Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye

Chapter 48

My mom insistson driving me home. Not to Gunnar’s house, which should be a huge relief, but I’m not so sure, but to our home. Dimitri gets to spend the day in the hospital with nothing but nurses in cute Halloween costumes, Jell-O, and the cracked bones to remind him of his biggest mistake of all: Whether on purpose or not, he fucked around with the Rayne family.

In a way, so did I.

I toss and turn in bed. The sun is rising, and even though I’m so tired and achy that I feel like I have the flu, I just can’t fall asleep. It feels like something bad is on the horizon. That crackling intensity is in the air outside like a storm is brewing.

Gunnar: Don’t freak out.

When I squint at the new message up on my screen, I start to, well, freak out. Because what the hell is happening now?

Gunnar: It’s just me.

My door handle turns, the door opens a couple of inches, and then hits the corner of my dresser. I hear a low voice, though I can’t hear what he’s saying, and I drag myself out of bed and lean my entire weight on the dresser, pushing it out of the way.

“Smart,” Gunnar says, and slips through the crack in my door and gesturing at my makeshift barrier. He pulls his hood down, takes my face in his hands, and looks me in the eye. I get lost, just for a second, in the swirling amber; the ember-colored bloom around his pupils. “And beautiful.” He bends down to kiss my lips. “How do you do it?”

A little uncomfortable, despite the fluttering in my stomach, I pull away. “How did you break into my house?”

“Your security is fucking atrocious,” he tells me, taking off his sweater and kicking off his shoes. “Spare key under the flowerpot, burglar alarm is four zeroes. A chimp could break in.” He thumbs his nose and smirks. “I mean, JJ Waller managed it.”

I climb back in bed, too bone-tired to try to get him to leave. Especially because I don’t wholly want to. “So you were worried about me?”

He slides off his pants, takes a second to stretch and crack his neck, and then gets under the covers with me. He takes me into his arms and presses his nose against the side of my head. “A little,” he whispers. The genuine sweetness takes me by surprise, and I relax all the muscles in my body I hadn’t realized were stiff. I let myself snuggle into his body.

“You smell weird,” I mumble into his t-shirt.

“Yeah, happy birthday to you too.” It doesn’t make any sense. I start to laugh, a sleepy, muffled hum. He laughs too, shaking underneath my cheek.

“What does it feel like to be eighteen?”

He strokes his fingers through my hair, lightly brushing out some of the knots. I must look completely awful, but when I dare to look up at his face, he’s staring down at me like it hurts to look away.

“Well, my wrists are red from handcuffs and my knuckles are cracked from beating up a friend of mine.” He looks up at the ceiling. “And I am starting to really worry that I treated somebody I really, really care about like shit when she needed me.”

“I feel like I warned you about this exact moment,” I interject.

“It feels awful,” he says. “I mean, really. I feel awful.” He raises his eyebrows down at me. “You should feel pretty bad for me right now.” I snort.

“And yet somehow I don’t.”

“Wow,” he jokes, hugging me closer. His voice drops so it’s close to inaudible. “Do you think you’re going to forgive me?” I don’t say anything, because I’m not really sure what to say. “I think for a little while I was trying not to believe your story was the truth. Not only would it have meant that you lied to me a lot when I thought I meant more to you than that … wait,” he adds when I shift my position and start to protest. “But it would also have meant that I’d, well, you know.”

“Turned me into the town pariah,” I begin. He winces, but he lets me rattle off my list. “Kicked me out of my best friend’s funeral. Pushed me down and drenched me in fake blood, burned my property, smashed my property, insulted me, libelled me, shamed me in front of everyone I respect in turn. There’s more.” I take a deep, heavy breath. “But I’m so tired.” I curl my arm around his chest. “And it’s your birthday.”

He doesn’t say anything. His breathing is uneven, like he’s trying to control himself. “What if I find out that I was right?” he asks me. “What do I do if it turned out that every rumor I defended you from was true? That I beat up Dom McMahon for having consensual sex with you? That you really did love to fuck around with everybody. What if you did really hurt Cole, again and again, sleep with people, laugh at him behind his back, and then when he killed himself you lied about all of it?”

It physically hurts to hear all of this laid out like that.

“Then I guess you would be free to hate me all you want.”

He finds my hand, squeezing it hard. “I feel like the biggest reason I started to believe you was because I was so ready to believe you wanted me and not him,” he says. “But you always did say I was arrogant.”

“It’s because it was true,” I tell him. “And the thing about the truth is that when it finally comes out, and it always does, it’s like a horrible rotting zombie clawing its way out from under all the dirt. It’s gross, and no one wants it there.” I pause, squinting up at him through sleepy eyes. “I forget my point, but that was a pretty cool allegory for a minute, right?”

He smiles up at the ceiling. “Baby, you know I like everything at least fifty percent more if there’s zombies involved.” It’s such a Gunnar thing to say, except for the baby part, that it makes me reach up to touch his cheek, and press my lips into his. He lets out a breath like every chaotic part of him was quelled in that instant, and he tangles his hands in the fabric of my t-shirt, pressing my chest against his and tasting me with the tip of his tongue. When he pulls back, releasing my lips with a sweet little pop, his eyes are wide with sudden excitement.

