Tears of the Broken (7 page)

“
Just go with it, okay?” David whispered in my ear, so close
that his breath tickled my cheek. I giggled a little. The girls
noticed that and stared, open-mouthed, while my shameful gaze fell
to the floor. I shouldn’t feel this way for David. I have no
right—I don’t even know him, and he’s popular and gorgeous—not the
kind of guy that girls like me ever get.

David gently wrapped his fingers around my arms and walked me
backward until my spine pressed against the cold wall, then, he
rested one arm beside my head and stood closer—his hips, his
stomach, his chest, barely a centimetre from my tingling hot body.
“What are you doing?” I said.

“
Giving them something to talk about.” His lips turned up
sharply and he tilted his head down beside his arm, stealing my
breath with his smile. My mouth watered with the idea of him being
so close—of his lips just in front of mine, just a breath away from
touching.

I
wish he would kiss me. Being this close to him feels so
unbelievably phenomenal. But the good feeling slinked away as the
two girls walked off in a huff, flipping their hair as they went. I
looked up at David and he smiled down at me in a way that made feel
as though I belong against him this way. “Why did you do that?” I
asked.

“
Do
what?” He leaned a little closer; I stopped him with a hand to his
firm, cool chest.

“
You—you stood up for me. You made them think we we’re
kissing.”

“
Yes.”

“
But, don’t you get it? They’ll spread this
around to everyone—tell the whole school you were kissing
me
!” Then they’ll all
say David’s got a fetish for ugly girls who wear dresses for easy
access. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Oh, God, I’m an
infection. Because of me, now David will become the topic of the
day.

Against everything inside me, I pressed my hand more firmly
to his chest and shoved him away, then rolled out from the wall and
flung myself across the corridor.

“
What does it matter if they tell everyone?” He turned and
faced me.

I
turned away and looked into the sunny courtyard below, leaning my
elbows over the cold, paint-chipped metal bar. “Well, do you want
people thinking you like
me
?”

“
Ara.” He appeared beside me, and as he
wrapped his fingers over the railing, our elbows touched. “You’re a
very sweet girl. You do not deserve to be the entity of other
people’s gossip. I would rather they told the whole school I was
kissing you outside the bathroom than to have them talk about you
like
that
.” He
pointed to the bathroom.

“
You
heard that?” Everything suspended in slow motion. “How did
you—”

“
Bathrooms echo, Ara.” He smirked.

“
I
can’t believe you heard all of that.” It feels like a hot air
balloon was just let off in my face. My lip started to quiver. I
bit it tightly. I really didn’t want him to hear that.

David grabbed my wrist and started walking, dragging me along
behind him. “Don’t worry about it, Ara. They’re not nice people.
I’m just sorry that of all the girls you had to run into in there,
it was
those
two.”

“
Well, thank you—” I stopped and pulled my arm out of his
grip, “—for standing up for me. No one’s…ever done that
before.”

“
Really?” He looked amazed, or maybe mortified.

“
I
never needed it.” I lowered my eyes to my black and white
Sketchers. “Back home, I was more than capable of taking care of
myself. I went to an all girls’ school. You had to know how to
stand up for yourself, but I guess I just lost my
nerve.”

“
You shouldn’t have to stand up for
yourself, Ara. People should mind their tongues.” David softened
then and moved closer to me, tipping his head to one side. “And for
the record, mon amie, despite what those girls just said—” he
smiled, and his sparkling emerald eyes gripped my face, “I think
you are
very
pretty.”

Yep,
that did it. Cheeks hot, heart tumbling down the stairwell, lust
meter at fifty. How am I ever not going to fall in love with him if
he says things like that?
“So you—you speak French?”

“
Seulement
quand je parle avec mon coeur.”
David
started walking again, but I caught a glimpse of a smile as he
turned.

“
What does that mean?” I asked.

“
Look it up on Google.”

After a second, I forced myself to run after him—and when I
say run, I mean run. He walks with such confidence in his long
stride. Every molecule in my body wants to be next to him, but it’s
hard to catch him when he gets ahead a few steps.

My
thoughts strayed to the last five minutes of my life as I walked
beside David, and the humiliation of being unpopular trickled away
with each second I studied his face.

Look
at him. He’s not just a boy, but kindness embodied in perfection. I
don’t deserve his compassion—or his friendship.

He
shouldn’t have stood up for me, but I’ll never forget
it.

Chapter
Three

T
h
e bell to
resume classes tolled before we even made it to the sunshine. David
smiled gently and jerked his head in the other direction. “Come on,
your next class is this way.”

“
How
do you know that?” I asked, running after him.

“
I
read your lesson plan, remember?”

“
Yeah, but, how did you retain all that info. I can’t even
remember what classes I actually signed up for.”

David said nothing, just smiled—a kind of secret smile—and
walked close to me as we headed back up the stairs, passing a
carrot-top girl, who waved at me on her way down to the ground
floor.

“
That’s Ellie.” David leaned closer. “She was sitting next to
Ryan in music class.”

“
Oh,
okay.” I frowned. I don’t remember her.

Ellie glanced up at David from under her brow, and her soft
red hair fell around her blushing cheeks in ringlets. “Girls seem
to like you around here,” I said.

“
Not
really. It’s just the ah…want what you can’t have theory, I guess.”
He shrugged once.

“
Oh.
So, you wouldn’t date any of the girls, here?” I asked, twiddling
my fingers.

“
It’s not that. I just keep a pretty low profile. I’m not one
for dating, as such.” We weaved through the staring students, and
David kept his eyes forward as we walked. “Sometimes girls take an
interest in me, but they know nothing will ever happen, so they’ve
stopped asking. Now they just stare.”

