Broken Fairytales (15 page)

“No, I will,” he said, nodding earnestly. 

I laughed at his enthusiasm.
“Okay, whatever you want.”

“I just want you,” he said,
as he leaned down to kiss me.
I kissed him back, realizing how much I did like kissing him. 

When Be
n pulled away, he was smiling.
He
leaned back against the porch railing, and I leaned against him,
resting my head on his chest. I let him hold me until
I had g
o
, knowing
it was what he needed
, but truthfully, in that moment, I needed it too
.

“I have t
o go,” I said, looking up at him
, knowing we needed to leave
if
wanted to get to the beach by the time we’d told my Mom we’d be there. She’d have a conniption if we were late.

“I know,” he said
so
ftly, leaning down to kiss me.
“I miss you already.”

“Me too,” I said
, knowing I wasn’t lying. I really would miss him.

H
e kissed me once m
ore before I headed back inside.

“I’m almost ready,” I told Keely
,
as I walked back into my
room, looking around to make sure
I hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Whatever,”
Keely said again, stretching her
legs out in front of her.
“I’m in no hurry to start my summer from hell.
Did you guys make up?
”

“Yeah, we did.”

“Yea,” she said sarcastically
, pumping her fist in the air.
“Nothing but first-class drama around here.”

I shot her an annoye
d look, but she didn’t see it.

“Okay, I think I’m ready,” I sa
id, standing up and grabbing my
key
s
.

“Good, ‘cause Chase just got home,” Keely said, peering out the window.

Leaving the house,
Keely followed me out the front door, wheeling her suitcase behind her
while Chase went
inside to get his bags
.
We solemnly piled into my SUV
, Keely sigh
ing audibly every few seconds.
She looked miserable as she sat
in the front seat next to me.
I real
ly hoped she’d snap out of it.
She was the only person I’d have to hang out with all summer, and if she was going to
be pouting, then I wasn’t about
to be around her.
In an effort to snap her back into her usual bubbly, fu
n self, I put on Katy Perry
and smiled when all it took was one song for her to start tapping her fo
ot while we waited for Chase who seemed to be taking forever and a day to get his bags.

I
laid on
the horn,
but it was
a few more minutes before he
came
back
outside.
Walking past my open window without a word,
he banged once on the back hatch, indicating that I should open it.
It seemed our brother/sister bonding from the night before had ended at the stroke of midnight.

“What the fuck is this crap,” he said,
as he slid into the car behind Keely.

“Katy Perry,” Keely said, turning around to face him.

“Well, it sucks.”

“It does not,” Keely retorted, as I backed out of the driveway.

I cou
ld sense a fight coming on, so I looked into the rearview mirror
to try and catch Chase’s eye.
He was
older, he should know better.
He looked up at me for a second, his hooded eyes barely registering the look I gave him, but I knew he understood, because he leaned back and shut up.

“You’re high,” I said sim
ply, as I navigated out of
our
neighborhood
.

“Yup.”

“That’s what you were doing just now, wasn’t it? You were smoking,” I accused, glaring at him, pissed that he’d held us up to so he could get high.

“
I knew you wouldn’t let me smoke in your car, so I didn’t have a choice,” he said, shrugging.

Well, h
e was right.

Next to me, Keely turned around
to get a better look at Chase.
“Wow, you really
are high,” she said, taking in
his vacant expression.
 

“Chase, it’s 10 am,” I said,
taking a different approach and
knowing I sounded
like our mother.
Well, not really sinc
e
she had no idea that her son was
baked half the time
.

“So,” was all he said. 

So
,
I let it drop.
I thought he was an idiot, but if he wanted to ruin his life, that was his problem.
After
h
e’d helped me
the night before I decided
I was going to m
ake a concerted eff
ort to not rag on him as much.
He had saved me from embarrassing myself further or getting
hurt, plus he’d helped me home.
I had to be at least nice to him for that, even if I couldn’t understand his recreational habits
.

When the Katy Perry song end
ed, I let Chase pick the next song
, telling them we’d alternate music, so everyone would be happy. 

“Pick whatever you want,” he
said, sliding his
ear buds in
and closing hi
s eyes, tuning me and the car r
ide out altogether.

Just knowing he
’d
hate it,
I put on
Carrie Underwood
.
Keely was a fan, and I liked some of her songs.
Hearing her
singing about breaking up with someone, I was conflicted again.
I wondered if I’d made a mistake in g
etting back together with Ben.

