Breakable (Contours of the Heart #2)

3

Landon

Dad didn’t seem to notice I’d quit hockey. He didn’t notice my detachment from friends or the collapse of my social life. He’d only arranged for a car to pick me up from school each day because I’d paused to ask him how I was getting home before I left his car on my first day back.

His Ray-Bans hid his eyes, so I didn’t have to witness the agony that scorched through them every single time he realized that Mom was gone, so she couldn’t do a thing she’d always done. Things someone had to do in her place. Like pick me up from my private school, because home was a twenty-five minute drive or a Metro trip I’d never taken alone followed by a several-blocks walk.

In my mouth were the words, I’ll just take the Metro – I’m thirteen, I can do it, when he answered. ‘I’ll … call a car to take you home. You’re dismissed at three o’clock?’

‘Three thirty,’ I said, shouldering my backpack and stepping out, anger building. I felt myself fracturing down deep, straining to contain it.

Mornings were still cool, not yet cold enough to see your breath. Kids who’d already arrived were hanging out front, waiting for the first bell while others exited their parents’ cars. No one was rushing inside. Heads swivelled, watching me. Parents, too, none of them pulling away from the kerb. Everyone slowed – suspended, watching. I felt their eyes like dozens of tiny spotlights.

‘Landon?’

I turned back to my father’s voice, irrationally hoping he’d tell me to just get back in the car. That he’d take me back home. Take me to work with him. Anything but leave me here.

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to do this.

‘You have your house key?’

I nodded.

‘I’ll have a car here at three thirty. I’ll be home early. Five thirty, latest.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Lock the door when you get home.’ And check the windows.

I nodded again and shut the passenger door. He looked at me through the glass, and again, the crazy wish that he wouldn’t leave me here sprang up and grabbed me by the throat. He raised a hand and drove away.

So I’d never reminded him about hockey practice. I just stopped going.

When my coach finally called me, I told him I was quitting. He suggested that keeping previous routines in place would be good for me. Told me I could return at my pace, build back up. Said the team was ready to support me – that some of the guys had discussed having decals of Mom’s initials added to our helmets or sewn on to the sleeves of our jerseys. I sat stonily on the other end of the line, waiting for him to realize that I wouldn’t argue, but I also wouldn’t go.

I don’t know if Dad continued to pay or if they stopped billing him, and I didn’t care.

There was this girl I’d liked, before. (Everything now was either before or after.) Before-girl’s name was Yesenia. I hadn’t seen her since the last day of seventh grade, but we’d texted a couple of times over the summer and had been friends online, trading cryptic social-media comments, which is sort of like flirting in semaphore. Cool shot. Haha awesome. Pretty eyes. This last was from her, one comment of a dozen on a pic Mom had taken of me on Grandpa’s beach, standing in the surf at sunset.

Hers was the only comment that mattered. It was also the boldest thing either of us had ever said to each other.

I’d grown over the summer. A good thing, because Yesenia and I had been the same height in seventh grade, and there’s this thing about girls and height – they want to wear heels and not be taller than the guy. I’d added three inches and had hopes for more. Dad was over six feet. Neither of my grandfathers was.

The only daughter of an ambassador from El Salvador, Yesenia was beautiful and dark, with short, silky black hair and huge brown eyes that watched me from across classrooms and lunch tables. She lived in a brownstone off Dupont Circle. I’d talked Mom into letting me ride the Metro to her place alone two weeks before, but hadn’t yet built up the nerve to ask Yesenia if I could come over.

That second week of school, I managed to catch her without her mob of friends – a rare occurrence with thirteen-year-old girls. ‘Hey, do you wanna go see a movie Saturday?’ I blurted the invitation and she blinked up at me, hopefully noticing those three inches. She was the tallest girl in our grade. Some guys had to look up to her. ‘With me?’ I qualified when she didn’t answer right away.

‘Um …’ She fidgeted with the books in her arms as my heart thudded out dammit, dammit, dammit, until she said, ‘I’m not really allowed to go out with boys yet.’

Huh. My turn to fidget in response.

‘But maybe … you could come over and watch a movie at my house?’ She was hesitant – like she thought that maybe I’d turn her down.