“What are you wearing to the party tonight?”

I laugh at that. “The party I was most definitely not invited to until, well, maybe just this second?”

He looks like he wants to apologize, grovel, wince, but he fights it in favor of a guilty smile instead. “Right, that party.”

“I was thinking … nothing.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he says, pushing up the hem of my shirt. I laugh and bat him away.

“Because I’m not going.”

He kisses me again, his soft, full lips crashing against mine as the rest of his body reacts physically to my taste. He hums arousal into my mouth, flicking his tongue into me, and his hips twitch upward with need. “Yes you are.” He fights with the hem of my shirt again, and again I replace it where it was. “You’re going with me. It’s my eighteenth. You’re my best friend.”

That’s insane. He’s insane. I squeeze his fully hard cock through his boxers and he groans, threading his fingers into my hair. “Is this what best friends do?” I ask innocently.

“It is now.” When I move my hand away, he moves it back.

“How are you not exhausted?” I laugh.

“I am, I am,” he says, gripping my wrist and grinding the length of his shaft against my palm. “It’s just one of my quieter feelings right now.” I shake my head, brushing our lips together.

“I’ll come tonight if you let me invite my new friends,” I say. I really do want to go. Especially if he keeps up this penitence vibe. He narrows his eyes, and for a second I feel put off. If he’s about to go down some kind of shitty elitism route, it’ll rub me too far the wrong way. I am mentally drafting how I’ll kick him out of my room when he responds.

“That’s fine,” he says. “I just want you to guarantee me a little time alone with you.”

“If this is some kind of scheme,” I say as his legs draw up, semi-consciously enveloping me as his eyes flutter shut, “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Sshh,” he says, smiling as he snuggles me into him. “You’re not my target anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, but his breathing deepens. It’s been an exhausting, long day, but I still cannot fathom how he has managed to fall asleep. I fall asleep, too, with my head on his chest, my body wrapped in his.

And wake up the same way.

It’s midday. We slept for maybe six hours, and now the daylight is strewn right over my eyes, rousing me with a grumble. His eyes open slowly, and latch onto mine. He rests his wrist over his forehead, blocking some of the light, and gives me an impossibly sexy, sleepy smile. His eyes burn a fiery gold in natural light.

“Morning,” he says, his palms skating over my back, my butt, and squeezing.

“Morning,” I say, and allow myself to get caught up in the moment, in him, and led closer until our lips are locked. Sleepy, clumsy kisses. How does he smell good in the morning? I want to turn away before he tastes morning breath, but he groans and deepens the kiss like everything depends on it.

“Morning,” my mom says from the doorway.

We spring apart. I yank the covers up to my neck even though I’m fully clothed. “Mom,” I yelp.

“Good to see you again so soon, Gunnar,” she says. Her tone is almost as icy as her expression. “Breakfast?”

He has the decency to look caught, surprised, but then at her clearly sarcastic request his face softens. “Are there pancakes?” he asks. “I’ve been missing your pancakes like crazy.”

My mom’s cheeks flame with anger. She steps aside and points at the staircase. Behind her I see Ulla, leaning over to stare at us, her mouth fully agape. “Out,” Jen Palmer barks. She’s small, frail, and sweet-looking with her flyaway hairs and a loose painting shirt on, but when she uses that tone, I grab Gunnar’s arm.

“Don’t leave me with her,” I hiss.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he laughs, hopping out of my bed like this kind of thing happens every day. “Can’t wait to see what you wear.” I wince at the way that could be construed by my mom right now, and he pulls on his pants, shoes, sweatshirt, nods politely to my mom and makes his merry way downstairs.

“What?” I finally get the courage to say, smoothing down my hair. My mother’s narrowed gaze could kill. “At least he’s not my brother.”

* * *

“Areyou sure we should be doing this?” Ulla has her hand rested on a popped hip. She’s dressed as sexy Beetlejuice, and I don’t even want to ask where she found that outfit on short notice. Striped short shorts, thigh-high leather boots, and a striped jacket. She looks amazing.

“Well, you don’t have to,” I say, breathlessly, pushing my window up as high as it can go. “You’re not grounded. You can walk out the front door.”

“Why are we going through all of this for a boy you hate?” she mumbles, ignoring my words and sitting on my swivel chair.

“I don’t know,” I admit. I look down at my t-shirt and jeans. “It’s complicated, and maybe I don’t hate him. If he’s planning something crazy, I want to know what it is.”

And I hate being away from him just as much as I always have.

It’s like a physical pain inside me; a pull. Some pressure that is only ever relieved when he walks into the room. And still then, it’s only a little. The only time it felt truly sated was when he was inside me. But I don’t have to think too hard about that right now.

“Plus,” I add, scrambling to pile on reasons before she can question me much further, “it’s the party of the year. Don’t you want to be there?”

