Break Away (Away, Book 1) (2 page)

What I didn’t know was why I was being such
a bitch to her. As always, the words seemed to come out of their
own will.

“Buffy, watch the attitude,” Gran told her
with that sharp disapproving voice, though less hard than the one
she’d used on me.

So unfair.

“Why am I the one to watch my attitude?”
Buffy said, angry, and tossed the Pop-Tart she’d been holding onto
the counter. “You know she’s the one with that problem, Gran, not
me. She clearly has some issues. She always does. At least she
always does with me.” She looked at me with glistening eyes and
stormed away from the kitchen. A sharp snap from a door barked
through the house a few seconds later.

“You said you will try, Dafne, not make her
cry.”

“I know, Gran,” I admitted full of remorse
and stood up. “I know.” I took the cracked Pop-Tart from the
counter and stuffed it inside the silver package. “See you
later.”

The sun seeped through the hand-painted
stained glass at both sides of the doorway, creating a mesmerizing
symphony of colors inside the small foyer. It was a bright day
outside and the light only enhanced the shades. I pulled open the
door and found myself immediately embraced by the cold arms of a
breeze. I stepped inside the house again with a shudder and grabbed
my loose blazer from the recently polished armoire on the right,
thinking the sun blazing in the sky could’ve been only a bright
accessory because the morning was definitely chilly.

Buffy was already inside the car with her
arms crossed over her white, tailored blazer, one she’d gotten at
some fancy store in Chicago with delicate purple stripes—just
totally girly—and glaring at something beside her window, which
translated into “I’m too mad at you to look at you right now.”

I opened the driver’s door and slipped
inside the car. Before putting the keys in the ignition, I turned
and apologized to her. But first, I paused. “I…”
tick, tock,
tick, tock, tick, tock…

Just say it, Dafne
.

“I'm sorry, Buffy,” I finally said. “I
really am.”

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...

Nothing.

“Buffy?”

She gave a deep sigh and unfolded her arms.
“Before talking to you again, I need the heater on.” She turned to
look at me when I gave no response. “Unless you want to die by
freezing to death with these thin blazers.” Still, I gave her no
response. “In that case, don’t count me in.” She turned back and
crossed her arms once more.

I swallowed back a smile and this time, gave
her a worthy response. “Your wish is my command.” I shifted in my
seat and settled as if about to sleep, even if I was, indeed,
freezing my butt. But no need to show her that.

She took in a deep breath and let it out
forcefully. “Stop the games and put the heater on!” she said facing
me. “Please, Dafne, okay, I said please!”

“Fine, fine. There’s no need to plead.”

“Argh! You truly are a pain in the ass.”

“I know.” I turned on the car and the
heater.

“If this is your lame attempt at an apology,
then you failed.
Completely
failed.”

I reached down the pocket of my jacket and
took out the silver package. “Here,” I tossed it on her lap. “You
forgot this.” At least she would be less moody with food in her
stomach. Guys weren’t the only ones who turned grumpy without food.
Girls had the same problem sometimes, even worse if combined with a
little friend that knocked on our doors every single month.

She made no move.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the
day, you know. It’s really bad if you skip it.”

She laughed without a single trace of
amusement. “Oookay, now you worry about my diet? The gates of the
Twilight Zone have opened, ladies and gentleman,” she announced,
looking around as if an audience was watching us.

“Buffy,” I said with a small voice, and
paused. She was right to say these things and be angry at me. I
barely talked to her, and when I did, only derisive words exploded
from my mouth. Yep. I was Ms. Ice Queen embodied.

“Buffy,” I said once more. “I know this is
really hard to believe, but, I
do
worry about you.” I
lowered my head and twisted my fingers uncomfortable. “You’re my
sister and…and, well, you know…”

“It doesn’t seem like it, Dafne,” she said
with a smaller voice as well, no tinge of fury coloring her words
this time, just the hum of sadness. “You’ve changed so much these
last two years that it’s hard to remember the person you used to
be. You’ve really turned into this Ice Queen since…” She trailed
off and sighed. “Well, you know since when.”

