Broken (29 page)

There was plenty of grumbling when I
announced that the lab was over, but nobody actually said anything.
Rachel was waiting for me at the door as everyone else filed out.
She looked up guiltily as I made my way over to her.

"Did you have a good day? I haven't seen that
many people here ever."

If there was one thing that'd always pissed
me off, it was people who refused to own up to their mistakes. In
my mind not being where you said you were going to be, especially
after being so jazzed about it previously fit into that category.
Rachel wasn't making a good start.

"Why don't we cut to the chase, Rachel? You
didn't go to Les Misérables. We spent more than a week planning
what we were going to do on the way up and the way back, and you
didn't bother to show up."

Rachel's mouth opened and closed a few times.
She looked around, but we weren't the only two people in the room.
James was barely visible pacing up and down the far end of the
hall, so there wasn't any help there either.

"I'm sorry, I really wanted to go. More than
anything, but I couldn't."

"That's it? You aren't going to give any kind
of real reason? I guess I should at least be glad you aren't going
to lie to me. Unless you really didn't ever want to go, and were
lying to me all along."

Rachel seemed to shrink in on herself a
little. It almost looked like she was going to cry, which should
have made me feel bad, but I was too mad to care. I'd been
miserable the whole way there, and especially the whole way back,
and then she wanted to just pretend like none of it had
happened.

Rachel's lip trembled slightly as she finally
managed to get a response out. "This isn't like you. Why are you
doing this?"

Cindi used to do the exact same thing. Her
'woe is me, I don't understand what is happening' had always seemed
to work with dad, and it'd always infuriated me. It had much the
same effect now.

"This isn't like me? To stand up for myself
when I find out who my real friends are? Please, you don't even
know me, and apparently I don't know you."

Rachel shook her head in denial. "No, this
isn't you. Is Brandon putting you up to this? He isn't what you
think, you really shouldn't trust him."

Now she'd gone too far.

"Brandon didn't put me up to anything. Unlike
you, I can actually think for myself. I don't know what kind of
sick hold Alec has over you, but until you do something about it,
you'll never have any real friends. He won't ever let you have
one."

She wiped away a pair of tears before they
could escape from the corner of her eyes. "You don't know what
you're talking about, Adri. You really can't trust Brandon. He's
not safe."

"Whatever. Like your brother is any
better."

I turned and went out through the exterior
door. I was all the way out to the parking lot before I realized
that I didn't have a way home. I was still trying to figure out
what to do, when I heard the deep roar of a high-performance
engine.

Brandon was clear over at the other end of
the parking lot, but somehow he saw me and flipped his car
around.

"You're looking just a little stranded."

"That obvious?"

His smile was just as radiant and reassuring
as always. "Only to someone who happens to know your entire
schedule, and who just saw what looked like Rachel and James leave
without you."

It was my turn to try and hide a trembling
lip as I responded. "Rachel and I had a fight."

Brandon turned his stereo down and motioned
me around to the passenger seat. "You ok?"

I managed a smile. "Yeah, I'll be ok. It was
just a really bad fight. I've never said those kinds of things to
anyone. I don't think there's any going back. She has to hate
me."

Brandon shook his head and flashed another of
his winning smiles, albeit one with an overtone of sympathy. "I'm
sure it isn't as bad as that."

I wanted to disagree, to go into detail about
why my life had just taken a turn for the worst, but something
about his manner was suddenly distant. I thought about calling him
out on it, but with my life suddenly looking like I was all but
friendless, that didn't seem like such a good idea. Without really
meaning to I'd managed to alienate just about everyone at
school.

Brandon already had plenty of reasons not to
be with me, it was the height of stupidity to give him any more. I
could probably deal with not having a boyfriend, even assuming that
was what we were right now. Going half a year without anyone to
talk to because my mom was wrapped up with her art, and everyone
else in the town thought I was stuck-up would be more than I could
take.

The thought was enough to leave me speechless
for the entire drive home. Brandon seemed content to leave me alone
with my thoughts as he sped around the various turns at speeds that
normally would've made me protest.

As I went to leave the car, he grabbed me by
my back pocket, which nearly made me shriek in surprise. "Hey, you
know what you need to put all this in perspective?"

"No, but then I think it's more than just a
matter of my perspective being off." My fear of alienating him had
almost vanished in the rush of indignation over how he'd grabbed
me. I wanted to say something even more snarky, but there was just
enough worry left to curb my tongue. Mostly.

"You need to come to the party Friday
night."

"You mean the monthly kegger?"

Brandon shook his head, still flashing the
grin that made it almost impossible to remain mad at him. "No, the
monthly full moon 'kegger' happened last weekend. This is just a
party to blow off some steam. We have them sometimes to celebrate
things."

"Like what?"

Brandon shook his head as he pulled me back
down into my seat. "Nope, if you want to find out, you'll have to
come to it with me."

"You know I don't usually leave conversations
midway through. You really can let go of me."

"Maybe, but I'm enjoying holding onto
you."

I forcefully removed his hand as I shook my
head. "Boys. You're all the same. Ok. Assuming my mom takes off for
the night, I'll go, but only on the condition that you behave."

I managed to make it to the door without my
knees knocking together, but it was a close thing. I'd been scared
sick when he'd been about to kiss me, but it had at least been
something I'd been dreaming about off and on for years. I wasn't
sure I was ready for the other things he was starting to imply.

Chapter 20

There were a couple of times between Monday
and the end of the week where I didn't think I was going to survive
having to worry about whether or not I'd be able to sneak out to
Brandon's party. My dreams had taken a decidedly odd turn. I'd had
the lucid, vivid dreams every single night, but my guilty
conscience seemed to be working overtime. At least that's all I
could assume. I woke up flustered, with vague memories of Alec. My
best guess was that I was trying to defend myself after having
argued with his little sister. If I was going to waste my time in
the vivid dreams, it would've made more sense to spend them trying
to explain my side of what'd happened to Rachel, but apparently I
wasn't normal enough for that.

