Breakable Read online

  breakable

  aimee l. salter

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 Aimee L. Salter

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information on author appearances, discount or bulk sales, or to contact the author, visit www.aimeelsalter.com.

  First Edition, Aimee L. Salter, November 2013

  Designed by Kelly Geister

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  To Alan,

  for letting me chase my dreams.

  You're the handsomest guy

  in the room of my life,

  and way more important

  than doing the recycling.

  Thank you.

  God makes dreams come true,

  but He used you to fulfill mine.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  IT TAKES A VILLAGE…

  Chapter One

  As the Psychiatrist enters the room, he offers a patronizing smile. I return it in kind.

  He sinks into a plump chair, looking just like a doctor should: greying hair, a well-trimmed beard, badger-stripes framing his lips, and wire-rimmed glasses he must have purchased in the last ten years – unlike the rest of his polyester ensemble.

  His office looks like a living room, complete with coffee table squatting between us.

  Too bad there’s only two doors here – one into the hospital, the other with a combination lock. Kind of kills the good-time vibe.

  "How are you, Stacy?" Doc’s voice is too loud for the muted tones of the room — all earthy browns and soft corners. Even the furniture whispers. The clock in the corner ticks quietly, tells me it’s only 9:34am.

  It’s already been a rough morning. But I can’t tell him that. Not yet. So I start to shrug, then freeze. My stitches are nothing but a memory now, but searing pain lights up along the hard, pink lines spiderwebbing across most of my upper body. I breathe and wait for the jagged bolts to fade. The other doctors in my life say I’m healing. Yet, underneath I am still many layers of mangled nerve endings and fractured flesh.

  Doc hears me catch my breath and his eyes snap to mine. The benign disinterest was an act. He is measuring me.

  "Pain?" he asks, softly this time.

  "Yes. But it's not bad. I just moved wrong."

  The pain crackles under my skin until I want to scream. I won't tell him that. For him I will be untouched. Ready to face the world. Sane.

  I will get out of here today. I must. If I can get home in time, I can fix…everything.

  His lips press together under his perfectly trimmed mustache. After a second he smiles again.

  “I see you brought your bag.”

  The duffel bag my mother packed when she shoved me in this place sits on the floor under the combination lock. I don’t plan to touch it again until he’s opening that door for me.

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re confident about today?”

  “I’m confident that I’m not crazy.”

  Doctor’s smile twists up on one side. “You know we don’t use that word in here, Stacy.”

  There are a lot of words they don’t use in here. See you later, for example.

  I take a deep breath. Cold. Calm. Sane. “Sorry.”

  He meets my gaze, face blank. “I’m glad you’re sure of yourself. However, I do have concerns.”

  “Concerns?”

  He smiles in a way I’m sure is meant to be reassuring. But when he sits that way, with the over-bright anticipation behind his eyes, it kind of makes him look like a pedophile. Someone should mention that.

  “Stacy…you’ve changed therapists three times during your stay. Do you know what I think when I hear that?”

  I think the question is rhetorical, but he waits for me to answer. “Um… no?”

  His eyes lock on mine. “I think as soon as anyone gets close to the truth, you flee.”

  He hasn’t looked away. I can’t break the gaze without confirming his suspicions. But I’m suddenly certain I can’t talk without him hearing the lie, either. So I swallow and stare and wait.

  His calm is maddening.

  Then he starts talking again in the cool tone of a professional. “Your three-month assessment is coming and you’ve requested to leave our facility.” He plants his hands on his knees and eases to his feet, speaking as he turns to reach behind his chair. “As the Dean of this hospital, I have a responsibility to make sure it’s in your best interests to return to the rigors of daily life. I’ve read your file, spoken to your nurses, and been briefed by your therapists. Now I want to talk to you. About this.”

  He stands straight and – with a flourish – reveals a round mirror about the size of my head. The brass frame is hinged, allowing it to pivot.

  He watches me from the corner of his eye as he places the mirror on his side table. It’s positioned at enough of an angle that I can't see myself in it – a kindness, or a challenge? Doc sinks back into his chair without taking his eyes off my face.

  The gauntlet is thrown.

  My eyes slip to that shining surface, glinting under the light of the lamp at his side.

  What if I look and she’s there? She wouldn’t understand why I’m ignoring her. She’ll freak out. She’s been through enough. We both have. And breaking her heart is breaking mine.

  “I have a hunch if we examine whatever it is you see in the mirror, we’ll find the truth about the rest, Stacy,” Doctor says.