Of course I knew since when, but neither of
us dared to speak about it out loud. It was too much to handle, I
guess. We dealt with the piercing sorrow on our own, digging the
dagger in our hearts in solitude. Gran was the strong one in the
house; she always managed to pull up a warm smile for us. If she
suffered for the loss of her daughter—needless to say there was no
doubt about her muted sufferance—she gave no signs of her mourning
at all. And Aunt Morgan hardly spent time around the house, so it
was more complicated to decipher her feelings. The only times we
saw her was on weekends. Sporadically. Very, very sporadically.
Then, late at night, we just heard the soft roar of her car in the
driveway and her footsteps cracking the stairs when she climbed up
to her room.

Everyone lived in their own world. Gran was
the one that strung our lives on the same thread.

“Sometimes when I read or watch a movie,”
Buffy continued, “I leave my door open, hoping you’ll come in to
talk, or do something. But you always pass by. You don’t even look
at me. You just ignore me, like I’m a ghost or something.”

My heart squeezed. “If you were a ghost,
Buffy, I would run, not pass by.” I told her, trying to lessen the
thickness in the air.

She half smiled. “Yeah, I know how afraid
you are of ghosts, that’s why I’m telling you this.” Her voice
hushed as if talking to herself. “You’re afraid of me.”

“I'm not,” I said immediately. But seconds
later, a big fat uncertainty settled down in my head. Was I afraid
of my sister? Of being alone with her? We were different in almost
every aspect, yes. But there was that connection deep down inside
ourselves that always brought us together, even if our worlds
collided. It was that soul-rooted link that compelled us to seek
one another from time to time, to
need
one another.

Since our parents died, however, an odd
necessity to build a brick wall between us had transpired. Not
having that connection was easier somehow, and I wanted to keep it
like that.

But sometimes little sacrifices needed to be
made.

“You are,” she insisted with that small
voice.

“Okay… to prove to you that I’m not afraid
of you—
lie—
as you think I am, I promise you that from this
day on, I’ll try to be nicer and spend more time with you.” Just as
I’d promised to Gran.

Her eyes narrowed and she spun toward me.
“Is this more of your subzero bullcrap?” she asked dubious and a
bit irritated. “Because if it is, I won’t take more of it today.
I’ve had an overdose.”

I was about to retort more of that subzero
bullcrap when, surprisingly, I snapped my mouth shut and let the
nice one speak. “You won’t have any more of it, really.”

Her brown eyes widened. “I think you’re
actually serious,” she said, surprised.

“I am.”

“Wow.” She blinked several times. “Okay.”
She said it as if she didn’t know what else to say, and then,
“Since I don’t know how long this new shiny Dafne will last, you
have to promise me one more thing, right now.”

I took in a deep breath and readied for her
request. “Go ahead. Ask.”

“Promise me you’ll never, ever, call me
Buffy the Vampire Slayer again.” She pointed her sharp eyes on
mine.

I couldn’t help it and laughed.

“It’s. Not. Funny.”

“I agree, it’s not funny. It’s dead
funny.”

“That’s because you weren’t named after a
crappy movie. I mean, what was Mom thinking? Did her neurons
explode while searching for a name? Obviously that didn’t happen
with you. You got a rocking German name and all. So unfair.”

“Hey, at least you’re not a nymph
transformed into a pathetic laurel for life. You’re a hardcore
kick-ass chick with a really hot vampire guy in love with you—at
least in the TV series,” I added.

“What about one of the most important gods
chasing your butt?”

“Apollo isn’t as hot as your fanged
guy.”

She paused to think about it and smiled,
flipping her blonde waves to the side. “Yeah…I think you’re right.
But you haven’t promised me the name thing yet.” She glared at me
again.

I turned and placed both hands on the
steering wheel. “Sure, I promise,” I said a bit unwillingly. I
loved to use that name to banter with her and letting it go was a
pity.

I looked at the digital clock on the middle
of the dashboard. We were so going to be late. “What I won’t
promise, though…” I put the car on reverse. “…is to let go of my
speed crap today. Fasten your seat belt.” I commanded, looking over
my shoulder

“Oh, no,” she looked at the time. “Only five
minutes to get to school. Mr. Ludlow is going to kill me. Drive.
Fast!”

