Breaking Beautiful (8 page)

He sighs and turns off the truck. “Did you get the groceries?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because you’re grounded from driving for the rest of the month.”

I sit in the car for a minute and watch Dad walk inside. I can’t get the image of him toe-to-toe with Detective Weeks, yelling at him, defending me, out of my head. I wonder if things might have been different if Dad had been around.

Chapter
9

Something feels off when I walk into school the next day. Clair takes my forged excuse note—
Allie needed some time off yesterday. Please excuse her absence
—without her usual sad smile and without comment.

When I walk down the hall the whispers are back—not that they ever completely left. But the sympathetic looks and half smiles are gone. I feel accusations all around me. But I might be imagining it because of what James said to me at the store.

When I reach my locker, Hannah, Megan, and Angie are there, talking with their heads together. Like they can sense me coming, they all turn—a three-headed, ultrapopular monster—and glare at me. I recognize the look on Hannah’s face.

I press my book against my chest for protection. “What’s wrong?”

“Like you don’t know.” Angie’s long fingernails tap out disgust on her thigh.

“I don’t—” I take a step backward.

Hannah strides toward me. “You little slut!” She gets so close that I have to take a step back. “It wasn’t enough that you stole Trip and got him killed. Now you have to go after Jonathon, too!”

My mind races. “Jonathon? I didn’t—”

“Jonathon Weeks, the new cop. Don’t even try to deny it. Half the town saw you in the front seat of his car.” She sucks in an angry breath. “And because your dad caught you together, and blamed it on him, he’s going to get fired and have to leave!”

I cower against the lockers as she pushes her face even closer to mine. I can’t believe how ugly she is with her face twisted like that.

“You poison everyone and everything that gets near you,” Hannah spits out. “I wish you had never come here.” She’s still screaming at me, but I shut it out. Rub the stone in my pocket and let her words wash over me—a wave crashing against the cliffs on the beach.

She finally stops to take a breath. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

I blink, wondering what I could possibly say to her. “No.”

That sets her off again. From the corner of my eye, I see her hand move. My reflexes are quick, like a tiger, and I catch her before she slaps me. I twist her wrist around and dig in my fingernails. She screams and tries to pull away, but I don’t let go. When she finally wrenches away, my nails leave angry streaks of red across the back of her hand.

She’s bleeding, holding her hand, and still screaming. I can see her mouth moving, but all I can hear is another voice.

“Don’t ever touch me again.”

I back away, not sure if I said it out loud.

“Allie!” Someone puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” This time I know it’s my voice. I jerk my shoulder away and flee toward the door.

“Allie. Stop!” It’s Ms. Holt. I ignore her, shove my way past all of the open mouths, down the hall and outside. I’m gasping for breath, but I don’t stop. I run as hard as I can. My head is pounding, and my ears are ringing with the voice inside my head. Never again.

I keep waiting to hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind me—an angry mob coming to grab me and drag me back for digging my claws into the queen, or for the murder they’re all sure I committed—but no one follows.

I’m not sure where I’m going until the sidewalk changes to a boardwalk and the ground starts to get sandy, past where Grandma’s house used to be. Past Blake’s house, gray and blue, with its sagging porch and peeling paint contrasting with the neat condos all around it. Toward the ocean, where the sound of the waves shuts out the screaming in my ears.

I head down the steep path that leads to the beach, stumble, fall, and slide for a few feet. Sea grass whips against my face and slices my cheek. I stand up and run toward the cliffs.

The tide is out and I can see the mouth of the cave—our cave. It has a wide entrance tagged with graffiti, and cans and other garbage wedged into various holes by the tide. The floor is wet and sandy with the charred remains of a bonfire in one corner. A few feet farther back, the sides of the cave close in, getting steeper and narrower, so narrow that it looks like the cave ends, but I know better. I keep climbing and slipping over the
slimy-smooth rocks, clawing my way to the back, willing the cave to swallow me. It gets darker and narrower, but I keep going. When the dark is so heavy that I can feel it and my brain is screaming for me to turn back, the cave opens up and a dim light spills in from a crack in the ceiling that reaches the surface.

