Broken (17 page)

Once it was just the four of us, Britney
waved me over and held up her homework. "I don't get it. What is
the answer to this one?"

I shook my head in exasperation. "Me telling
you the answers won't help you on the test. If you have a specific
question about how to work a problem I'd be more than happy to help
you, but I'm not going to do your homework for you."

Britney looked like she had all kinds of
things that she'd like to say, but she showed more restraint that
I'd realized she was capable of, and kept them all inside.

"Please explain this one then."

I ran through three different examples of the
same problem before she seemed to get it, but thirty minutes later
she was finally working on her homework for the first time I'd ever
seen. I was surprised just how satisfying it was. Maybe I should
become a teacher.

Rachel caught my eye before I made it back to
my table. She gave me another tentative smile as I slid into the
seat next to her. "I'm really sorry about yesterday. I said all of
the wrong things. It's just I'm not supposed to talk about what
Alec says."

Wow, he sounded like even more of a jerk than
I'd expected. Talk about controlling. "It's ok Rachel. I'm sorry I
overreacted on finding out my attacks were public knowledge. It was
mostly meant for Britney."

She cocked her head slightly to the side and
looked at me with incredibly large blue eyes that somehow seemed
older than they had a few seconds before. "It really bothers you
that everyone knows?"

I shrugged uncomfortably. "I guess maybe it
shouldn't, but it does. Nobody likes to be ridiculed, but it's even
more than that. The attacks started up a couple of months ago.
They...remind me of a really terrible thing that happened, so when
people make a big deal out of them it's like it's all happening
again."

Rachel nodded slowly, her wonderfully
expressive face full of sympathy. "I'm sorry to have pried like
that. If I'd known it would make you feel bad, I wouldn't have
asked."

I tried to shrug indifferently, but she
seemed to see through my pretenses. "I normally wouldn't have said
anything, but knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want you to go
through the next several days hurting inside because you think
everyone looking at you out of the corner of their eye is
ridiculing you."

Confident she didn't really need help, and
eager to avoid further reminders of just how broken I was, I'd been
standing to return to my desk. The words were plenty foreboding,
but they had an impact all out of reason for what they should have.
I sunk back into the chair and turned towards Rachel. Not enough to
actually make eye contact with her, just enough I hopefully didn't
come off rude. Maybe the illusion of space would be enough to
cushion me from whatever she was going to say next.

Rachel waited a second, giving me a chance to
say something before she proceeded. "You should know that someone
released another rumor about you, about your attacks."

My heart sunk. I'd only thought things
couldn't get any worse. Once everyone knew exactly why I was
emotionally crippled they'd have even less sympathy. They'd pretend
to feel sorry for me. They'd talk about how hard it must have been
to suffer such a loss, but they wouldn't understand, wouldn't have
the frame of reference to feel what I was feeling. They'd secretly
talk about all of the people they knew who'd lost family members
and been ok after a few weeks, or a couple of months. How even at
their worst, those friends hadn't collapsed at the mention of their
departed loved ones.

My pulse was already almost twice as fast as
normal, and the room was just starting to wobble from side to side.
Rachel was saying something, but I couldn't really hear her. The
void was gaping below me, when something grabbed my shoulder and
shook me surprisingly hard.

I opened my eyes to see Rachel looking at me.
"I'm sorry I had to do that Adriana, but you need to hear what I
have to say."

Half of me wanted to be angry, but the other
half just wanted to collapse into the void. Force of habit won over
anger and I passively let my defenses crumble, but apparently being
shocked out of a collapse functioned much the same as having just
come out of an attack. For the next few seconds at least I was
safe, could think about anything I wanted without fear of the
repercussions. Only Rachel was talking, ruining my concentration,
so the only thing I could focus on was her words.

"The rumor revolves around the fact that you
tragically lost your boyfriend in a vicious car wreck."

The immunity meant I hadn't expected the
words to hurt, hadn't expected the flash of surprise that spiraled
up from my center. The words were close to the truth, but not right
somehow.

"He was someone special, some of the rumors
put him as some kind of model or actor, or maybe a semi-pro
athlete. You'd been dating for two years, and were in the car with
him when it happened. It was so devastating that you've had a hard
time dealing with certain things since the accident. Being in cars
that are driven too fast, mention of the wreck, other assorted
things, and sometimes things nobody would expect trigger an
attack."

The words were striking into my mind with
such force I almost forgot Rachel was whispering. None of it made
sense, it had some things in common with the truth, but most of it
was pure fabrication.

"Why...I don't understand. Who would say
that?"

Rachel's face went from a mobile, beautiful
thing to a near perfect mask. Even in my befuddled state it was
obvious she was lying.

"I don't know, but you can use this. You're
not being mocked or scorned anymore. True or not, that rumor is the
most romantic thing anyone here has ever heard. It will transform
you into a mini celebrity overnight."

The haze was starting to evaporate from my
thoughts, the story still didn't make sense, but Rachel's
explanation did.

"The story's vague enough that nobody can
really prove or disprove it. Don't get specific on any details, and
you can ride this all the way until you graduate."

The mask was gone, she wasn't lying anymore.
She really believed this rumor would change everything for the
better. It all made sense, but didn't explain who'd started it, or
why they'd done it. Rachel's face told me she wouldn't answer
either of those questions.

I finally settled on one I thought she might
answer. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Rachel's face tried to take on her liar's
mask, but didn't quite succeed. "You risked a lot to stop Cassie
from hurting me. The least I can do is tell you anything I know
that could save you from getting hurt in return."

She was telling the truth. Not all of it, but
at least some of it. I wanted to tell her she didn't owe me
anything, but there were so many questions I needed answered still.
There was some kind of weird power struggle going on, and her
brother was right in the middle of it all, but I couldn't ask her
about any of it. She'd already said as much as she was going
to.

