he’s silent for a while. His head is dipped low as he swings slowly back and forth. He offers me a drink, and I shake my head. He takes a gulp and then shivers. “I keep getting death threats.”
If I had been expecting anything, it wasn’t that. “From who?” He fumbles in his pocket for a while. “Barkley.”
“Hang on,” he grumbles. He taps a few times on his phone and then shows it to me. I grab it. A long row of text after text from an unknown number immediately catches my eye.
Unknown: im gonna fuckin kill u
Unknown: hope ur scared bitch
Unknown: pussy
Barkley: Who the fuck is this??
I scroll up and see it’s been going on for a few weeks. Sometimes there’ll be a few a day, and sometimes nothing for a couple of days. But it’s pretty steady in its promises of violence. Some of the messages get pretty graphic.
“Who is this?” I ask, handing it back. Barkley continues his forlorn swinging. “Do you know yet?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” he slurs.
“Well?”
He turns to face me. His eyes are glittering in the lamplight with tears. His whole face looks puffy. “It’s JJ.”
* * *
4th Grade…
There are two other kids close to my age at the gala. One maybe seven, one maybe nine. The problem is, they’re both boys, and they look like they’ve been rolling around in the mud outside. Mom will never let me hang out with them while I’m wearing this dress. The dress she told me a hundred and twelve times not to get dirty tonight.
But she’s caught up in conversation with a man taller than anyone I’ve ever seen, with light hair and eyes angry as fire, and she pushes me away to occupy myself while they talk.
So I go over to the boys. One of them has hidden under the drinks table, but I can see his muddy shoes peeking out under the white tablecloth. The younger one is trying to pull him out. “Dad is so mad,” he’s whispering, but somehow it’s louder than I am when I shout.
I squat on the floor next to the kid, looking at his fancy outfit, and I smile at him. “Hi, I’m Andie.”
His eyes flick left and right. “I’m Jason.” Then he smiles to show me missing teeth. “Jason James Waller. 235 Brookfield—” The tablecloth lifts and I see one of the grumpiest faces I’ve ever seen. It’s a big-eyed, miniature version of the scary tall man.
“JJ, only tell people your address in an emergency,” he hisses.
“Sorry, Cole.”
He’s about to let the tablecloth fall down, but I catch it and make eye contact. His face is puffy and his eyes are red, but he looks angry, like the man with burning eyes. Both boys, and the man, have the same pale hair. JJ’s face is bright and shiny like the sun, but Cole looks more like a thundercloud. Other than that, and the size difference, they could be identical.
“I’m Andie. Are you allowed under the table?”
“I’m allowed wherever I want,” he says, a little rude, but I get on my hands and knees and crawl under beside him.
“I’m gonna go play outside some more, Cole!” JJ says, his voice cute and songlike. He gets up and sprints away, dirty shoes squeaking on the tile.
“My mom would be so mad if I got dirty,” I say, trying to be friendly, but Cole wraps his arms around his knees and looks like he’s going to cry.
“My dad hates me,” he says, muffled, into the crook of his elbow. “He said I was a baby.”
“No, you’re the same age as me,” I let him know. If he was Gunnar, my friend, I would give him a hug. I move closer, and I put one arm around him instead of two. Maybe that’s OK until Cole tells me we’re friends too. He doesn’t push me away, so I leave my arm there.
“He said I was a baby and he didn’t want me.”
“That’s mean,” I say. “Do you want to be friends?”
He lifts his head and squints at me. “Why?”
“So I can use both of my arms,” I say. It makes sense in my head, but maybe it doesn’t make sense out loud. But Cole nods.
“Yeah. OK. But Andie is a boy’s name.”
I hate it when people say that, but if Cole is my friend, he can say it. Just this once. I hug him with both arms and he sniffles. “Your dad sounds so mean,” I say again. “I hate him.”
“I hate him too,” he says. “I hate him.”
* * *
“JJ Waller?”I repeat slowly, and read the texts back in my mind. Some of them were so horrible, so graphic, and now that I put his cherubic face to them, I feel bile rise in my throat. “What the hell happened to him while I was gone?”
Barkley gives me a deadpan look, and I feel awful.
His big brother, his best friend, hanged himself outside a party. And no one noticed his body there until it was too late. He saw everything. That has to change a person.
But JJ? I remember he had his head shaved at the funeral. Tears threaten to well up in my eyes but I take a few breaths. What happened to him was so unfair. But had it really changed sweet little JJ into a monster?