I stole a glance at my brother in the rearview mirror and st
ared at him for a few seconds.
H
e looked up and caught my eye.
For a moment, it was like there was
something unspoken between us
, but I wasn’t sure what it was
.
We’d drifted so far apart over the years that it was hard to remember a time when we’d been friends or at least friendly.

Part of me wanted to continue to hate him
like I always had because it felt natural
, but another part of me suddenly wanted to see if
maybe our relationship could change
.
Obviously, there were a lot of things we’d have to adjust about how we treated each other, but c
ould we
actually
be friends?
Had last night
possibly
bri
dged some sort of
a
gap
? 
He’d been nice to me – a protective older brother
, just like he’d been to Keely
. Was it just a fleeting moment of brotherly obligation that had caused him to react the way he did, or did he actually care about me? I was willing to give it a chance and see if maybe, by sheer proximity, we could work out our differences over the summer.

That
idea lasted exactly thirty minutes before Chase too
k out
his
ear buds
and
started to
smirk and roll his eyes
as Keely and I
gossiped about people we knew and talked about
clothes and shoes
.
At that point
,
I figured our relationship was too
probably
far gone and returned to hating him.
At least it was a familiar feeling
.

Our trip
was most peaceful when
he fell asleep for two hours.
I was almost tempted not to wake him when we
stopped at McDonald’s for lunch
b
ut felt guilty
,
so I threw pen at his head to jar him awake. He jumped, startled, and I couldn’t help smirking.

After giving us his order,
Keely and I went into the restaurant while Chase lingered by the car, saying he needed to make a phone call. 

“Who’s he calling?” Keely asked,
pulling her curls
into a messy pile on top of her head
as we waited in line.
 

I shrug
ged. “Who knows?
Probably his boyfriend, Davis
,” I said, feeling instantly bad for calling my brother ga
y, because
for all I knew, he was
gay
.
I’d never seen him with a girl, so who knew
, but if he was gay, I hoped he’d have better taste than his obnoxious best friend
.
 

Keely
just
giggled.

Chase didn’t come inside until after we wer
e already seated with our food.
When
he joined us, it was apparent that he hadn’t just been on the phone.

“How many times a day do you ac
tually smoke?” I asked
sarcastically
, as I took a bite of my cheeseburger.

He shrugged, sticking five French frie
s into his mouth at once.
“Fo
ur or five,” he said, around his
mouthful of food.

“
You are
such a dumbass,” I said,
shaking my head and
taking a sip of my D
iet Coke
.

Chase smiled widely at me.
“And you ar
e a stuck-up, superficial bitch,
”
he said
in an acidly sweet voice
, before returning to his food.

My eyes went wide, and I litera
lly thought about hitting him.
If we hadn’t been in a very p
ublic place, I might have taken
a
swing at him.
Instead I glared
at him and gritted my teeth
,
which wasn
’t very effective since he wasn’t even looking at me.
Again, I was letting him push my buttons, and that just infuriated me more.

I was never happier when we finally arrived at the t
wo story house on the beach that my parents had rented
,
and I could get out of the car and away from Chase.

Our Mom, hearing us pull up
, came outside
with a big smile on her face.
“You’re here!” she cried, embracing Chase who had climbed out of the
car first.
He hugged her back, showing that he was, of course, the model son.

I glared at his back as h
e moved past her into the house, lugging his duffel bags with him.

After hugging us, my mom
walked Keely and me inside, talking a mile a minute about all the fun things there were to do
on the island
.
Keely mumbled something about calling Barrett and di
sappeared
upstairs
.
I was left in the living room with my Mom who immediately asked if I wanted some ic
ed tea.
Being the good child
, and not faking it like Chase
or ducking out like Keely
, I said yes and settled
in
at the kitchen table while she busied herself with pouring two glasses for us.

For the next hour, she talked, and I listened and watched the beach outside
.
I was itching to chan
ge into my new pink bikini
and join Keely who had already set up a beach chair ten feet from the water and was
turning browner as my mother rambled on and on
. W
hen the phone rang, interrupting
her, I used that as my excuse to leave the table, motio
ning to her where I was going.
She smiled and n
odded vigorously a few times
.

“Emily,” she said, as I started out of the room.

“Yea
h Mom,” I said, pausing in the doorway and turnin
g around to look at her again.
She had her hand over the receiver.