She shrugs. “Sure, if there are nice people and good drinks.” That does sound good. “Don’t bite my head off, Andie, but should you be … pursuing him like this?”

“I’m not pursuing him,” I say hotly, but she raises an eyebrow at me. I am smoothing down dresses over my chest, staring into my full-length mirror. “I just have a birthday present I got for him a whole year ago, and …” I throw the dress in my hands onto my bed and groan. “You’re right. I have nothing to wear to a Halloween party, and very few people actually want me there. I’m being an idiot.”

Ulla’s face twists into a scowl. “No, no. Don’t miss it because they don’t want you there. Miss it because you don’t want to be there. But do you want to be there?”

I consider it. “I want to be there.” I want things to feel more normal again. I have accepted that I might never be friends with Larissa, Logan and Aurelia again, but I guess I’m not ready to accept that about Gunnar. Not just yet.

I can’t pursue a real friendship, or anything, with him until he knows for sure that I’m not lying to him. I understand that, though I’m still bitter about the whole thing to some extent. Maybe this fades away into nothing, sure, but if at the very least he stops trying to orchestrate my misery, I will count that as a win.

But I also want to be there just in case he does something stupid — again. I don’t know how many more stunts he can pull before his dad stops keeping him out of trouble.

And now I’m thinking about Ransom, and my skin flames with anger.

“Screw it,” I say. “I’m just wearing my favorite dress and saying I’m a …” I shimmy out of my jeans, trying to think of something scary in a nice, normal outfit.

“A succubus,” Ulla offers, clapping her hands. “Red dress, red lipstick. I will do your hair. Fifteen minutes. Where is Hero?”

“Barkley is going to meet us at the playground around the corner,” I say, double checking the time and hopping up and down to pull on the skintight dress. “Then we’ll swing by Hero’s. She’s super excited.”

“What a sweetheart,” Ulla says, standing up and lowering me into the desk chair almost forcefully. “She needs the distraction.”

“Hmm?” I ask, looking at her over my shoulder.

“Mm, you know, she was telling us all about her parents’ separation at lunchtime.” She tilts her head. “Maybe you weren’t there.”

“I didn’t know,” I say, as she scrapes a brush through my hair.

“Yes, I think that is why, this year, they had such a change of heart about raising her to be just like them.” Ulla looks grim in the mirror, teasing out a knot and squinting down at my flyaway hairs. “They don’t want her to grow up to be also miserable.”

“Wow, heavy.” We pretty much only just met, but I still feel bad that I don’t know her personal problems. It feels strange that she wouldn’t tell me, but I guess I never really asked. I’ve been so caught up in my own.

And she was more than happy to do whatever she could to help me.

I make a promise to myself to be as supportive as I can to her, whether she tells me or not. Five minutes later, Barkley texts. He’s early, hanging around the playground. I pick up my phone and tap something, feeling guilty to my friends for some reason.

Andie: You don’t have to keep being my chauffeur, you know!

Barkley: I’m just surprised I’m invited.

For a second, I wonder if Gunnar switched gears to make him a target, but that doesn’t make any sense.

Andie: We deserve some normalcy. We didn’t do anything wrong.

I chew my lip. “Do you think he’s going to do something really fucked up to Aurelia?” I ask Ulla. I spent a large portion of today catching her up on everything. It was hard not to; she seemed so invested in the whole story. I just didn’t happen to mention all the fucking. She gives a languid shrug.

“He’s the kind of person who doesn’t let any kind of slight go. He thinks it is his own personal role to make people pay.”

It hits me so hard that I lean back hard in my chair. Ulla tuts, brushing out the curl she was working on and starting again. “Oh my god, he’s the karma police,” I say. It means nothing to Ulla, so she doesn’t respond.

It’s been true of him forever. No wonder he likes that song.

That time Dom McMahon hurt me, humiliated me, was just one particularly violent example. There was also the time some kid pinched my ass in Math and told me it’d ‘look even better bouncing on his dick’, and Gunnar switched out slides in his next presentation with pictures of his internet browser history. Most notably, his affinity for My Little Pony porn. He never recovered.

There was that time someone from Westerley beat up Logan for spilling beer on his shirt. Gunnar called around until he found somebody who had inevitably recorded it, forwarded it to the guy’s upcoming internship, and got him fired before it began.

A kid called Ransom ‘Pantsom’ and pulled down his pants in front of everybody in Gym class. (I hate that that story made me laugh so much.) Gunnar got Larissa to charm him into sending dick pics to her, and then he forwarded them to the whole school. Including the kid’s parents. That was awful, actually; I told him that was way too harsh. He just shrugged and said, “People can do whatever they want, but they have to expect to deal with the fallout.”

I wonder if he ever thinks back and realizes he’s kind of a huge hypocrite.

“Look what I found,” Ulla says, leaning over to grab something from a box, and pulling out a headband with glittery red devil horns. “Goes with your dress.” She fluffs up my hair, and puts the headband on me. “Anyone makes one wrong step,” she says, and I nod, waiting for some words of wisdom, “just take it off and stab them with it.”