  Preoccupied, I nod because he’s right.

  One of his eyebrows kicks up. “Well, then…?”

  “What? Now?” I tear my gaze off the mirror and back to his face.

  Doc tips his head. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  I guess I’d better find one.

  I bite my lip and look away to buy myself some time. I’d expected this session to be like all the others – glib exploration of my past, patronizing questions about my psyche, along with self-congratulatory compliments when I “make a breakthrough”. I was prepared to do whatever it took – would have agreed to anything – to convince him to let me out of here. />
  But we haven’t been here five minutes and he’s already got me scrambling. I shift in my chair, hissing through my teeth when the scars on the back of my shoulder catch. For a moment I just breathe and force my body to relax. Let the needles of fire ease.

  When I’m ready to talk again, he hasn’t moved. He’s still waiting. If I don’t come up with something, this will be over before my second cup of coffee. But his eyes are on me like spotlights in the dark. What was I thinking, agreeing to talk to this guy?

  “You won’t understand,” I blurt, cursing the humming nerves that make my voice shake.

  “Try me.”

  “No, I mean the mirror. It won’t make any sense unless… unless you have the whole picture.”

  His face remains impassive, but his eyes narrow just a hair. He’s onto me.

  “I know the story you’ve fed your previous therapists. If there’s more, I’m willing to put the mirror aside for a time–”

  I sigh with relief. But he raises a single finger.

  “–if you tell me everything. In fact, I don’t hesitate to say there’s only one route to getting my signature on your release forms, Stacy. That’s the unvarnished, comprehensive truth.”

  Our eyes lock again and this is the moment. The marble of his patience rolls along a slim edge, precariously balanced between examining me and sending me back through the door without a lock, to let me rot in that cell they call a bedroom.

  If I don’t give him something, I’ll lose. Right now.

  Swallowing again, I try to make myself pitiful. I drop my head into my hands. “Okay,” I breathe into my palms.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth.” As much of it as I can. I’ll let him think he’s gotten through where others failed. Hell, I’ll even consider what he has to say if it means he’ll let me out today.

  “Excellent.”

  It takes a good minute of staring into the blurring shadows of my own palms to realize he’s waiting for me to start. I raise my head, frowning at him. “So…?”

  His eyebrows drift up again. “So, start. The truth.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  I snort. I can’t help it. “Well, we could be here a while.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  In my head I roll out a flippant, fairy-tale version of my life, just to irritate him. It might be fun. But he has to take me seriously. I can’t afford to actually piss him off. Or be here past two-thirty this afternoon.

  “Okay… How far into the sordid tale of my life do you want to skip? Where do you want to start?”

  "Nothing too dramatic. Start with the night you planned to give Mark the letter."

  Nothing dramatic, he says. I feel the grin slide off my face. I’ve got one shot at this. And I’m planning on giving him more of the truth about my life than I’ve ever given any other single human being. Except one.

  I can't help glancing at the mirror.

  He follows my gaze and, when he sees where I’m looking, opens his mouth. I launch into the story before he can speak.

  Chapter Two

  A billow of steam rose from the chunk of my hair flattened in my straighteners. The vapor licked the surface of the mirror, obscuring my reflection and turning the bedroom behind me into a smudge. Wretched things. I should have dried my hair more. But I was already running late. I’d gotten distracted by another argument with Older Me.

  Somewhere to my left, my phone buzzed. I fumbled on the carpet with my free hand to find it, then dragged a finger across the surface. The name “MARK” appeared at the top of the screen, scrolling to “come 2 my room wen u get here”

  I texted back “leavin in 5”

  Cursing my frizzy strands of copper hair that insisted on defying me at every turn, I redoubled efforts to turn my mop into some kind of sleek…something.

  I swiped my sleeve down the mirror, smearing the vapor aside.

  In the mirror’s reflection, Older Me stood over my shoulder, appearing close enough to touch if she’d actually been in the room, her face twisted into that look of concerned pity I hated.

  She’d been giving me that look in the mirror since I was twelve. The first time she appeared I thought I was crazy. It wasn’t until she told me stuff no one else could know that I realized she was real. Too bad I’d already told Mom at that point. She was horrified – and embarrassed. She made me promise never to tell anyone else. A course of action that Older Me supported.

  “Was that text from Mark?” Her voice, still sullen, was an oddly deeper version of mine.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “He’s expecting me soon and my hair is just… ugh.”

  The too-long beat of silence that followed my complaint meant we weren’t finished discussing things.

  “I just–” she began.