So—no dating. Is he telling me this because he’s noticed how
captivated I am by him? I should probably tell him that I don’t
really feel that way, that he’s just misreading my signals. But the
truth is, if he thinks I like him—he’d be right. Pity he doesn’t
date, but at least he let me down gently.

David’s head whipped up and his eyes widened as he came to an
abrupt halt. “Um—I, uh—I really didn’t mean it like that. I—” he
shook his head, but didn’t finish.

“
Didn’t mean what?” I smiled and shrugged, holding both palms
out.

“
When I said I don’t date, I—” he paused again as the
corridors became silent and empty. The voice of the teacher,
already addressing the rest of the group, filtered out from my next
classroom. I want David to finish what he was saying, but we’re so
late.

David, with his brow pulled tight in the centre and his lips
slightly twitching, drew my books from the stack under his arm and
placed them in my hand. Inconspicuously, I lifted them to my nose.
Mmm, they smell like David—a sweet, orangey-chocolate
smell.

“
Ara, I—”

“
It’s okay, David, you don’t owe me an explanation.” I tried
to grin. I know it looks fake, I can feel it. “I only just met you,
after all. If you don’t date, that’s fine. I hadn’t placed myself
in that category, anyway. Friends?” I shrugged with the phony smile
in place and backed into the doorway of my History
class.

“
Ah,” the teacher said. “Class, we
finally
have a new
student.”

David’s jaw set stiff and he looked down at the ground. After
waiting another few seconds for his response, I turned away from
him to face the class and smiled for real, feeling more confident
seeing a familiar face in the room. “Hi Dad,” I whispered as I
stepped up to his desk, making sure no one else would hear, then
looked back toward the door. The empty corridor stared back at
me.

“
Attention please?” Dad called out over the noisy class. They
went silent immediately. “Class, this is Ara-Rose. I’m sure some of
you have already met her—”

I
cringed and cut him off, “Actually, it’s just Ara.”

He
looked sideways at me for a second, then smiled. “Okay, this is
just Ara.” A low hum of laughter erupted over the entire
class.

“
Nice to meet you,
Just Ara
,” someone called from the
back of the room.

Great. Now I’ll have a nickname. Humiliation—from my own
father.

“
Settle down, Maverick,” Dad said sternly. “Um, Emily?” he
called to a girl at a desk on the first level of the raised
seating.

Without hesitation, the same Emily I met this morning, with
her bouncy, blonde ponytail, bounded up to the front of the class.
“Yes, Mr. Thompson?” she trilled, cupping her hands together in
front of her short white skirt. When she smiled, she batted her
eyelashes, tilting her head.

Ew!
My mouth fell open. I looked at her, then back at my dad. He’s
completely oblivious to her flirting. He shuffled about the papers
on his desk, then handed me a worksheet. “Help Just Ara…?” He
looked at me.

I
nodded. “
Ara’s
fine.” Hint, hint.

“
Help Ara get up to date with our lessons, please?”

“
Sure thing, Mr. Thompson.” Emily took my hand and dragged the
very reluctant me to sit next to her—right up the front—right where
Dad would be able to see my every move.

“
So,
do you always sit here?” I asked.

“
Yup. I can see the teacher better.” She watched Dad walk
across the room and push the antique gramophone, that’s normally in
our attic, out of the way.

“
Why
would that be a good thing?”

“
Are
you kidding me?” She motioned her open palm to my dad. “Look at
him.”

Uh-oh. I can see where this is going. “Um, Emily—”

“
Isn’t he handsome?” she continued, “Don’t you think he looks
just like Harrison Ford.”

I
glanced at my dad, and my nose crinkled up as I took notice of his
greying, light-brown hair and the creases he gets around his kind
eyes when he smiles. I guess he does, sort of. “Emily,” I whispered
again.

“
Yeah.” She sighed, dreamily gazing up at the
teacher.

There’s no easy way around it. I have to tell her before she
embarrasses herself further. I just have to accept whatever
ramifications come from it. “He’s…my dad.”

She
spun around so quickly that I jumped. “You are kidding me,” she
squeaked. “Oh, my God, Ara. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
I’m
so sorry, I just, I didn’t think it was—”

“
We are
so
having a sleepover at your house.” She
practically jumped in her seat. “I’ve had a crush on Mr. Thompson
for like—” she flipped her head to one side, “three
years.”

My
mouth fell wide and my tongue pushed into the side of my cheek. I
really did not expect that. I thought she might be a little
humiliated at the least, but I guess it’s better this way. “So,
three years, huh?”

“
Yup. It’s why I take History.”

“
That’s…disturbing.”

“
Not
really.” She shrugged and chewed the tip of her pen. “You could
look at it as though your dad is inspiring my
education.”

I
wonder if
he’d
feel the same way.

On
the board, Dad wrote the words ‘Religious History’, and the whole
class groaned. “Oh, come now, it’ll be fun and you know it,” he
professed. As soon as he turned to write on the board again, the
kid next to us jolted forward in his seat, and a scrunched-up piece
of paper bounced off his desk, landing on his schoolbag. Emily and
I looked to the back of the room where a group of boys broke into
raucous laughter—the same ones that said hello to David this
morning. The recipient of the paper cannon showed them his middle
finger before looking back at his notepad.

Why
didn’t Dad say anything to them? Tell them off or at least glare at
them? I wonder if he even noticed.

I
can’t believe David’s a part of that group. But then, I don’t
really know much about him. He might even be a bully—if his friends
are, it wouldn’t surprise me. “So, does my dad know you have a
crush on him?” I asked Emily.