Flawless//Broken (2 page)

“It’s not her. It’s the whole club thing. Can you at least
try
to have fun, Mia? Please? For me?”

“Me and fun don’t exactly mix,” I put my napkin in my lap. A family across the way is eating, and the little boy is staring at me. At my scar.

“We both know that’s a lie,” She smirks. “What about the old days, huh? Kids at our high school
still
talk about that party at Riley’s.”

“That was three years ago. In dog years that’s like…twenty-eight years. Practically
ages
. I’ve changed.”

“Maybe not for the better,” Ellie mumbles.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m just worried about you, okay?” She leans in, eyes concerned. “Can I be that? Is that okay?”

“Yeah, but –”

“You’ve curled in on yourself, Mia. And I don’t blame you, after…after what happened. But I thought at least here you’d – at least away from your dad you’d, I dunno, loosen up? It’s not like he owns where you’re sleeping anymore, or your car. You’re free.”

I stare at the menu’s cheery pictures of oil-soaked omelets and sausage. The little kid pulls at his dad’s sleeve and points to me. My scar throbs.

“I guess - ” I murmur. “ - I guess I have to learn how to be free all over again.”

Ruby comes with our waters and a smile that breaks our tense quiet. She whips out a notepad.

“What can I get you girls?”

I try to smile, and my throat wants to order a new start, a new brain, a new body, a new heart. But I order fries instead.

PART TWO

TWO

Chapter 2

TWO

Something is wrong with this club.

But a lot of things are wrong with most clubs. Coke usually dusts the bathroom sinks. Someone is probably giving a blowjob in a stall, or in a dark corner of the room. People are getting so drunk they can’t see their own idiocy, let alone stop it. Lots of things are wrong with clubs. It’s why I stopped going to them.

I’m lying. That’s not true.

I stopped going because with every shot of whiskey I slowly realized I was becoming Dad. My hometown didn’t exactly love me for it. In complete contrast to Ellie, I got suspended at my high school more than I got asked out. I was the quiet girl in freshmen year, the freak. But in sophomore year Ellie dragged me to a party, and I discovered the wondrous evil of booze. It took six months. Six months of shots and too-short shorts, and I was forever known as the party girl. The hard drinker. The girl who didn’t know her limits, but tore past them at seventy-miles-an-hour anyway. In a town of ten thousand people, the only person who had a longer rap sheet than me was me - a clerical error at the police station entered me under Elizabeth Dicks when I was too drunk to remember my real name and the secretary lady was still new in town. I don’t regret those years, though - I learned from them. Or, tried to, anyway. In-between puking into toilets for hours.

We’ve been here less than three minutes, and Ellie already has tons of sleazy guys lining up to buy her drinks. Some things never change. I make a mental note to keep tabs on them in case they try anything, and they will try something, because Ellie is beautiful and sweet and buxom in all the right ways. She walks over to our table and passes a margarita off on me with a wink.

“Virgin.”

“Thanks.” I smile. “It’s nice of you to remember.”

“Of course I remember!” She takes a sip of her White Russian. “I’m so jealous of your willpower. I wouldn’t last a weekend without at least wine.” The music changes to something with hard bass, and she jumps up. “Come dance with me! This is a really good song.”

“You go,” I say and motion to my drink. “I’m gonna rehydrate.”

She shrugs and trots off, leaving me to soak in the cloud of cigarette and pot smoke hanging thick in the air like a scratchy wool blanket. Even in a slinky dress it feels like it’s suffocating me, hot itchiness stuffing down my throat and lungs. Strobe lights dance in arcs of blue and green lightning on the ceiling, the light glittering when it catches metallic makeup, throwing stars into the air. If I close my ears and drown out the crowd, it’s almost beautiful. I can almost,
almost
relax and enjoy myself.

But there’s too many eyes on my scar for me to ever feel comfortable. People stare like I’m an alien from the furthest asteroid. There’s something wrong with the club, too. Something in the air. I can feel it. Or maybe there’s just something wrong with me. I haven’t been to a club in years. Maybe that’s it? Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety about these sorts of thing?

I look around. Faces shining with sweat and alcohol bob and sway to the music.They all look the same.