I felt like I’d been dunked head first in cold water, yanked back out and then kissed, but I just nodded, determined to play nonchalant. So I’d asked a girl out. No big deal. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll text you.’

Her friends showed up at the end of the hall, summoning her and eyeing me curiously. ‘Hi, Landon,’ one of them said.

I returned the greeting with a smile and turned, hands in pockets, mouthing yes, yes, YES under my breath, as though I’d just fired a puck into the goal right past the goalie’s padded knee. Saturday was only five days away.

Twenty-four hours later, my life had shifted into after.

LUCAS

‘You. Are. An. A*shole! ’

My lips pressed into a thin line, and I struggled to contain the retort flashing across my brain: Wow. There’s one I’ve never heard.

I continued filling out the parking ticket I was thankfully nearly finished recording.

I feel sorry for people whose meters run out before they get back to the car. I feel sorry for people parked in admittedly ambiguously labelled lots. I do not feel sorry for a student who parks directly under a FACULTY PARKING ONLY sign.

When she realized that her appearance and predictable insult hadn’t motivated me to quit writing or even glance up, she tried a different tactic. ‘C’mon, pleeease? I was only in there for like ten minutes! I swear!’

Uh-huh.

I tore the ticket off and extended it towards her. She crossed her arms and glared at me. Shrugging, I pulled out an envelope, placed the ticket inside, and stuck the envelope under her windshield wiper.

As I turned to get back into the cart I drive lot-to-lot around campus, she yelled, ‘Son of a monkey-assed whore!’

That, on the other hand, is new. Well played, Ms Baby Blue Mini Cooper.

Man, I wasn’t sure they paid me enough to compensate for this type of abuse. I sure as hell wasn’t doing it for the prestige. For this, I tucked my hair under a polyester-coated, navy hat that made the top of my head feel like it was on fire when I stood out in the sun too long on hot days, which described seventy per cent of the year. I replaced my lip ring, its piercing thankfully several-years healed, with a clear retainer for the duration of my shifts. I wore a uniform that was the direct opposite of anything else in my wardrobe.

Granted, these three things kept every student I’ve ever ticketed – even, in a couple of cases, people I sat right next to in class – from recognizing me while I was in the process of ruining their days.

‘Excuse me! Yoo-hoo!’

This is the sort of summons usually delivered by someone’s grandma – but no, it was my thermodynamics professor from last spring. Hell. I pocketed the ticket pad, praying he wasn’t Mr Brand-New Mercedes, who I’d just ticketed for parking across two spaces at the back of the lot. I wouldn’t have thought Dr Aziz capable of being such an asshat – but people were weird behind the wheel of a car. Their personalities could morph from stable, sane citizens to road-raged dipshits.

‘Yes, sir?’ I answered, bracing.

‘I need a jump!’ He panted like he’d sprinted across a football field.

‘Oh. Sure. Hop in. Where’s your car?’ I ignored the girl in the Mini Cooper, giving me the finger as she squealed by us.

Though he didn’t comment, Dr Aziz wasn’t as inured to the gesture that was all too routine for me. Brows elevated, he climbed into the passenger seat and held on with both hands after fumbling for the nonexistent seatbelt. ‘Two rows over.’ He pointed. ‘The green Taurus.’

I slowed to keep from flinging him out the cart’s open side while making a U-turn at the end of the row, reflecting that my usual, antisocial incarnation would’ve been way less likely to get flipped off in the middle of a parking lot. I was a walking target, patrolling the campus in this damned costume.

Once I got his car started, I removed the cables and dropped the hood. ‘Be sure to get that battery charged or replaced – this box provides a jump, not a charge.’ I knew my engineering professor didn’t need this advice … but I assumed I was unrecognizable.

Wrong.

‘Yes, yes, Mr Maxfield, I think I am quite familiar with auto charging by this point.’ He laughed, still wheezing a bit. ‘This is a fortunate meeting, I think. I was mentally reviewing former students just this morning. I’ll be contacting a handful of these, inviting them to apply for a research project that begins next semester. Our objective is the development of durable soft materials to replace those normally damaged by thermodynamic forces – such as those used in drug delivery and tissue engineering.’

I knew all about Dr Aziz’s proposed research project – it had been animatedly discussed at last month’s Tau Beta Pi meeting with the sort of enthusiasm that only a bunch of engineering honour society nerds can supply.