Had it changed Gunnar into a monster too?
“People say he hurt a couple of girls from your school because they were making fun of him, or Cole, or both.” Barkley rubs his tired face hard. “He went to a psych ward, or maybe it was juvie. Anyway, he came out just when those texts started coming in. Did you see the one about you?”
My mouth dries up. “No.”
Barkley rolls his eyes. “Good, I guess. It was pretty disgusting. He’s telling people if he ever sees you or I again, he’ll …”
I can’t push the memories away. Little JJ playing soccer with us in the playground after school. He’s the same age as Ransom, Gunnar’s kid brother, and they always got along great, too. JJ was always so cute, with his huge blue eyes and round, pink cheeks. He’d fallen and grazed his whole knee pretty bad. Cole and I bandaged him up. I hugged him when he cried at the Neosporin sting.
“... he’s threatening to kill you.”
It’s so intense and ridiculous, it makes me laugh. And then I keep laughing, and I can’t stop, and tears are in my eyes. Barkley doesn’t even give me so much as a sideways glance. I remember Gunnar and I convincing JJ that we were us by day and a famous rock band by night. JJ Waller doesn’t threaten to kill people. He doesn’t hurt girls. He also doesn’t shave his head and try to lunge at me at a funeral.
“Well, that’s my fate then,” I say, wiping my eyes, still laughing. Barkley shakes his head.
“Just stay safe out there, Andie. Don’t go anywhere he might be. Just don’t tempt it.”
“OK.” My mouth is still dry, and I glance at the bottle hanging loose from his hand, dripping onto the wood chip ground beneath. But alcohol doesn’t feel like a good idea right now. “How, uh, how are you doing apart from the, you know, death threats?”
He looks at me again, face screwing up as if he’s going to cuss me out for such a stupid question, but then it relaxes again. He leans his head on the chain. “Real shitty, Andie.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I really mean it. I reach over and take the bottle from his hand and set it on the ground. It was leaking out anyway. He lets me, and lets me hold his hand. I try not to think about how bad it would be if anyone saw us right now. Really bad. “Barkley?”
“Mm.”
“I think you should tell people.” He sucks in a quick breath like I’d doused him in Neosporin. “I’ll be there, if you want. And you know everyone will be supportive. It’s not the 90s. We’re lucky that—”
“Fuck lucky,” he interrupts. “Maybe your folks would understand, but my pastor dad and his obedient Stepford wife? I’m already black. Can’t hide that. Already living in the poor corner of a rich town. Life is gonna be shitty enough for me. I just need more time to decide when to make it even harder for myself.”
I use my free hand to wipe my eyes again, squeezing his fingers. “Maybe in college,” I say. “I’m not just saying it for me, or for whatever’s going on here. I’m saying it for you.”
“I know,” he says after a moment. “I appreciate that you care.” He squeezes my fingers back, and his voice catches. “You always really did fucking care.”
* * *
Freshman year…
I lie on Cole’s bed and look at the ceiling, hands in my lap, while he finishes the video game level by himself. “I always die, always, at that exact same place,” I’m muttering. “I suck.”
He’s laughing. I push myself off the end of the bed so my head hangs off and I can look at him upside down. “You do suck, but you’re a girl, so you’re allowed to.” I flip him off and he gasps.
“You should decorate your ceiling,” I tell him. He cheers as he completes the level by himself. Not only did he do it without me, he just beat our last high score. “Gunnar has those stars and stuff.”
“Gunnar’s a nerd,” he hits back. I wrinkle my nose. Cole kids around a lot, and it’s fine because we’re all friends, but someone at school called Gunnar a nerd for real the other day and it made me so mad.
“He’s not a nerd. He’s just really smart,” I say. Cole swivels his chair and drags himself closer to me with his socks on the carpet. He bends over so his face is a couple of feet above mine, but upside down.
“Gunnar Gunnar Gunnar,” he teases, as if I’m always talking about him. I am not. I stick out my tongue. Cole tilts his head at it, then chews his lip. “Andie, you ever kissed anyone?”
“No way. Have you?”
He’s still staring at me. For the first time, I wonder if I could ever have a crush on Cole, and I find the thought strangely invasive and uncomfortable. Cole is one of my favorite people in the world. Crushes are for boys like Dom McMahon in the grade above. Dom is on the football team and has freckles over his nose, these smirky green eyes, and the kind of body you put on a poster. Dom made a kissy face at me one time in Spanish class. It made Larissa gasp so loud she started coughing. Larissa can be pretty funny.