I nodded my thanks, and went to stand again,
but she captured my arm before I could complete the motion. "There
are a lot of things I can't tell you, but anything you want to know
about me is fair game. I'm sorry about all the rest."

Something about the vulnerability in her eyes
convinced me she really meant that. I added one more item to the
list of reasons to hate her brother. Anyone who would be so
controlling to someone like Rachel had already piled up all kinds
of bad karma.

"Fair enough. What's your favorite book that
you've never read?"

The question seemed to take her by surprise.
"Um, Gone With the Wind. Probably because she doesn't necessarily
start out as a bad person, but allows self-interest and events to
carry her into terrible actions."

I felt my eyes go wide. "That's a pretty
detailed analysis of a book you've never read."

Rachel blushed a little. "I really haven't
read it. Maybe because I'm worried that it won't turn out to be
what I think it will be. What about you?"

I shouldn't have been surprised by the
question, but I was. Possibly because I'd spent too much time
around people like Britney who were so caught up in their own
lives, that they didn't really care about what was happening in
mine.

"Les Misérables. The music from the musical
is so inspiring that I know the book must be truly wonderful."

I let the statement hang in the air for a
couple of seconds, and then finished up with the truth. "Of course
I don't really know, because it's so big, and parts of it are so
boring that I may never manage to get through the whole thing."

Chapter 10

The rest of the afternoon finished up on a
quiet note. After I went back to my table, Rachel worked on some
homework for a few more minutes, and then gathered up her things
and slipped out.

I decided the new guy wasn't a football
player when he started gathering up his books. No athlete in my
experience ever took that many books anywhere. Not only that, he
gently placed them in his backpack like someone who viewed the
written word as his friend rather than as a necessary evil that
interfered with the hero worship due him from the masses.

I was so caught up watching him that I forgot
to look away when he stood up, and he caught me staring. I expected
annoyance, or possibly some of the disdain I'd endured off and on
for the last forty-eight hours.

I didn't get either. I couldn't really
interpret the look, but he held my eyes for several seconds, until
I finally looked away, my face heating up. I tried to run through
the entire range of possible emotions, to pin that look down to
something that made sense. It wasn't attraction, it'd been too
neutral for that. Envy, fear, friendship, none of them fit.

Whoever he was, he quietly left the room
while my head was still whirling. I looked up to find Britney
frowning at me. "What is your deal? I don't think I've ever seen
Isaac notice anyone other than his girlfriend. He isn't like Alec,
who notices everyone but is too good to actually speak to any of
us. Isaac's just so caught up in whatever is going on inside his
head that he doesn't realize any of us exist."

Britney slammed her book, "First Brandon
decides he has the hots for you, and then you crack the ivory
tower. There's absolutely no justice in the world."

I so wasn't looking forward to the ride home.
Past experience had pretty much established that when Britney got
like this there was absolutely no reasoning with her. Trying to
explain that she hadn't seen the look from my end, that Isaac most
definitely hadn't been attracted to me, would be useless.

I was pleasantly surprised when Britney's
annoyance seemed to have blown over by the time we left the
building. Before we'd even made it out of the parking lot, Britney
was once again chattering about nearly everyone else in the school
and what they were or weren't doing lately. Considering that I
still couldn't put a face with most of the names she was tossing
around, the gossip wasn't just uninteresting, it was a near
ordeal.

It wasn't until I looked over at the
speedometer that I realized we really had been driving longer than
normal rather than the gossip just making it seem to take forever.
Britney caught me registering the fact she was driving under the
speed limit for the first time I could remember, and broke off
recounting Amy Stevens' supposed fling with one of the football
players, just long enough to blush.

"I figured I should be more careful of how
fast I drive. You know, my dad keeps threatening to take away my
car if I get any more tickets. With everything else going on right
now he just might do it."

It was actually pretty plausible. I probably
would've believed it if not for Rachel's description of the new
rumor floating around school. Britney was trying to cater to my
supposed fear of being in a speeding car. Only, my supposed fear
was actually a very real fear, just not for the reasons Britney
thought.

Chapter 11

Brandon arrived just in time to pick me up
before I got on the bus. As expected, he teased me about not
waiting for him at my house, but it was a small price to pay for
not having to worry about how I was going to get to school if he
didn't show up. We made small talk and all too soon arrived at
school. As we pulled into the parking lot I was desperately looking
for something witty or insightful to say. I needed to give him a
reason to stay interested in me, but nothing came to mind.

As we pulled to a stop, the quiet hum of a
cellphone on vibrate broke the strange paralysis that'd gripped me
for the last twenty seconds. Brandon's grin was more than a little
sheepish as he fished his phone out of a front pocket and checked
to see who was calling. I didn't need his groan to know it was one
of his friends. A selfish urge to try and make him ignore the call
and continue to focus on me momentarily flared up, but I suppressed
it.

It was such a petty thing to do, and even
worse was probably the quickest way to demolish whatever interest
he might have towards me. I might be almost completely naive when
it came to dating, but anyone who'd read more than a couple books,
or sat through eight or nine chick flicks, totally knew that the
quickest way to drive a guy off was to become controlling and
manipulative. Unless maybe you were a cheerleader and you were
talking about a guy that was used to dating cheerleaders. Which
while I wasn't even close to the former, the latter actually
described Brandon almost perfectly.

I almost stopped midway through the action of
opening my car door, but it was too late. Even if I'd picked the
wrong course, the moment was gone. I had to just play it cool and
leave or risk looking like a total loser. He returned my wave with
a nod and shifted his focus back to whoever was on the phone with
him.