‘You’re a senior, I believe?’

My brows rose and I nodded, but I was too stunned to reply.

‘Hmm. We’re primarily interested in juniors, as they’ll be around longer.’ He chuckled to himself before pursing his lips, watching me. ‘Nevertheless, the founding team of a project is critical, and I believe you could be an asset, if you’re interested. The position would be reflected as a special-projects course on your transcript, and we’ve received a grant, so we’re able to provide a small stipend to those ultimately chosen.’

Holy shit. I shook myself from my stupor. ‘I’m interested.’

‘Good, good. Email me tonight, and I’ll forward the official application. I am obliged to inform applicants that spots on the team are not guaranteed. They’ll be quite sought after, I imagine.’ He wasn’t kidding. A few of my peers would seriously consider pushing me into traffic to secure one. ‘But …’ He smiled conspiratorially. ‘I think you’d be a top candidate.’

When Heller gave the class their first exam, I had a day off from attending. Instead of sleeping in like a normal college student, I’d stupidly signed up for an extra campus PD shift. It was like I no longer had any idea how to chill out and do nothing. Between paid jobs, volunteer jobs and studying, I worked all the damned time.

The skies opened up around seven a.m., deluging the area with a surprise thunderstorm just in time to negate sunrise, so I bummed a ride with Heller instead of enduring a soggy, miserable drive to campus on my Sportster. After helping tote a box of books from his car to his office and agreeing on a time to leave for the day, I headed to the side exit.

The sun had emerged in the few minutes I’d been inside, granting a short reprieve from the rain, though trees and building overhangs still dripped fat drops on to the students trudging through puddles and hopping over miniature streams. Given the low, grey clouds gathering visibly overhead, I knew the sunburst would last five minutes tops, and hoped I could make it to the campus police building before the next downpour.

If the rain kept up – and all forecasts said that it would – I’d be stuck inside, answering phones and filing stacks of folders in the department’s wall of file cabinets instead of issuing parking citations. Lieutenant Fairfield was always behind on filing. I was half convinced he never filed anything. He simply waited for rainy days and unloaded the mind-numbing task on me. Strangely, I’d rather brave irate students, staff and faculty than be stuck inside all day.

And I won’t see Jackie Wallace at all today.

I willed my brain to shut up, sliding my sunglasses on and holding the door open for a trio of girls who ignored me, continuing their conversation as though I was a servant or a robot, installed there for the express purpose of opening the door for them. Damn this uniform.

Then I saw her, splashing through pools of water in aqua rain boots covered in yellow daisy outlines. I stood like a statue, still holding the door ajar, even though she was yards away and hadn’t noticed me – or anyone around her. I knew she’d be entering this door. She had an exam in econ in about one minute. There was no Kennedy Moore in sight.

Her book bag threatened to slide down her arm, and she hitched her shoulder higher while fumbling with an uncooperative umbrella that matched her boots. Her agitated body language and the fact that she’d never been late to class before – or arrived without her boyfriend – told me she was running behind this morning. Her umbrella refused to close. ‘Dammit,’ she muttered, giving it a hard shake while pushing the retract button repeatedly.

It folded shut a moment before she looked up to see me holding the door.

Her hair was damp. She wore no make-up, but the tips of her lashes were spiky – she’d clearly been caught in the rain on the way from her dorm or car. The combination of her wet skin, her proximity and the breath I took looking into her beautiful eyes nearly knocked me over. She smelled like honeysuckle – an aroma I knew well. My mother had encouraged a wall of it to vine over the tiny cottage in our backyard that she’d made into an art studio. Every summer, the trumpet-shaped blooms had infused the interior with their sweet scent, especially when she’d cranked the windows open. While Mom worked on projects for fall gallery showings, I sat across the scarred tabletop from her, sketching video-game characters or bugs or the innards of an inoperative appliance Dad gave me permission to take apart.

An astonished smile broke across Jackie’s face as she glanced up at me, replacing the scowl she’d given her wayward umbrella. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ducking through the open door.

‘You’re welcome,’ I replied, but she was already rushing away. Towards the class where I was the tutor. Towards the boyfriend who didn’t deserve her.

I hadn’t let myself want anything so impossible in a very long time.

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