I scramble onto the ledge against the back wall where Blake and I used to hide from the world. Well above the watermark is another ledge where we kept our treasures—sea glass and shells, a smuggled box of cookies, the walkie-talkies we bought at the thrift store. We quit leaving things in the cave after a high tide submerged it and everything was swept away. A couple of times we carried Andrew into the back of the cave with us, but usually he stayed at the entrance and played lookout with his walkie-talkie.

The musty, salty smell is sickening, but sweet and familiar at the same time. The walls are covered with green slime and seaweed. I lean back against the wall of the cave so my scar rests on the dry rock above the waterline. I tuck my knees up under my gray sweatshirt and reach for the stone in my pocket.

I should have run when I had the chance. Not yesterday, months ago—before the accident.

When I close my eyes, I see Hannah’s face contorting in pain and shock—so different from the fake-sweet Beachcomber’s Queen of the last few weeks. I was stupid to think she had changed.

I’m not sorry.

Hannah deserved what she got. No one is going to see it that way, but I’m glad that I hurt her.

I wonder if that means I’m crazy.

The ocean roars in my ears. I run my fingers over the stone in my pocket and shrink farther into the darkest corner of the ledge—hidden. I wish I could stay in here forever. In the creepy blackness of this cave, more than anywhere else in Pacific Cliffs, I feel safe.

“Allie.” His voice echoes from the front of the cave. “Allie. I know you’re here. I saw your footprints.”

Blake. His voice brings a prick of tears to my eyes. He shouldn’t have followed me. He should let the tide come in and sweep me out with the rest of the garbage in the entrance. I don’t answer, but he keeps coming. It’s harder for him to squeeze through the crack than it used to be, and he has to stay low, even in the back. I guess we’ve both grown since the last time we were here.

“Hey.” He says it like we were still in school, greeting each other between classes. He climbs on the ledge next to me and sits directly in the light from above. “Slimier than I remember.” He wipes a film of green from his hand onto his jeans. “Smells worse, too. Nothing compares to the fertilizer plant, but still bad.” Blake works at a plant up the coast that makes fertilizer out of leftover fish parts. Because of his job, most of the kids at school greet him with their noses plugged. I’ve never noticed any smell, but I have noticed the broad back and thick biceps Blake developed loading bags of fertilizer into the trucks all summer.

I keep my face in the shadow. “What are you doing here?” It comes out more abrupt and more accusing than I mean it to.

He rubs his throat. “You know, boring day at school. I thought I’d go for a walk, get a soda. Maybe huddle in the back of a cave for a while.”

I glance at him. The light from the crack in the ceiling falls on his face. “You think I’m crazy.”

“Yeah,” Blake says. “I knew you were crazy the first time I saw you crawl all the way back here. I thought we were going to get stuck and die, but you kept going.” He grins, but I can’t return his smile. “What you did today, finally giving Hannah what she deserved, that wasn’t crazy. In fact, that’s about the sanest thing I’ve seen you do in a long time. Much saner than pretending those girls are your friends. Much saner than going out wi—” He looks down so the shadow from his bangs falls over his face. I know he wants to say, “Much saner than going out with Trip Phillips.”

He’s more right about that than I’ll ever let him know.

He scoots closer, so his cologne masks the smell of seaweed a little bit—still not close enough to touch me. He clears his throat. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re allowed to freak out once in a while.”

I stare at my fingernails, remembering that I dug them into Hannah’s hand—definitely crazy.

Blake is watching me. “What did that new cop want to talk to you about, anyway?”

I jerk my head up. “You know about that?” Dumb question; of course he knows.

“Your dad made a pretty big scene in the middle of the street. You know how it is around here. By now half the town thinks you’re pregnant with Detective Weeks’s love child.”

I shake my head. My whole life I wanted this—to live in a place where everyone knew me. Stupid.

“By the way, remind me to never tick off your dad.” Blake
lifts his head and grins so the light falls on the little gap between his front teeth. The one he tries to hide whenever he laughs. His hair is still in his eyes. If I reached over I could brush it out, but the barrier is still there, the one that keeps his left hip at least two inches from my right one. “So, what did he want?”

