Broken and Screwed (30 page)

             
Eric’s eyebrows shot up as he looked from Jeremy to me. “Who are you?”

             
“It don’t matter,” Jeremy said smoothly before he turned and leaned against the table with his back to Eric. He scooted closer to me and dropped his voice to an intimate whisper. “Are you trying to scare me away, Jesse’s Girl? Or aren’t you Jesse’s girl anymore? He seemed real protective of you at my place. Did that change? I’d sure like to know what happened to change that.”

             
My eyes were firmly attached to my lap. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t move, but when I felt his finger touch my arm, I jerked upright. I almost jumped out of my seat and Jeremy placed his hand on my shoulder as he laughed. “Well, steady there, Jesse’s Girl. I was only asking you a question. You don’t have to get all spirited like an old horse or something. I ain’t cornering you with ill intent. We’re all friends here.” His smirk deepened and something dark flashed in his eyes as he included Eric in his last statement.

             
Eric had tensed up. His eyes were hard and his jaw was firm, but his gaze lingered on me for a moment before he slid off his stool.

             
“Oh, whoa, hey.” Jeremy made a show of backing away from the table with his hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to start anything.”

             
“You’re making her uncomfortable.”

             
“Yeah, well, I can see why she might be.” He winked at me as he regarded Eric again. Jeremy swayed his body around. He was loose and having fun, while Eric stood as rigid as a statue. “Oh, come on. Like this ain’t funny. She’s Jesse’s girl, man. You have to know about that. He damn ripped my head off last time I saw this little bitty—”

             
“Come on, Jer.” Barbie stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “We’re already late.”

             
“I’m having fun.”

             
“Let’s go,” she snapped at him. “We’re real sorry, but we have to be going.”

             
“Oh, come on.” Jeremy was heard protesting as she dragged him out the door, but we heard her snap again, “She’s Ethan’s sister. Leave her alone.”

             
Anything else Jeremy was going to say was cut short. And then the door swung shut behind them. The table was quiet; I couldn’t get her words out of my head. A longing filled me now. It was so deeply rooted in me that I gasped. I hadn’t known it was there; it didn’t make sense. I thought I was getting better. Then I shot out of my chair. I needed to know about Ethan. I had to know.

             
“Alex!”

             
I ignored Eric and shoved through the doors. Barbie had gotten Jeremy in her rusty truck and as she was rounding to her side, she saw me coming. She froze in place. Her eyes widened and fear flashed over her before she tried to hurry to the drivers’ side.

             
“Wait!” I called out. She didn’t so I sprinted after her. “Wait!” I slapped a hand on her door as she tried to pull it closed.

             
“Let it go, little girl.” Her eyes held a soft warning in them. “Let us go in peace and we’ll leave you alone.”

             
“You knew my brother,” I spat out.

             
Jeremy was laughing so hard, his body was jerking in spasms.

             
“We did.” Barbie lost her fight, but turned to Jeremy. He quieted his laughs so they were more silent, but he wiped the tears from his eyes. His shoulders kept shaking forward. His laughing continued, but he struggled to keep it under control.

             
She turned back, disgusted, and slid out of the truck. “Come on, let’s walk.” As she shut the door, she gave him a stern warning. “You stay, Jeremy. I don’t want any bullshit.”

             
“I won’t. Promise.” His hands lifted again in surrender, but the giggles that escaped him didn’t lend him credibility.

             
She took a deep breath and then turned towards me. “Come on.”

             
I followed her at a cautious pace as she went back to the taco place and sat down at a picnic table. There were four more, but all were empty and her truck was far enough away so I knew Jeremy Benson wouldn’t be listening to us. I was relieved at that, but the wariness that came over Barbie had my stomach twisting again.

             
Would it ever end?

             
She sighed and hung her head. Her hands fell in her lap and she seemed defeated as she sat across from me. “I’m real sorry about Jeremy. He can be an asshole sometimes, and I think he likes to torment you because it’s his way of sticking it to Jesse. Him and Hunt aren’t real friendly, but they put up with each other. I guess.”

             
“How do you know Ethan?”

             
She looked up with tears in her eyes. The sorrow in them had me gasping for breath. It was unexpected and so sincere; I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t.  She started again. Her voice was raw from the memories. “Ethan became friends with us at the end of his senior year. He never said anything, but something was going on with him. We all knew he wasn’t happy. We didn’t know if something was going on at home or with his girl. We thought it was his girl because he took up with me.”

             
I couldn’t breathe and my chest was starting to hurt, but I was on the edge of understanding something important. She was Ethan’s girl?

             
“We messed around a few times. Hunt wasn’t real happy. He never said why, but him and Ethan seemed to be fighting a bunch at the end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they were always tight. Those two were so damn close. I knew it pissed Jeremy off. Jer liked Ethan. He liked him a lot, but Jesse always came around looking for Ethan, and Jer and him just got to become enemies.” She wiped at her eyes, but her head hung down again. Her blonde hair was in clumps as it cascaded around her. I could barely see her anymore.

             
She continued, but I heard the tremor in her voice. “Anyways, Ethan was hanging out with us all the time. It was nice. He was a gentleman. He never did drugs like the rest of them. The only thing he ever did was drink, but not a lot. He was always cautious about not getting drunk. He was rare, you know.” She sniffled. “There are so many dirt bags out there and he was always real nice to me. He even told me about you once.” Her head lifted and she gave me a soft smile. Her lip quivered. “He loved you lots. I could tell. Him and Jesse would fight about you, too.”

             
“What?” My eyes went wide.