And then my eyes catch on someone.

‘Someone’ is too vague a word for this guy. He’s not a someone. He’s Someone, the kind of Someone that sticks for weeks and weeks after you make eye contact, his echoes reverberating as an insidious, tantalizing ‘what if’ in your mind. He’s tall and lean and sinfully good-looking in a black sweater and jeans. He’s beautiful. And I don’t say a man is beautiful lightly - or ever. Men don’t impress me. But this one does. Barely. And only because of his looks, which doesn’t count for much in my book. Most beautiful people are hollow inside, like a fruit bugs have eaten from within. My mom is the star example of the rule. Ellie is the one and only exception.

I shake my head and focus, trying to see him better through the darkness and smoke. The man’s white-blonde hair is long and sleek like silk, most of it tied back in a low ponytail, the kind that looks stupid on most people but somehow comes off as incredibly hot on him. His hazel eyes are a heated mix of melting gold and cinnamon. I could cut myself in a thousand pieces on his razor-sharp cheekbones. But he’s not the sort of man you touch. His face is set, collected, and serious. His height alone is intimidating, but combined with his relaxed posture he resembles a reclining lion - regal and deadly. He gives off an air of the sort of man who does the touching, exactly when - and where - he pleases. The drop-dead gorgeous brunette at his side is the only reason he isn’t being hit on like a baseball in the World Series right now. Her silver-sequined dress is stunning, some sort of delicate chainmail overlaying her arms and the exposed skin of her neck. She and Ellie share a body-type; long-limbed and supple, with more curves than a mountain highway. Add the way the woman carries herself like an elven queen, and the rest of the girls in this club have their egos crushed before they can even try to strike up a conversation with the blonde man.

I watch an especially foolhardy frat-boy in a tilted cap and sagging jeans walk up to the woman and say something. He’s obviously confident, flashing a bottle of Dom Perignon as, what, a bribe? A lure? A show-off? Whatever it is, the woman ignores him coolly and sips her Tom Collins. Instead of shrinking away the frat boy puffs his chest out and starts shouting. I can barely hear him over the music. The woman locks eyes with his furiously yelling face, but her expression is calm - more amused than it is surprised. The blonde man instantly stands, his full height coming between the frat-boy and her. He’s gotta be at least 6’3, maybe 6’4. His face doesn’t change either, keeping a chilly expression as he leans in and says something to the frat-boy.

It’s a split-second change. The frat-boy’s red face drains to white, and he goes still, rigid, and darts back into the crowd, nervously looking over his shoulder the entire time. The blonde man settles in his seat, and the woman smiles at him not with gratitude, but with pride. The kind of pride reserved for rich old men looking at their hunting dogs.

“Who’re you staring at with those goo-goo eyes?” Ellie throws her arms around me, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“Christ! You scared me!”

She leans down and follows my eyes to the blonde main. She sighs dreamily. “I always knew you had good taste, Mia. You should go talk to him.”

“I
should
go talk to him. I should also file my taxes on time, remember to floss regularly, and inherit seven million dollars. But I won’t. Ever.”

“Oh stop being so sarcastic. I’ve never seen you look at a guy like that before, not even in high school. It’s worth a shot.”

“In case you didn’t notice, he’s already romantically occupied,” I nod to the beautiful woman. Ellie buzzes her lips in doubt.

“She’s not that pretty.”

“Compared to you. But compared to me, she’s gorgeous,” I insist.

“She looks like she’s boring.”

“She could have a moldy onion for a personality, and not one guy in here would care.”

Ellie laughs, and leans her head on my shoulder. She smells like the milky White Russian and the vanilla perfume she’s used since ninth grade. It’s comforting, a reminder of a happier time. We watch the strobe lights flicker through the smoke in ruby and emerald shards. A man walks by with his buddies, screaming violently. I flinch instantly, the reaction ingrained and visceral. Ellie squeezes my hand.

“It’ll be okay,” She says. “You’re safe.”

She knows just what to say to someone who’s been through years of male abuse. Tears blur my eyes at her gentle words, but I keep my head high and force them back in. She’s right. My scar throbs with phantom pain. He can’t hurt me anymore.

