Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 14
I brushout the knots in my pink-streaked hair and take in my exhausted face in the mirror. I barely got three hours of sleep last night. After I got back from talking to Barkley, I was almost too tired to go to sleep. Not to mention, I kept thinking about what might be in store for me today.
I put concealer under my eyes, and then I make the snap decision to do my whole face. If they’re going to hate me, think I’m a whore, then they might as well hate me at my best. I drag mascara over my lashes, line my eyes with black, and paint my lips pink to match my hair. I step back and decide for sure that I love my new hair color. It’s a shame it’s only semi-permanent.
If today is going to be another ‘blood day’, or something like that, I decide I’m going to wear a simple black turtleneck and black skirt. Barkley was right, I do look kind of punk with my heavy eye makeup and hair.
I really hope he’s OK.
But I can’t think about that too much. I make a mental note to try to hang out with him so I can keep tabs on how he’s doing. Screw what other people think. In the cold light of day, I am struggling to remember why I cared so fucking much.
When I head downstairs, Dimitri whistles long and low. I could absolutely just bang my head on the wall right now, I’m so stupid. “Where’s my mom?” I ask dully.
“Ne zdes, sis.” He cranes his neck and makes a show of looking around the hallway. “It’s just you and me, baby.” The corner of his mouth turns up, flashing teeth, and he takes a couple of steps towards me. That familiar flare of panic curls up from my core and then my skin is cold and my mind is empty. I take a couple of steps back until I hit wall. He keeps coming. “Heard about your reputation. Heard from some pretty good sources what you got up to before you left Torrent Bay.”
“Your sources aren’t good, then,” I reply, but I can’t stop my eyelids from flaring and my hands from shaking. “I know what you’re talking about, and none of it happened.”
“Loose ‘n’ Easy is a really shitty nickname. If you went to my school it would have been something better. Something really fucking disgusting.” He presses his hands to the wall penning me in. “What’s it like?”
I lick my lips and don’t answer. My hands are behind my back to hide the tremble.
“To offer your body to anyone who gives you attention … and still be hated by everyone who knows you?”
“Fuck you,” I find myself saying. He smiles wider, moves closer. I’m reminded of last night. Gunnar had me penned in just like this. My knee flies up and catches him right between the legs. With a howl, Dimitri goes down like a sack of potatoes. He clutches himself and roars. I step over him. “What’s it like being college aged, friends with a bunch of high school kids, and living in your dad’s poolhouse when he fucking hates you? Does it make you feel like a big man to try to intimidate girls younger than you?” I cross my arms over my chest and pout down at him. “I might be me, but even I’m glad I’m not you.”
Shit. He still has to drive me to school.
“I’ll meet you in the Porsche,” I add hastily, heading to grab my stuff and get out to the car. Either he can drive to school with me in the car, or he can walk.
To my surprise, he gets in the car a couple of minutes later. I can practically hear his teeth grinding, but I don’t speak, and neither does he. Soon we’re at the parking lot, unscathed, and when I go to get out, he grabs my knee and stops me.
I hate being touched. I hate being grabbed. But Cole isn’t here. Gunnar isn’t here. It’s just me.
“Listen, bitch, if y—”
I take his middle finger and bend it back until he screams, but before bone cracks. “I spent the last three years in self defense classes so people like you wouldn’t get to touch me anymore,” I tell him. “So you listen, bitch.” I hop out of the car, feeling exhilarated, but terrified. Lightheaded. What I told him about the classes was true — partly. I took a couple a week for a while, but it cut into my dance class time. I don’t know how much of it all I remember. And I have most definitely never, ever used anything I’ve learned before.
I got lucky twice this morning with Dimitri. Something tells me I won’t be lucky again. Hopefully I did enough to convince him to stop trying.
The hallway is crowded as I head to my locker, but a few heads turn when I pass. One guy whistles at me — he must not know who I am. The thought of being looked at like this used to make me sick, but for some reason right now it feels like I’m walking on air. I catch the whistler’s eye and smile, and as I pass I see his friend grinning clapping him on the arm. Yeah, they definitely don’t know who I am.
A skinny kid with long dreads who used to sit next to me in History, Dallas, slaps a piece of paper in my hand as I pass by, then into everyone else’s hands as he makes his way down the corridor. ‘Dallas’s 18th!!!’ it says with a bunch of hand-drawn balloons. I carefully put it in my pocket, turning to stare at him. Is he going to come back, change his mind, and take it back? I wonder if that was a mistake, or if he really wants to invite me to a party.
Right now, it’s almost as if none of the bad shit ever happened. This feels so … normal.
It won’t last.
* * *
The first fewperiods are fine.
Then I have English Lit. I try to keep Larissa and Aurelia in my periphery at all times, or at least when I can, but it’s hard to do that when they’re sitting a few rows back and directly behind me. At first, it seems like nothing’s coming, but then right before the end of class, I am vaguely aware that the kid right behind me is leaning forward.
I turn around, wondering if he has something hurtful to say to me, but he leans back in his chair. There’s a light tug in my hair, and instinctively I bring my hand up. And I feel the still-warm, wet clump of gum.
It’s down low, far from the roots, but I make a noise of disgust as I try to peel it from my hair.
“Babe,” I hear Larissa laugh pitifully. “You’re just making it worse.”
I feel horribly like I’m going to cry. Not because of the gum, not because of the ripples of laughter at my expense, but because Larissa’s familiar voice almost genuinely sounds caring. I’m reminded of all the stupid fun we used to have together. Those evenings at Mint’s. Shopping at the mall. Wandering around the annual carnival and calling everything lame. Talking about the weird new shit Logan was trying in bed.
My hair sticks up at all angles, and I have to give up. I have this kid’s slobber and gum in my fingernails, and my stomach is roiling. I’ll see if I can do something about it when I get home, not too long from now.