But Cole has started getting into sport too, and I guess he’s cute, in a big-eyed, angelic kind of way. He does have really nice arms. “No, never. Do you think you’d hate it? Like, the tongue and stuff?”
A weird flip in my belly. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. It really could be either. “I don’t think I’d hate it.” I don’t want to tell him I think about it a lot. Especially after Dom made that face at me. I wonder what his tongue would be like; if it’s warm or cold or too wet. I think it’s probably nice.
“You wanna try?”
“Eww,” I say, flapping my hands at him. He laughs.
“Believe me, I agree, but aren’t you curious?” I shrug and nod, letting my hands fall onto the bed again.
He lowers his head before I can say anything else and kisses me. He moves his lips, slowly, willing mine to open and then he licks the tip of my tongue with his. My stomach flips again, harder. So hard I’m worried I’ll barf, or something, so I suck in a breath and move my head away.
“Not as gross as I thought,” I say, sitting up. My heart is beating so hard it might burst. Maybe if I keep practicing with my friends, I can be a really great kisser by the time I make out with Dom. I wonder if Gunnar has ever kissed anyone? Then I wonder why I’m thinking about Gunnar, and—
Cole’s head is lowered in his hands and his shoulders are shaking.
“My dad is right,” he croaks.
“What?” I ask, wiping my mouth and shuffling closer. I absolutely hate it when Cole cries. It makes me want to kill somebody. “What did that asshole do?”
Cole looks up at me, eyes shining. “I’m not normal.”
* * *
Now
“I was wondering something, Andie. And feel free to say no. But obviously I know you’re, uh, open to this.”
My face scrunches up. I need to get home, to bed. “To what?”
“The arrangement you had with Cole. Maybe you could do it with me. My parents ask questions. Girls in my school ask questions. Like why have I never had a girlfriend? Why have I never even made out with someone at a party? And I—”
I stand up, brush at the wet spot on my thighs from the rain. “Nope. No way.”
“But you did with—”
“And it was the worst idea of my life,” I say, holding up my hands. Barkley leans his cheek back against the wet chain, blinking his heavy eyes. I’m really glad he didn’t drive. “At the start, it was a mutual thing. I didn’t want to be— That doesn’t matter. But it wasn’t a lie on purpose, either. His parents assumed we were dating. Other parents heard about it. Kids saw us hang out. We just didn’t correct them.” I chew on my lip. “Barkley, that lie ruined my life.”
“And it killed Cole,” he mumbles.
My brows raise. “What?”
“Don’t you ever think about that?” He lifts his eyes to meet mine. “He killed himself because he was living a lie?” He takes up the bottle and drinks some more. “And now here I am asking you to help me live the same one.”
“Do you need help?” I ask slowly and clearly. “Is this you asking for help help right now?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “Thanks for asking, though. I always really did like you.”
“That’s OK,” I say, shifting from foot to foot. “I guess I’m gonna …”
“I loved him so much. I miss him so much.” The words tumble out and then his eyes are streaming. He’s wracked with sobs. One of the biggest, strongest people I’ve ever seen, and he’s unrecognizable with grief right now. I step towards him and hug him. I really hope nobody sees, because if gossip hits the town that Barkley and I are cuddling up, maybe JJ really will kill us.
After all, everybody thinks Cole Waller hanged himself because his girlfriend was sleeping with his football rival at that party at the Palace. That wasn’t what happened at all. I was talking to Barkley about an argument he’d had with Cole. About our plan for ‘breaking up’.
Cole walked in on his boyfriend talking to his friend. He knew we talked. He didn’t mind. He had said ‘Oh, sorry,’ and then he’d paused in the doorway and added, with a smile, ‘You know I’m sorry, Bark. Love you.’ Then he’d left us to finish talking.
Then he’d been missing for a couple of hours.
Then we found him.
I have no idea who started the rumor, who fabricated the entire thing, but there’s no way in hell it happened the way people said. No way it was my fault. No way he’d done it to himself at all. I refuse to believe that. He was happy. He was happy. We were all happy.
But here is Barkley, huge, imposing football star, bawling like a toddler. Somewhere out there, little JJ is sharpening his knife and thinking about gutting me. Gunnar, of all people, tormented me all day today.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I have no idea what anyone is capable of.