But he can still haunt me.

Every burly man in the crowd with a beard looks like him, in my mind’s eye. Every person who passes me with whiskey in their hand gives me shivers - the smell alone enough to make my body go into fight or flight mode. My muscles ache with tension, my head pounds with the irritatingly heavy bass. I keep my eyes on the exits, just in case I need to run or hide. Old habits die hard.

Ellie stands, and grabs her purse. “C’mon. This place sucks. Let’s go home and Netflix our brains out.”

The rush of gratitude I have for her is heady and strong. I follow her through the crowd, and look back one last time at the blonde man. His gold-spice eyes are staring right at me, his handsome face focused entirely on me, like I’m an interesting curiosity. Blood rushes from my head to my fingers, and it feels like my skin itself is buzzing. The room is suddenly ten degrees hotter, and I radiate with it - from my chest, my face, down to my very core. For the first time in my short nineteen years, I’m incredibly turned on. Is it me? Have I always been this…
wanting
? No - it’s this guy. I want to be with him, beside him, on top of him, consumed by him.

And then, all at once, it’s cold.

Ellie throws the front door of the club open, and frigid air rushes over me, breaking the spell of the man’s eyes. My body stops buzzing the farther we get from the club. Ellie’s happy, bouncy chattering about her school fills the empty, quiet sidewalk.

“You should really sign up for a class or something, Mia. It’s a really good school.”

“I’ll try,” I say, still struggling with the remnants of my attraction. “I need to find a job, first.”

“You printed out all those resumes before we left, right?” She tilts her head. “What are you going to do with so many?”

I shrug. “Hit up every grocery store and cafe around here, probably. I don’t have a lot of savings, so I need to find something, and quick. I’m not picky.”

“You should be,” She frowns. “You’re really smart - you got into the University of Washington! You could do way better.”

“I flunked out, El.”

“You can go back! There’s lots of grants at USF and stuff.”

I’m about to argue with her when I see him. The frat boy from the club earlier - the one who tried to seduce the beautiful woman with Dom Perignon - is standing directly beneath a streetlight. His head is down, his cap shading his eyes. The amber light bathes him in an eerie orange glow. My instincts make me walk faster, and Ellie jogs to catch up with me.

“Hey! Slow down!” She spots the frat boy and grabs my arm. “It’s okay. He wouldn’t try anything when we’re together. Just relax.”

I know I should be relieved, because her words make perfect sense. But my body is on point, my guts screaming at me to hurry and get away from him. It’s exactly like the wrong feeling I got from the club at the beginning of the night, but it’s more intense, concentrated - like a shot instead of a mixed drink. I don’t slow down. Ellie holds onto my arm and tries to keep up with me. Her weight is comforting, and then it’s ripped from me, her screams replacing it.

“Get off me!”

I whirl around. The frat boy’s grabbed Ellie, his eyes glinting manically as he chokeholds her in the crook of his elbow. I know that look better than anyone - it’s the same look Dad would get in his eyes. A look of impending violence, of pent-up anger and a vicious need to inflict pain on someone, anyone.

It paralyzes me for only a second; a second that lasts forever until I see Ellie’s tear-stained, panicked face.

“Let go of her, you creep!” I scream. I run over and swing my purse at him, but he ducks. Ellie yelps as he forces her to duck, too. I dodge behind him and kick him with all the force I can muster right in his balls. But he doesn’t even flinch, the smile on his face growing wider.

“Nice try. But I can’t feel anything anymore, you bitch,” He says. His voice is gravelly, too gravelly, like an old man who’s smoked from cradle to the grave, but he can’t be more than twenty. It doesn’t make sense.

“Let her go,” I say between clenched teeth, my hand reaching for my phone in my purse. “Or I’ll -”

“Call the police?” He laughs, the sound almost demonic. “They won’t listen. My masters are everywhere. They practically controls your pathetic justice system.”

“P-Please,” Ellie begs. “Just let me -”

The frat boy punches her, the sound of bone cracking blowing a hole in my chest. Ellie cries out, and I lunge forward. The frat boy raises his fist warningly.