             
She shrugged. A faraway distant look came over her. “No one knows what they fought about that had to do with you; just that they did. Ethan didn’t like something and Jesse did, that’s all we could tell, but then it didn’t matter. The night he died, he was with us.”

             
I couldn’t breathe. Oh god.

             
“He’d been with me that night. He was always so gentle. I felt loved, like one of those types who get their prince in the end. It was nice. I wasn’t used to that from guys. I guess that’s why all of us loved him so much. He was a good friend to Jer, too; he even got him to stop fighting. And that says a lot. Jeremy loves to fight, but he stopped for awhile because Ethan asked him to.”

             
It hurt. Everything was starting to hurt again.

             
“But he got a phone call from Jesse and he took off. That was the last we saw him. The next thing we knew was hearing a few days later that he had died. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could. We tried to go to his funeral, but your momma wasn’t having it. She barred us from the place. We couldn’t even go to his headstone. I’d like to go sometime. I think Jeremy snuck out there one time, but he never told me. He took a flower from Herbert’s pot, but when he came back, he didn’t have it. That wouldn’t be a big thing with a normal guy, but Jeremy never gives girls flowers. When he came back, his shoes were all muddy, so were his knees, and he had that off look in his eye. He always got that and I’d know he was thinking of Ethan.”

             
When she ended, I heard her quiet sobbing. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even want to comfort her. All of it hurt so damn much. I told myself to breathe. Breathe in and out. Let it go. Exhale. Angie’s words came to me then.

             
‘
You get up every morning. You go through the motions. You do what you’re supposed to and some day it won’t hurt as bad’

             
I sat there and kept breathing until it didn’t hurt as bad. When I could finally lift my head, I was jolted to see the haunted expression on her face. She reached over for my hand. As I gave it, she held onto it tightly. Then she choked out, “You had a good brother, you did. He was one of the best. I know Jeremy seems like a scary jackass, but he ain’t. He loved your brother like his own and I know he’d take care of you if you ever needed it. You don’t need to be scared of us, I promise. I’ll set him right. I think he was trying to scare you because he’s still mad at Hunt. He blames Jesse for Ethan’s death, though we know that ain’t right. Jesse was with his girl that night.  Ethan told me that Jesse had some family dinner with the in-laws. That’s what we called them because we all teased Jesse about being wifed-up, ya know? I’d been hoping he would’ve come out to party with us. Those two together were fun to watch. They would bicker like a married couple, but you could tell they loved each other. With guys nowadays and all their egos, they don’t know how to be friends with each other. Anyways,” she squeezed my hand before she let it go. “You say hello to Jesse for me, would you? That’d mean a lot to me.”

             
She got up and left me then. There was so much to comprehend. I couldn’t figure it out. I was still sitting there trying to do that when I heard her truck pull away. I didn’t hear when the door opened from the taco place and I wasn’t aware that Eric sat across from me. I had no idea how long I sat there, but he would tell me later that he ate our tacos. Then he waited another half hour before he tried to move me. I think I went into shock after Barbie’s revelations. The only thing I could do was breathe, only breathe.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

             
I never told anyone about what Barbie said to me. Eric questioned me to make sure that Jeremy Benson wouldn’t be a problem. I always reassured him; I believed what Barbie had said. I saw the pain in Jeremy’s eyes as he spoke of Ethan, but I also saw the hatred he had for Jesse. Things still didn’t make sense to me, though. What had Ethan been unhappy about? And my parents never said a word about Ethan’s other friends to me. They knew. My mom had banned them from the funeral, so they obviously knew about them.              

             
No one told me. No one had said a word.

             
And Jesse…he had called Ethan that night. What had he said to him?

             
I tried calling Jesse after that. I tried every morning and every night, but he never picked up. I left so many messages, I lost count of them. He was avoiding me and that meant he was guilty. Maybe Jeremy Benson was right, maybe Jesse had something to do with Ethan’s car accident. Why else would Jesse not take my phone calls? That alone was painful to admit. He didn’t respect me, whatever we had, enough to answer my questions.

             
But I refused to let his rejection send me into a tailspin again. I’d been numb for so long, too long. Angie was right when she said my old self was coming back. I was starting to laugh. I was starting to care about things. I was even nervous about prom, but Eric made sure it was my own fairytale. He and Justin got a limousine. They picked us up at Angie’s house. Karen fretted over me as if I was a second daughter. She took picture after picture until Angie pleaded for it to end.

             
And that night was spent in a hotel suite. We shared it with Angie and Justin. Ben also had a date. Each of us had a bedroom that was attached to the suite, but most of the night was spent laughing or in the Jacuzzi. Angie asked me in the bathroom if I was going to have sex with Eric. She said he wasn’t expecting it, but it was prom. It was almost tradition.

             
I laughed at that. My life was not traditional.

             
Eric got some cuddling from me and made it to second base. He felt underneath my clothes, but that was it. I’d given my all to Jesse and was only now able to breathe normally again. Through the rest of that night, I remembered how Barbie had said Ethan was a gentleman. Eric was as well, it was something that brought tears to my eyes at times. Maybe I was trying to replace Ethan with Eric, maybe that was why I told him that I’d never feel for him what he felt for me.

             
Eric took it well. He said it was the gentlest way a girl had let him down. And then he said he would still like to spend time with me. So for the rest of the school year, he picked me up for school. He drove me home. We went out for dinners and movies. He would hold my hand in the hallways and hold my books. He always knew I didn’t feel the same, but after I kept insisting that I didn’t want to lead him on, Eric pressed a kiss to my forehead. He told me that he only wanted to take care of me. So I let him. We spent almost every night together over the summer. He would sleep at my home on the weekends, on the bed that Jesse had used growing up.