Broken and Screwed (27 page)

‘I promise. It’s better this way. I promise, Alex. I do. You just have to get up every morning.’

              So that’s what I did.

             
At first I didn’t notice much. School seemed the same. Angie would tell me later that everyone knew about our fight with Marissa. She became best friends with Sarah Shastaine. When I heard that, I was dumbfounded. I thought that I would’ve noticed if Marissa had become best friends with Jesse’s ex-girlfriend, but I hadn’t. I’d been clueless. Angie told me that I walked through the hallways like a zombie. I was the living dead. And she also told me that Eric apologized to me about something in the first week. She didn’t know what he apologized about, but I had told her that he said he was sorry for something.

             
I shrugged at that information. I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember anything anymore.

             
Christmas passed. New Years passed. Easter passed.

             
I didn’t remember any of it, but I did what Angie said. I got up, showered, and I did what I was supposed to do. I studied and I did it hard. My grades shot up. My test scores went with them and when the school counselor called me to her office to offer her congratulations, it took me five minutes before I comprehended what she was saying.

             
I’d been awarded a full scholarship to Grant West University for my academics. I was the second student to receive a full scholarship and the third to receive a scholarship in general from there. I already knew the other two, Jesse and Cord. I was the third, but I knew Jesse had received a full scholarship, so that meant Cord hadn’t. He’d gotten something, but not a full scholarship. I’d forgotten that I had applied the year before, before I knew Jesse was going there.

             
Huh.

             
I should’ve cared, but I didn’t. I left the office that day, but I never saw the odd expression on her face or how she reached for her phone afterwards. It wouldn’t be until later that I would find out that she had called my parents. Of course, there’d been no word. They were still gone. Where they went, I had no idea. What they were doing, I had no idea, but I knew my father traveled for his job. I guessed that’s what they’d been doing, traveling for his job. I would never find out that they had gotten an apartment in the city closer to his office and that they were living there. They’d left me the house, but never told me. They never cared to.

             
I was 18; I had been for a year now. They didn’t have to tell me a thing anymore.

             
It was the end of April when Angie asked me a question that I had never considered before.

             
“Who are you going to prom with?”

             
My head jerked up. “What?”

             
Then she slammed her locker and raised her eyebrows.

             
“Huh?”

             
“Prom. You. Me. It’s in two weeks. Who’s taking you?”

             
“No one.” I blinked rapidly, for some reason dumbfounded again. Prom? I’d only been thinking about graduation, well, not really. I still hadn’t told Angie about my Grant West scholarship. I’d been holding that in for two weeks, waiting for the right time. It never happened. I never wanted to risk Angie’s wrath again.

             
“No one? Are you kidding me? I thought Michael Helmsworth was drooling all over you at the party last weekend.”

             
Oh. That’s right. I’d forgotten about the party.

             
Angie snorted as she slung her purse over her shoulder, along with her book bag. “What? Did you forget?”

             
I had. “No.”

             
She stared at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you okay?”

             
“I’m fine.”

             
Then her hand went to her hip. My eyes widened. I knew what that meant.

             
“Alex.” Her voice dropped to the no-nonsense tone. “What aren’t you telling me?”

             
“I forgot about Mike. Really.” I scratched the back of my head. “But I thought it was Carl, his brother.”

             
“Oh, yeah.” The hand fell away.

             
Thank god.

             
And we were walking again, towards the parking lot. “So, who are you thinking?”

             
“For what?”

             
“For prom.” Angie threw her hands up. “I swear that I’m having a conversation with myself here. Are you here? Are you actually Alex? Or did we leave you somewhere I don’t remember?”

             
“Yeah, Las Vegas,” I muttered before I realized what I said. Then my hand clamped over my mouth and I stopped in my tracks. I had not said that. I really hadn’t.

             
But Angie grew quiet and looked away.

             
I had said it.

             
When she turned back, I wasn’t expecting the tremor in her voice as she rasped out, “I’m sorry, okay? I thought it was for the best if you and he stopped doing whatever it was that you were doing. I didn’t expect for you to be like a zombie again.”

             
A baseball formed in my throat and I swallowed it away. It was painful as it slipped down, but I mustered up a tentative smile. “It’s okay, Ang. I was going to end it with him anyway. I just did it ten hours earlier than I had planned. That’s it.”

             
“Really?”

             
I touched her hand and she held onto it tightly. “Really.”

             
She let out a deep breath of air. “Thank god. You don’t know how guilty I’ve felt since that trip, not to mention Marissa.” She sneered as we went past the name-we-rarely-used’s locker. And she was there. She straightened with a book in hand and glared back, but her eyes flickered as they rested on me for a second. Sarah Shastaine cleared her throat behind her and the name-we-rarely-used turned her back to us.

             
That was the most interaction we’d had with her since Thanksgiving break.

             
“Ugh,” Angie growled. “She drives me crazy.”

             
“Yeah, that happens when people suddenly drop out of your life with no explanation.” There was heat to my words and I was surprised at myself. Where had that come from?

