Unbroken (4 page)

“You know, maybe you should consider talking to Bee about the restraining order,” Grecia offers.

I shake my head. I considered that when everything initially happened, and it just made no sense to do that. He goes to college an hour away ten months out of the year. When he’s in town, we hardly ever see him. But it’s those rare occurrences that fuck everything up.

“No point,” I say, brushing her off. “Bee doesn’t want to.”

“Yeah, well, Bee stinks.”

I shrug as I pull into the parking lot of Gracie’s school. “We can’t blame her. This wasn’t her fault.”

She rolls her eyes at me before climbing out of the car. While I watch her head toward her practice, my phone rings, notifying me of a text message.

Maddox Bradley:

I hate this. I hate that we don’t talk anymore. I love you.

My heart surges at his admission, but it’s not enough. Nothing he could ever say would make up for what he did to me and my family. And if he hasn’t apologized—which is the very
least
he could do—then obviously he hasn’t realized that, and he’s not worth talking to.

Me:

Not enough. Let me ask you something, Maddox. If I had never caught you, would you ever have stopped?

His response is instantaneous.

Maddox Bradley:

That’s not fair.

My blood boils just looking at those three words. What he did to us wasn’t fair either. Him not seeing the error of his ways isn’t fair. Him bothering me when I’m finally healing and ready to get on with my life isn’t fair.

Me:

The fact that you think that is precisely the reason we don’t talk anymore. It’s both a fair question, and a question I need answered before I’ll even consider considering talking to you like we used to again. Until you wise up—which I doubt you will—FUCK OFF MY LINE.

I press lock on my phone and stick it in my purse. I don’t want to see it and risk seeing whatever he texts me. I don’t want to see anything that he has to say.

I’ll admit, while we were together, everything between Maddox and me was good. It was phenomenal. Despite the fact that my parents hated him, everything was perfect in our relationship. He was sweet. He opened car doors for me, pulled out my chair when he took me out to eat. He introduced me to his parents and made sure I was the first to get a ticket to his high school graduation. When we had sex for the first time, he was gentle and slow. He made me laugh daily, and it definitely helped that he wasn’t bad looking. We rarely fought, and whenever we did, he made it up to me by bringing flowers to my window every day for a week—even if he was right and I was wrong. He taught me how to drive, and even showed me how to change a tire once Mom and Daddy got the Honda for me. He was smart, charming, and everything a girl could ever wish for in a boyfriend.

I don’t know where things went wrong.

But once they did, there was no turning back.

I peer out the window, out to where Gracie has met up with her coach. She waves at me from the field, and I wave back.

Taking a deep breath, I turn the radio up and start the long drive from here to
Le Chateau D’If
.

Within forty five minutes, I’m walking into the swanky restaurant. I don’t get the chance to take in the decor of the place before I’m ushered out of the front and into the locker room. There are two other girls besides me, and there’s also a boy who seems to be my age. I recognize Jenny Archer, the owner’s niece and manager of the restaurant. I walk over to her to be introduced to my other colleagues, but she stops me short.

“You, make your way to my office. We have a proposition for you tonight.”

I raise an eyebrow, but I do as I’m told.

Inside her office, there’s a boy. A boy. He’s actually very handsome as handsomeness goes, but the feeling I get when I look at him is vaguely Not-Lewellyn’s-Guy. So I give him a curt smile and take a seat across from where he sits at Jenny’s desk.

“Hi,” he says with a grin. “My name is Colin Westwick. How are you this evening?”

When he speaks, he sounds so mature, but there’s no denying that he’s not much older than me. I wonder what it is about him that makes him seem older than his years. I lean across the desk and extend my hand to him.

“Sabrina Matteo. I’m grand.”

He nods, placing his hands atop the desk after our handshake and folding them in front of him. He runs his hands through his dark hair, and then leans back in Jenny’s chair, crossing one leg at the ankle, resting it on his knee. I recoil a bit from this position he’s put himself in, because he looks like somebody’s CEO or something with the way he’s sitting, and there’s no way that’s possible when he can’t be older than eighteen or nineteen.

“Miss Matteo, I have a business proposal for you. Tomorrow night is my first anniversary with my girlfriend. The two of us have been through an incredibly rough year, and I want our first anniversary to be memorable for her. I’ve spoken with Ms. Archer, and she’s agreed to grant me one of her waitresses for the evening, and she’s given me the okay to pick whoever suits my needs best.”

I lean forward, no longer intimidated by him. In fact, I’m intrigued.

“You’ve interviewed all of us like this, alone in Ms. Archer’s office?” I ask.

“Only the females.”

Oh, now he’s
really
gotta start answering some questions. Something about the way he says that, and the look on his face when he does, rubs me the wrong way, and I’m going to figure out why.

“Only the females? A bit misogynistic, aren’t you?”

He shakes his head, running a hand along the back of his neck.

“My girlfriend is less uncomfortable around strangers when they’re females.” He pauses, then clears his throat as though I’ve made him uncomfortable. “I’m offering three hundred dollars to whoever our waitress is for the night. First, I have to ask: what would you do with an extra three hundred dollars for working just one night?”

I’m positive that my jaw is on the floor. There’s no way this kid has bank like this, where he can offer three hundred dollars just for working one night. There’s no way in the world…unless he really is a CEO like I originally pegged him as.