I could ask Mr Rayne for help, but I don’t. He calls me over at the end to ask if everything’s alright. I could tell him about Gunnar tying me up and leaving me in a storm, too, but in the end I don’t. Partly because I don’t want to provoke Gunnar, but also partly because the most likely outcome is that the old field will be fully fenced off, and that would be kind of a shame. There’s really nothing his cousin could do anyway. When Gunnar makes a choice, he sticks to it.
I used to love that.
At lunch, I don’t make the mistake of heading to the cafeteria a second time. I grabbed a sandwich and a soda from the fridge this morning, but I’m not even hungry. I head to the library. There’s no way anyone I used to hang out with is in the library over lunch in senior year.
The first thing I notice is the pretty white-haired girl from the bathroom. She has her hair down, past her shoulders, and a t-shirt and jeans on. She still has a loose librarian-esque cardigan, but with the tight t-shirt, it looks cute. Hiding behind those loose layers was a killer figure. I settle into the seat opposite her and see she’s reading Neuromancer.
When she glances up, she does a small double take, and gives me a slight smile.
“Zero,” I greet her, pulling out my backpack and getting out some homework I haven’t done. I might as well. Maybe this whole year can just be a studying year. I could probably do with a whole year of extra studying, honestly. I used to spend almost every evening hanging out with friends.
For a second I wonder if I offended her, but she nods. “Killer Bitch,” she says. “Nice to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you here,” I admit, hoping I’m not being strange. I’m not used to, well, feeling lonely. “Thank you for being nice to me yesterday. I, uh, really needed it.”
She tilts her head to one side, thoughtful. She’s really kind of stunning, actually. A touch of makeup, maybe a blowout, and she’d be prettier than Aurelia. How is she not more popular? “I wasn’t that nice to you. I think you maybe had a low bar yesterday.” I laugh, but she’s totally serious.
“Oh. Well, yeah, I guess so.” She gets back to her book. I clear my throat, and she glances up again. “Sorry,” I say. “I just don’t know your actual name.”
“Hero,” she says, quietly, not making eye contact. I wait for the punchline, and she can tell I don’t believe her. “It’s from Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing. My father is a Shakespeare guy.”
“A Shakespeare guy,” I repeat, nodding.
“He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the bard,” she clarifies. Suddenly, I feel awkward about my own family. “And don’t feel bad. At least I’m not my sister, Goneril.”
I snort, and then cover my mouth. “Sorry. That sounds like STD medication.” Now she’s laughing too, though it’s a little awkward.
“It does,” she says. “It totally does.”
“So why ‘Zero’?” I ask, feeling bad about interrupting her reading time, but also kind of needing a normal conversation.
“I’m assuming you understand that it rhymes, which is obviously very clever,” she says dryly. “So do you mean why am I picked on?” I shrug. “I’m weird.” She looks back at her book, skimming another couple of lines before snapping it shut. “I just never learned how not to be weird. My father is a leading Shakespeare expert. He’s been locked in his study for my entire life writing nonfiction about a dead man.” I laugh again. “My mother is a geneticist. They pushed me into academia from a young age, and homeschooled me until a couple of years ago. I guess someone mentioned I would also need social skills to succeed in the real world.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. “So I’m stuck here until graduation.”
“Girl, same,” is all I can think to say.
“What, all of it?” she asks, puzzled.
“Just … the last part.”
“That makes more sense.”
“Not the rest. My dad isn’t an expert on anything. Also he left us. It’s cool,” I say, before she can apologize, but she doesn’t look like she was going to. “It was before I started forming memories. My mom was a pretty great painter, but now she gets sick a lot. She doesn’t really do much but socialize, maybe doodle.” I have no idea why I’m telling her all of this. She’s made no indication that she cares. Maybe that’s why, in a way.
But she is listening. “I’d have loved creative family members. Spending time with nobody but scientists means I do struggle to relate to my peers.”
“What about your sister?” I ask.
She twists her lips into a more genuine smile than I’ve seen her make before. “My sister is eight years older than me, and not a very nice person.” She throws a look over her shoulder, as if the rest of her family might be hiding in the shelves. The very serious look on her face makes me laugh. She’s interesting. Not someone I would have hung out with before.
I think that’s exactly why I want to now. But how? I remember how I became friends with Cole — I pretty much just told him it was happening. And Gunnar? We’d lived next door, our mothers were good friends, before Clara died when we were fourteen. I don’t remember either of us having a choice in that friendship, either. Relationships are so much easier when you’re a kid.
There’s something about Hero that makes me think the straightforward approach might be best. I lick my lips. “I don’t have any friends, and I’m feeling pretty down about it. You wanna hang out after school someday?”
Pink blooms across her pale cheeks. “You want to?” I nod. “I’m weird,” she adds quickly. “Everyone says I’m very weird. I don’t know how to be a good friend. My only real friends are my parents. I know that sounds stupid.”
I grin. “I don’t care one bit. Just don’t attack me. And try not to lie to me. I’m really, really tired of lies. We’ll be great.”
She thinks about it for a moment. “That’s really all there is to being your friend?” Her teeth scrape across her pink lower lip. “Your standards are low …”
“Andie.”
“Your standards are low, Andie.”
I laugh. She laughs too. We end up talking about our classes — she’s a grade below — and her family — her parents didn’t let her skip ahead in school, citing their own experiences with social awkwardness. “They’ll be so happy I have a friend,” she adds, and then blushes wildly, but that just makes me like her more. I guess I’ve always been drawn to people who, for lack of a better term, need me.
It might be a selfish thing, at its heart. Really, it’s been nothing but bad for everyone involved.
I’ll try to do better this time.