             
“What’d you say?”

             
“Nothing.”

             
“Oh. Okay. Well…” We approached the parking lot now and she paused by the door. “If no one’s asked you, then I think you should ask someone. What about Eric?”

             
My stomach dropped. “Like hell.” He already had chewed me out once. I wasn’t giving him another reason to do it again. Eric and I were better left forgotten, like everything else in my life.

             
“Okay.” She grinned. “But he asked Justin about you at baseball practice. He wanted to know if you were still with Jesse.”

             
“Really?”

             
She nodded and then pushed through the door. The sun was blinding, but the air immediately rushed at us. The air conditioning inside was cool, but I warmed up as soon as we took another step outside. “So I think you should go to his party with us tonight. Talk to him there.”

             
“Talk to Eric?”

             
“Yeah. He and Brianna broke up. Can you believe he dated that cheerleader?” She snorted. “Although, I think he did it to piss off Marissa since they’re on the same squad together.”

             
“Good,” I murmured. I meant it.

             
“Yeah…” Angie’s eyes had taken on a thoughtful look to them. She was biting her lip.             

             
I readied myself. She had something on her mind and she was going to say it. I knew the signs like the back of my hand by now.

             
“So.”

             
Here we go.

             
“What happened to your parents, Alex?”

             
Dread filled me, but I forced my tone to be casual. “What do you mean?”

             
“I mean…” She looked around and inched closer. Her voice dropped low. “The counselor called me into her office today. She said she’d been trying to reach your parents, but she can never get a hold of them.”

             
“What’d you say?”

             
“Nothing. I mean, I don’t know anything. I know they went on that trip, but to be honest, I haven’t seen them since. That’s weird, Alex. Really, really weird. Are your parents around? Please tell me they’re around.”

             
“My dad travels for his job. You know that.”

             
“Yeah, but he wasn’t gone all the time. He was gone some of the time and your mom was always around. How is your mom? No one knows about what happened to her. I only knew because my cousin told me and it was her friend who mentioned it to her. She knew I was close with you, but please tell me that I’m exaggerating. I come over twice a week and you’re always alone.”

             
I jerked a stiff shoulder up. What lie would sound normal here? And then I was disgusted at myself. “Just leave it alone, Ang. Okay? I don’t want to talk about my parents right now.”

             
“But—”

             
“I mean it,” I interrupted her. I shouldn’t have to cover for my parents or lie that they hadn’t ditched me. That wasn’t my lie to tell, that was theirs and I had some pride not to cover for them. So what if they abandoned me? It was for the best. It had to be for the best.

             
“Okay.” She held her hands up in surrender. “I won’t bring ‘em up again. Promise.”

             
“Good.” That’s what I wanted, but why didn’t I feel good about it?

             
“You work tonight, right?”

             
I nodded.

             
“When do you get done?”

             
“I close with Ben at 9:00 tonight.”

             
She chewed at her lip. She was thinking again.

             
I sighed, “What is it?”

             
“I’ll come over at 9:30? Will you be ready by then?”

             
“What about Justin?”

             
“He’s got the baseball game. Some of the guys want to start as soon as they’re done, so I figure I’ll be driving tonight anyway. I’d rather take my car.”

             
“Or I could pick you up and you can drive his car home? You don’t have to worry about both of your cars.”

             
“Yeah.” She bobbed her head in an easy agreement. “That sounds like a plan. See you at 9:30. Maybe bring Ben?”

             
Both of us laughed at that idea. If I knew my co-worker he’d be bouncing up and down at the idea of going with us. He proved me right when I asked him at the end of our shift. He was clapping, giggling, and planning his outfit at the same time.

             
We got to Angie’s late because Ben made me pick him up from his house first. He wanted to ‘bond’ with the girls and he wanted a ride home that night. When Angie got in the car, his clapping and giggling happened again. He wiggled his eyebrows in the air and announced how excited he was to get drunk that night. He was hoping for a little titty twister from his ‘lush babies’. Angie and I never asked who he meant, but I had a good suspicion that I’d find out by the end of the night.

             
When we got to Eric’s house, I was surprised at how long it had been since my last time there. His home was a white, two-story, ranch-style home. The front patio wrapped around the house and I saw that the rooms were as big as I remembered.

             
Someone ran into Angie, who glared. “Excuse you.”

             
The person flipped her black hair over her shoulder and revealed her face. I didn’t need to see who it was. I already knew it was Marissa. Only she could wear a brown tank top with black cropped pants and look hot in it.

             
She’d been laughing, but that vanished immediately. Her eyes went dead and she straightened. “Excuse you.”

             
“No.” Angie blocked her as she started to go around. “Excuse you, bitch.”

             
Marissa drew back. Her jaw stiffened, her mouth flattened, and she tightened her grip on her cup. When she started to move her arm back, I hurried and got between them. I knew Marissa’s signs too; she’d been about to throw her beer on Angie. That would not have been good.