I'd been all set to swallow my pride and
thank Alec for shutting up the two kids sitting behind me. Only
that'd been before the ride home all by myself on the bus while he
sped home in his little luxury car. Maybe I'd still have apologized
to him if he'd been in school on Monday. Instead, he'd skipped the
entire first half of the week, and by the time I did finally see
him, I'd backed myself so far into a corner, I couldn't even meet
his eyes during class.

Somehow I'd managed to make it through day
after day of isolation. Brandon's friends continued to more or less
ignore me, the boys without the trace of spite that I picked up
from most of the girls. Britney started another rumor sometime
about the middle of the week. Apparently I was now some kind of
closet drug addict who was hoping to get Brandon to fund my
habit.

Rachel hadn't been back to tutoring since
we'd argued, and I was picking up an increasing number of hostile
looks from people I didn't even know. Some of them were
recognizable as Alec's friends, but most of them were just nameless
nerds who apparently had a soft spot for Rachel, or a towering
hatred for Brandon's friends.

"Adriana Paige. Have you heard a word I was
saying?"

I looked up and blinked a couple of times.
"Sorry mom, I was thinking about school."

"I swear, you've become more absent minded
lately than ever before. As much time as you spend studying and
thinking about your classes, I'm surprised they haven't decided to
graduate you a year early."

I shrugged uncomfortably. Since mom hadn't
been interested in the things I could safely tell her without
getting grounded, school had become a standard excuse for why I was
so distracted.

"Speaking of which, when do they send out
mid-term reports?"

"I think they do them twice here. We missed
the first batch, and the second isn't until later." I still didn't
particularly like lying, but seemed to be doing it more and more
often.

"Anyways, I was just apologizing for leaving
you home alone on a weekend again. I ran into another trio of
hikers, and they told me about a new vantage point for that crooked
looking mountain I keep telling you about. It's on the far side, so
I'm going to hike as far in as I can while it's still light today
so I can make it there tomorrow with plenty of time before sunset.
I don't want to make the hike again, so I'll probably spend all of
Sunday shooting, and then hike back on Monday."

Mom paused in her preparations to put her
hand on my forehead. "You're not coming down with anything are you?
You've been so listless lately. Do you need me to stay home with
you?"

There it was, the perfect opportunity to get
her to stay home with me. It would get me out of having to spend
time with Brandon's increasingly annoying friends, which was what I
currently wanted more than almost anything else in the world.

Unfortunately I wanted to spend time with
Brandon even more than I wanted to avoid his friends, so there
wasn't really a choice.

"I'm fine mom. Just feeling a little run
down. I'll spend the whole weekend lying around reading and
studying. That should fix me right up."

I gave mom a wan smile, exactly the kind I
used when I was really sick, and helped her finish packing. I
wasn't sure whether I helped because I was feeling guilty, or
because I was worried Brandon would show up before she'd left.
Maybe I was just hoping to kill two birds with one stone.

It wasn't until she was finally in the Jeep
and backing down our lane that I finally stopped worrying that
Brandon was going to pop around the corner. He'd been smugly
confident he wouldn't show up before she was gone, but had refused
to tell me how he planned on pulling up at my house five minutes
after the coast is clear.

Half of me was strongly tempted to dawdle for
fifteen or twenty minutes, but with my luck he'd really manage to
show up within the next few minutes, and I'd have to scramble to
get ready while he waited for me.

With a sigh I ran up to the bathroom, brushed
my teeth, gave my hair the once over, and grabbed a light jacket as
I left my room. It wasn't even remotely as cold here as I would be
at home by this late in the year, but the oppressive heat had
finally started to wane a little. Knowing my luck, if I left it
home tonight would be the first time it snowed in Sanctuary in the
last two centuries.

More and more excited about the prospect of
going to my first real party, I bounced down the stairs and into
the kitchen for a drink. I happened to look out the window as I
pulled a glass out of the cupboard, and nearly dropped it when I
saw Brandon leaning against his car, patiently waiting for me.
Before I could move out of sight, he looked up at me with a
self-satisfied smile. I nearly dropped the glass again.

Twenty seconds later I was headed out the
door. "How did you do that? There was no way you could possibly
have timed things that close."

Another smirk as he held my door open for me.
"I told you. Great instincts resulting from superior breeding."

"Fine don't tell me. I didn't really want to
know anyway."

Brandon chuckled as he threw the Mustang into
reverse and sped out of the lane faster than normal. The stereo
clicked over to another song as we flipped around and headed back
into town. It was more of the thrumming beats I'd come to associate
with Brandon.

"I thought this place was in one of the parks
or something. Why are we headed back to town?"

"Wow, you really are a city girl. In order to
get far enough not to be busted by the cops we have to go really
remote. There isn't any way my car would make it where we need to
go. We're headed to Vincent's to hitch a ride in his truck."

'Truck' turned out to be an understatement.
I'd marveled more than once since getting to Utah, at just how big
some of the pickup trucks I saw driving around were. It seemed like
nobody was willing to drive anything around the way it came off of
the showroom floor. Everything had bigger wheels, and suspension
that lifted it up several inches.

Vincent's truck had more in common with the
beasts in monster truck rallies than it did with the souped-up
vehicles I'd seen driving around town. The tires were the biggest
I'd seen on anything outside of a tractor, and the lift kit on it
was so outrageously tall that I was pretty sure someone was going
to have to lift me into the cab. By myself it was going to take a
rope and climbing shoes. Of course it was black. I couldn't imagine
Vincent in anything other than a black vehicle.