“Questions about the accident.” I pick at a piece of seaweed stuck to the bottom of my jeans. “Things I can’t remember anyway.”

“What things?” His grin disappears, and there’s an edge to his voice that goes beyond curiosity or concern—I’m not sure what.

“Nothing.” I dislodge the seaweed and flick it onto the ground, then slide off the ledge. I can’t handle questions, even from Blake. “I’d better get back so they can arrest me or something.”

“Juvie’s not so bad,” Blake says. I stop. This is the closest we’ve ever come to talking about what happened in Reno. “I’ve been in worse places. Pacific Cliffs comes to mind.” He stands up, bumping his head on the top of the cave.

“I won’t go to juvie,” I say. “I’m eighteen, remember?”

Blake rubs his head. “Hannah won’t press charges. It would just give you the chance to spend more time with her favorite cop.” He leans against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. “So you think that guy’s really here just because of the accident? That Mr. Phillips is paying him to find out what happened? Or is that another famous Pacific Cliffs legend?” The edge is still there, even if he’s trying to sound like he doesn’t care.

“I don’t know.” The silence echoes between us in the cave. I turn the tigereye over in my hand. My scar feels tight, and the knot in my stomach and the smell of the cave are making me sick. “You’d better go.” I gesture toward the entrance. “You
don’t want to get caught with me. Who knows what kind of nasty things they’ll say about you.”

He stands up, but not enough to hit his head again. “Rumors don’t bother me. I’ve lived with them my whole life.” His voice is lower now—gentler. “But we do need to get out of here. The tide’s starting to come in.”

I stand up, follow him through the crack, and pick my way over the rocky path to the cave’s entrance. I catch my foot on one of the rocks and stumble forward. Blake puts his hand on my shoulder to steady me. Then he crosses the barrier and slides his hand into mine. His touch is warm against the chill of the cave.

He faces me, still holding my hand. “The bottom of the cave is pretty wet. We need to take our shoes off.” He grins. “Unless you want me to carry you.”

I can’t tell if he’s teasing or not. I roll my eyes and shake my head. I lean over to take off my shoes. A piece of hair falls forward and sticks to my check. Blake reaches to brush it back. Instinctively, I flinch away.

“I’m sorry.” He takes a step backward and worry fills his eyes.

“It’s okay.” I duck my head, finish taking off my shoes, and walk out of the cave without looking at him.

He doesn’t try to touch me again.

Chapter
10

I get suspended for two days for tearing up Hannah’s hand. Like I wanted to be at school anyway. Hannah gets detention, as if she’d actually have to serve it. I spend my suspension cleaning up Dad’s shop, and I’m grounded for the next two weeks, like there was anywhere I wanted to go, anyone I wanted to be with anyway. And I’m supposed to apologize to Hannah.

Not a chance.

Oh, and the school decided that “recent events indicate we didn’t plan sufficiently for the aftermath of emotions following the death of one of our students.” Or so it says in the letter they sent home. They’re bringing in some counselor from Aberdeen, maybe even the one Mom was going to take me to in the first place. The counselor will be “available during school hours for any student to come in for counseling.”

Voluntarily.

Except for me.

My counseling is mandatory. The Monday after my suspension, I get a note that I’m supposed to go straight to Ms. Holt’s office. So much for going back to school. I would have been better off staying in my room.

They put the counselor in the back of the health room, so I get to sit a few feet away from Ms. Holt while I wait my turn. She acknowledges me and then turns back to a pile of papers on her desk and focuses on them like her life depends on it.

After a few minutes, the door opens and the counselor shepherds Hannah out with an arm protectively around her shoulders. Hannah’s eyes are red and she has a little smudge of mascara on her otherwise perfect face. Her right hand is covered with four neon-green Band-Aids. When she sees me, her prettiness fades, and her eyes harden into green stones.

The counselor squeezes Hannah’s shoulders. In the same motion, she reaches her hand out to me. “You must be Allie. I’m Karen Vincent.”

Ms. Holt turns from her paperwork and offers to check Hannah’s hand while Ms. Vincent guides me through the little door.