  I groaned. “Can we just agree to disagree? I have to get out of here.”

  But she kept talking. “I don’t understand why you insist on going to this dance when you know they’re going to give you a hard time.”

  “Would you let it go already?” After all, it wasn’t like she was going to help.

  Once I’d gotten used to seeing her, it wasn’t long before I figured out Older Me would know how things happened for me in the future. I’d been giddy, rushing to the mirror, calling for her until she appeared, demanding that she tell me. She refused.

  I got mad. She didn’t care. I screamed. She shrugged. I cried, she apologized, but still refused to budge.

  And so began a conversation we’d repeat ad nauseam for…well, for almost six years so far. Oh, she was great at telling me why people acted the way they did after the fact. But what’s the point of having a window into your future, if half the time your future self refuses to clear the fog so you can see through it?

  So I’d stumbled through the last few years, screwing everything up. Now all I had left was Mark. My best friend and, I hoped, soon-to-be-boyfriend.

  Mark was my future. I’d written the letter in my pocket to make sure he knew that.

  “Stacy…”

  “I’m not talking about this anymore.”

  Older Me glared. “You always say you want me to help.”

  “I wanted you to help me break up Mark and Belinda in ninth grade. I wanted you to tell me what to study on my Chemistry final. I wanted you to help me not make a complete ass of myself at that party last spring.”

  “But that’s just it, Stacy,” she said through gritted teeth. “You don’t want help when it means missing out on something. Like this dance. Where you know they’re going to make your life hell.”

  “Do you really think I need you reminding me that everyone hates me?”

  She sighed. “Hate is a strong word.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  She met my glare with a worried frown. My stomach clenched, just for a second. But I wasn’t backing down this time. Not now, when I finally felt like maybe things might happen between me and Mark. I hadn’t told her about the letter. No matter what the future held, I knew she’d think that was a bad idea.

  Her mouth opened at the same instant my phone buzzed. I used one hand to pull the straighteners over another strand of hair, and swiped my thumb across the screen with the other. “He’s probably wondering why I’m not there yet – and my hair still looks like a birds-nest,” I muttered.

  “Your hair looks fine,” she sighed. But I wasn’t listening anymore.

  I’d been expecting another text from Mark.

  I didn’t check the sender before I opened the text.

  The words screamed at me from the glowing screen:

  HEY FATTY R U COMIN 2NITE?

  DONT 4GET UR BRIDLE

  FINN WANTS 2 GO 4 A RIDE

  My ears burned. I could just see them, all gathered around Belinda’s phone, cackling. I’d learned a long time ago it wasn’t worth opening anything that came from her, or Karyn, or Terese.

  Why hadn’t I checked the stupid phone?


  With shaking fingers, I deleted it. My stomach hardened into a knot, the bitter taste of bile rising in my throat. I drew the straighteners through the last strands of my hair without really paying attention.

  Oh, gawd. Was Older Me right? Should I stay home? If they’d started taunting me before we even got there, they were going to make it hurt.

  But… Mark.

  Mark had grabbed my elbow as I ran from art that morning. Told me we needed to talk. He’d run his hand through his sandy hair. His blue eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine. He’d been nervous. Twitchy.

  Mark was never nervous with me. And I’d only ever seen him twitch when he was talking to whatever girl he had the squeeze for.

  When he left, I’d almost danced on the spot. So, I had to go tonight because I thought – I hoped – Mark was finally going to ask me out. But if the vultures were already circling…

  I stared at the phone in my hand and swallowed hard. Then realized Older Me was still talking.

  “…seems hard to believe, but your friendship with him is probably more fun than anything else you could have right now. And who knows what will happen later? Wouldn’t it be better not to risk that?”

  Ignoring the irony of my future self asking rhetorical questions about the future, I dropped the phone onto my bed and picked up my bag. Picking through items one by one, pretending I was listening, I made sure the condoms I’d bought that afternoon were still safely hidden under my wallet and make-up bag, stifling the shiver that ran down my spine.

  If I was right and Mark asked me out, would I have the courage to invite him back home? To sneak him in? How many of these would I need if… if it came to that?

  “Stacy?”

  After giving her my best we’re done here expression, I turned back to my bag. Would it be better to put them in the zip pocket so there was no risk of them falling out and embarrassing me? Or would that make them too hard to find in the dark?

  “Are you listening to me at all?”

  I groaned and dropped everything but my keys back in my bag. “I’m leaving.”

  “But–”

  “I’m sure I’ll see you in the car,” I called back over my shoulder as I left the room.