I laugh to myself at the thought. There’s no way.

“I’d put it in my bank account to save toward getting my own apartment.”

I try to answer him as honestly as possible. I know three hundred dollars isn’t going to cure world hunger or pay for one of my siblings to go to college or something. And it sure as shit isn’t going to get me the apartment I want. But it’s a start. It’s a stepping stone toward independence.

“Why are you saving toward getting your own apartment?”

I shrug. That answer’s simple. “When I told my parents I wanted to be a neonatal surgeon, they promised to pay my way through medical school, and for my seventeenth birthday, they bought me my first car.” Pausing, I give another shrug. “Me saving for an apartment on my own is my way of showing them that I’m capable of doing things on my own. And it’s also my way of showing them that I don’t take a moment of their hard work for granted. That I value it just as much as they do, and I can work hard for something that I want instead of having it handed to me.”

With wide eyes, he stands to his feet and offers his hand to me. He looks surprised by my answer, and that makes me wonder what the other girls said in response to him. Getting to my feet, I shake his outstretched hand and try my hardest not to blush.

“It was great to meet you, Miss Matteo. I’ll be in touch with you sometime tomorrow, and I’ll let you know whether I’ve chosen you or not.”

He walks out the office and I just stand there, completely perplexed by this man.

What the Hell just happened?

THREE

I’M ON EDGE AS I change out of my school clothes and into my work uniform in the locker room. I was running late and didn’t have time to stop at home to get ready, so I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got in my locker. So far, I’m the first person here, and I wonder if that’s a good thing. I want Ms. Archer to know that I’m reliable, so I’m doing my best to leave her with a good impression.

My eyes roam over the shelf inside my locker, and I try and find whatever I can to make myself presentable. All I have in here is a jar of Pro-Styl gel, a can of hairspray, three bobby pins, a
liga
, liquid eyeliner, and a tube of mascara. I guess that’s what I’ve got to work with, so I grab it all and head into the bathroom.

I’ve always kept a brush in my purse, so I pull that out right before I coif my bangs. I pin them back and, with gel on my fingers, I slick the sides of my hair down. Within five minutes, I have a perfect ponytail, winged eyeliner, and my brown eyes pop about as much as is possible with only mascara to do the trick.

Placing all my things back in my locker, I allow myself to think of Maddox, and how everything he did has affected me so far. In six months, I’ve gone from confident and completely sure of myself to timid and questioning everything about myself. I’m constantly wondering if I’m good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, funny enough, enough, enough, enough. I’m constantly wondering if I
was
good enough, why did he hurt me the way he did?

They’re questions I’ll never have the answers to, and I think that’s what bothers me the most. The fact that I’ll never be
sure
. I’ll always
wonder.

Shit, there are plenty things that will keep me wondering for the rest of my life.

Grabbing a tube of lip gloss from my purse, I rub some on my lips and rub them together. Closing my eyes, I push all thoughts of wondering and questioning out of my mind. I can worry about all of that later.

I glance up at the clock that rests above the window to Ms. Archer’s office, and I realize that my shift is set to start in about twenty minutes. With twenty minutes to spare, I make my way out of the locker room and into the ballroom.

It’s been rented out tonight for Colin Westwick and his girlfriend’s anniversary—I’m not even going to waste my time wondering how he pulled that off—and Silence of Sound is doing last minute practice before the happy couple arrives.

“Hey!” Phoenix, the lead singer, exclaims, glancing up at me the minute the door is closed behind me. “What are you doing here?”

I shrug. “I work here. What are
you
doing here? I thought you were only going to be regular entertainment when the restaurant
opened
?”

This is the Phoenix Sexton I know. Normally he’ll stroll over to a girl with an undeniable sex appeal, a smirk on his face as he pushes his hair back and slouches forward. But no, he doesn’t do that to me. He knows it won’t work on me, because our bonds run much deeper than any attraction ever would. We’re bonded by blood.

He smiles lazily and all but runs over to me. We haven’t seen each other in months, mostly due to my being a hermit and his being a badass rocker.

My cousins Phoenix and Cabe—on my mother’s side—started their band in middle school, but they only made a name for themselves last year. His older brother Cabe manages the band, and they’re pretty successful considering 75% of the band is still in high school. They put out two EPs:
Echoes,
and
Vibration
came later. In January, though, they put out a full-length album called
Oblivion
, and now they’re trying to establish themselves.

He wraps me up in a hug, and shrugs at me. “Well, we’re technically not contracted to start performing here for another week, after the grand opening, but some rich kid hired us to play his anniversary or something like that. Considering we’re not touring, and Gibson’s still on break from school, we decided to take the gig.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Question. Was the kid well-dressed, about ye high, talks like he’s thirty, last name Westwick?”

Phoenix nods. “Yeah. He seemed a bit pretentious to me, but Cabe says we can’t afford to say no to money right now. What’s your read on him?”

I think back to his so-called interview with me the other day, and the few things he actually said to me. He only interviewed females, his girl was uncomfortable around men, and he was willing to pay up to three hundred dollars for just one night. Hell, for it to be an “interview”, he only asked one question. However, he didn’t seem pretentious from where I was standing. Sure, he was going a bit overboard for a
first
anniversary, but isn’t that what most girls want? To be spoiled?