I pulled out the car from the driveway with
a smile on my face and speeded down the long gray road.

“I
can’t believe
this!” Linda shouted, snapping the thin blue door of her locker
shut. The weak metal protested with a sharp, dry echo. “All this
time assuming he was keeping his almighty promise, and I was here,
waiting like some stupid puppy. I should’ve known better than
that.” She let out a soft snort. “Now I belong to the lame circle
of the cheated. I bet people can see it flashing across my
forehead.”

I leaned my shoulder against the wall and
settled my eyes over her disheartened profile. “First of all, they
would need a powerful X-ray vision to see it, better than the one
that guy in blue tights—Superman—has. And why do you care about the
others? If they obviously don’t give a damn, why would you?”

“I don’t.” She turned and faced me. Her nose
was tipped with a soft red and gleamed like a premature cherry. I
knew that if I touched the skin over the straight bone, it would’ve
been warm, like mine was when sadness threatened to break away from
my eyes—something I never allowed in public. Tears only came out in
solitude. They were inexorable allies in the privacy of my bed.
Outside, those tears merged into my skin, leaving a hard mask to
the eyes of others.

And ignorance was what I craved.

“Okay, tell me what happened.” I told her as
softly as I could.

She looked down and sighed. “I called to his
dorm last night and…a girl answered. Her voice was all giddy and
she kept repeating ‘stop it baby, stop,’ so I thought it was a
wrong number and was about to hang up when…Brad’s voice came in and
I…froze.”

I grinded my teeth together.
Men
. Why
couldn’t they just keep their hands in one cookie jar?

“Please tell me you said something to him.”
I pinned her with a sharp stare.

“It’s over. I…I broke up with him,” she
wavered and lowered her head.

Poor Linda. She was such a nice girl, always
trusting people when she wasn’t supposed to, claiming everyone
deserved a chance. She believed in goodness and everything bright
and shiny. That’s why people took advantage of her. And that’s why
guys like
Brad
thought they could play with her like some
dumb puppet. “Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, Linda. College is
the Holy Grail of sex for guys, with all the parties and the girls
throwing at…”

“Okay, okay, I get it, no more dating
college guys unless you’re in college.” She looked at me with
sadness in her dark eyes and took in a deep reassuring breath. She
frowned, as if remembering something, and brushed behind her ear
the longest side of her asymmetrical bob. “Isn’t Buffy’s boyfriend
in college, too?”

I swallowed back a hiss. “Don’t you dare
mention that guy’s name to me.”

She snapped her fingers. “Oh, yeah, I
remember…Ian, right?”

I rolled my eyes, a swirl of anger twisting
my stomach. “Thank you so much for the nice reminder,” I said and
pushed my feet down the hallway. “It’s not the same thing, and you
know it.”

“Yeah,” she said, following my quick stride.
“But it doesn’t mean he’s not going to cheat on her just because
he’s fifteen minutes away.”

I stopped and turned to look at her,
surprised. “Are you telling me not to trust Ian, Ms.
everybody-deserves-a-chance?”

That caught her off guard. “I, um, no. No.
I’ve just seen him twice, so I can’t really…hey! Why are you
turning this on me? You’re the one who doesn’t trust him.” She
pointed at my chest, which was covered with a black “The Cure” logo
and a picture of the band. It was one of my favorite T-shirts,
white and tight, stopping an inch below my belly button to show a
bit of flat skin.

To Buffy’s eyes, black heeled boots were a
fashion essential. To my eyes, not having vintage styled shirts was
a fashion suicide.

“Exactly, I don’t,” I said wiping my hands
over my blazer, as if cleaning the thought of him from them. “But
I
have seen him more than twice, which, believe me, is
enough to have a well-rounded opinion of him.”

“I don’t get it,” she said with a soft shake
of her head. “He seems pretty in love with Buffy. The times we
bumped into him at your house and saw him, his eyes were, like,
shinning all the time. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I can’t follow you, Linda. Are you with or
against the guy? I already told you the kind of person he is.”