Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye

Chapter 35

Gunnar:Are you really sick?

Gunnar: I really don’t like that you’re somewhere by yourself.

Andie: I’m safely locked away in my tower in your castle.

Gunnar: It’s not funny…

Gunnar: Your Swedish friend just asked me if I murdered you.

Gunnar: Obviously I said yes.

* * *

He walks rightinto my room without knocking when he gets home from school. I’m sprawled back in the comfortable bed watching a thriller miniseries, and I don’t even look up at him. He kicks off his shoes.

“Damn, you look awful,” he says. “Sorry for doubting you were sick.” I stare up at him. His face lights up with a grin. “Kidding. Hi to you too.”

I hate that he can do that. Pretend that everything’s fine. I turn away from him, onto my side, moving my laptop with me. He sits down next to me and runs his hand down my arm. “I don’t have the energy,” I say. “Just leave me alone.”

“You have to tell your friends you’re still alive.” He climbs into my bed, gets under the covers, and I don’t even bother to move away when he slings his arm over me and rests his head on my shoulder. “You are going to go to the gala with me on Saturday, too.”

I turn around and meet his eyes. This close up, his fiery-gold irises are lined with black. His pupils dilate when I look at him, our noses almost brushing, then I look away. “I am not going to a gala with you.”

“No psycho plans, I promise. Abandoned or otherwise.”

“Then why?”

He rolls his shoulder in a shrug. “I have to go, and Ransom has to go, and JJ isn’t there. Which means it’s where you need to be.”

“I hate them,” I say. He laughs softly, and it tickles the hairs on my neck.

“I know.”

“So,” I say slowly, “no.” I’m not afraid of JJ Waller, no matter what. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea. It might be stupid, but I’m not forcing myself into situations like a Torrent Bay Elite fundraiser because of JJ.

“Well, I hate to do this,” he says, shifting against me, “but I can’t accept a ‘no’ from you right now.”

I turn again. “What does that mean?”

“It means I have a lot still in my back pocket.” I tighten, narrowing my eyes. “For example, maybe your mom should know the extent of what everyone in town is saying about you.” I wrench away from him.

For once, he is offering to weaponize the truth instead of lies. Knowing everything that’s been happening to me would break my mother’s heart.

“Is that blackmail?”

He raises his hands apologetically. “Just make this easier on both of us and say you’ll go.” I don’t answer.

He springs up off the bed and I pull up the covers higher, wishing I didn’t feel so cold whenever he stopped touching me. “Don’t worry,” he calls as he leaves. “I’ll find a way to make it fun.”

Manipulative, conniving asshole.

I can’t believe now how lucky I was to have him in my corner my whole life.

Andie: Are you going to the gala?

Hero: Yes. I have to.

Andie: I might have to.

Hero: Oh my gooosh! We can go dress shopping.

Hero: Can we do a movie montage where you burst out of the changing rooms in bizarre and inappropriate outfits and I just respond with a thumbs down

I smile at my phone.

Andie: I’m still going to try to get out of it… But yes, we can do that whenever you want.

My phone pings with another message and I open it right away.

Gunnar: Hey, not to confirm the psychopath idea you have of me, but meet me in the basement right now.

Andie: Uhhhhhh

Gunnar: Come on, live a little.

Gunnar: How are you ever going to be a horror movie protagonist if you don’t head to the basements and log cabins and abandoned shacks of the world?

Andie: That’s so inspiring. But I have to point out that it’s usually the cold open victim who heads to the basement without question, and then immediately dies.

Gunnar: Are you saying you’re a cold open cameo, and not the protagonist in the movie of your life? Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Gunnar: What’s the worst that could happen?

Andie: A bucket of fake blood, my schoolbooks burned. Trapped in a basement.

I wait a minute, then two, and he doesn’t reply.

I throw my phone onto the bed, but I can’t concentrate on my TV show much anymore. I lost the train of the plot, and when I rewind to the place I remember, I’ve kind of lost interest. I switch it off and sigh.

Today was nice. I needed it. But I’m already bored enough to go back to school tomorrow.