Breakable Page 10

  “Wait!” The smile fell off Dex’s face and he put a hand on my arm to stop me.

  I waited, but pulled out of his grasp. Refused to meet his eyes.

  Dex ran a hand over his face. “Look, Stacy, I know this is weird. And I know it sucks that I didn’t get in touch.” He glanced up the hallway, licked his lips. “But I really was screwed up. And I really am better now. I just want you to know I meant what I said yesterday. I’m sorry. I hope we can be…friends.”

  Friends.

  It took a second for the word to sift through my head. Unfortunately, it dragged up all kinds of things I didn’t feel like thinking about.

  “That’s nice, Dex. Really. I mean, I appreciate it, but I’m not sure…”

  He grimaced. “Stellar, c’mon. I was messed up – you know that. Half the time I didn’t even remember what I said, or where I’d been. I mean–”

  “Do you remember being ashamed of me?” The words fell out of my mouth before I could shovel them back in. But they seemed to shock him, so I stuck with it. “Because I do.”

  Dex grimaced and looked away. “I wasn’t ashamed–”

  “You called me your dirty little secret,” I said flatly, reopening a wound I thought I’d forgotten.

  All pretense of the flirty, sweet smiles fell away. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He looked at his feet, then tipped his eyes up to meet mine. “I also told you things I never told anyone else. I trusted you.”

  “When you were high. And you knew I had no one else to talk to. So who was I going to tell? Who’d believe me?”

  He shoved his jaw forward. “I said I’m sorry, Stacy.”

  “Yeah, thanks. But I prefer friends who let me know ahead of time when they’re walking out of my life.” I moved to step past him, wanting away from the conversation because it reminded me how I’d felt for months after he left.

  “Wait.” He grabbed my arm again, his thumb pushing hard enough into my bicep to feel uncomfortable. “Let me make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think–”

  “Go to prom with me.”

  The words fell between us, hit the floor and shattered. My feet were nailed to the linoleum, my eyes frozen on his face.

  Dex glanced around, then leaned down close until we were almost nose to nose. “Look, Stellar, I get it, okay? I remember. Everyone in this school sucks. They think they’re better than us. And that…that used to just kill me, okay? But now…this is our chance. We can show them! We’ll do it for real – the limo, the flowers, a room at the hotel, the whole nine yards. Like…like we should have done last year.”

  My breath left my lungs like I’d been punched. I stepped back – away from him, or the memory, I wasn’t sure. I just knew I needed more space. More air.

  “Stellar–”

  “Stop calling me that.” I couldn’t put any tone into the words, was having a hard enough time getting my tongue around them. “I’m not Stellar. I’m Stacy. And…and you can show up out of the blue looking ripped and opening doors and stuff, but you’re still Dex. You don’t get to just walk back in and act like nothing happened. Because that’s not fair. Stuff happened.” I looked around, measuring faces, trying to figure out if anyone had heard what we said.

  Dex stared, his face blank. All those smiles and easy grace had deserted him.

  I sighed. “I have to go.”

  Right on cue, the bell shrilled over our heads.

  Dex glanced up, then back to me, the line of his jaw shoved forward hard. “Wait, Stell– I mean, Stacy.” He reached for me, but I dodged his grip and jogged the few paces to the door of my classroom, knowing if he stopped me and smiled and talked about wanting to go to prom that I wasn’t strong enough to say no twice. Because he wasn’t playing fair.

  The year before, Dex and I had been doing whatever it was we were doing, when prom season arrived.

  At first I was hopeful. After all, everyone wanted to go to prom. Dex was a year older. As a junior, he could invite me even though I was a sophomore. So when the posters first went up and tickets went on sale, I hoped.

  Every time the girls in my class leaned over my desk and asked me, overly brightly, if I was going to prom, I just shrugged and pretended not to notice when they laughed. I still hoped.

  But as the prom dresses slowly disappeared from the racks at the store, and the local restaurants started putting signs up noting “Fully Booked for Prom Night,” I began to panic.

  Then, one week before the dance, I resolved to ask him. I mean, he was awkward and moody. And he’d been more distant lately. Maybe he was too afraid to ask, right? Maybe…

  That morning when I turned a corner in the hall he was standing at the wall, his t-shirt hanging off his shoulders. His pants slouching well below his hips. He’d lost even more weight recently. He gesticulated, laughing, and his elbows looked sharp. The dark circles under his eyes weren’t new, so I barely noted them. In fact, the only thing I really noticed was that he was talking to Evelyn.

  She was a skater too – the kind who looked more like a boy than the boys did. Her black hair was cut boy-short at the back, but longer at the front so it fell in spears over one eye. She was always draped in plaid, clomping around in army boots. We’d spoken plenty of times, and she wasn’t catty. But I always got the feeling she’d rather not be around me. We weren’t friends.

  I stopped across the hall, behind Evelyn, waiting for Dex’s attention. When he noticed me, he nodded, but kept talking to her for a couple more minutes before they hugged and she left and he shuffled over to me.

  I ignored the bored look on his face. He always looked like that. I was so wired with nervous energy, so sure I was finally taking the right step, being brave. But I knew I couldn’t just pounce on him, so as he slumped against the wall next to me and pulled his phone out, I tried to make small talk.

  “How’s Evelyn?” I barely listened to his answer, too busy forming the words in my head. I need to talk to you about something–

  “…we were just figuring out who’s gonna drive to prom.”

  The first knock of dread pounded on my ribs. But I told myself not to be paranoid. He wasn’t going to ask someone else.

  “Oh. Cool. Are a bunch of the guys going?” Maybe that was it. Maybe he hadn’t planned to take a date at all.

  “No, just me and Ev. The other guys aren’t really interested.”

  And I just stood there, all my nerves draining away to be replaced by five parts self-loathing, and one part relief. Thank God I hadn’t actually asked him.

  I couldn’t find normal words, so I just stared at him. He remained slumped against the wall, tapping on his phone and I realized I was just supposed to not care.

  After all, wasn’t that the teenage version of self-respect?

  “Nice…that’s nice for…for you guys…” I tried for nonchalance, but I knew it hadn’t worked. It didn’t matter though.

  Dex shrugged.

  We never talked about it again.

  When the bell rang at the end of second period, I practically sprinted out of class, pulling the compact from my bag as I went. In the hall, I flipped it open and pretended to check my mascara.

  “Are you there?” I whispered under the noise of the gathering crowds on their way to break. “I’m going to the bathroom. I have to talk to you. Dex asked me to prom!”

  Hoping wherever she was, she heard me and could come, I ran for the little-used handicapped bathroom outside the art wing. But when I got inside and flipped on the lights, she wasn’t in the mirror.

  “Older Me?”

  This happened sometimes. Over the years she’d been in the mirror, we’d both spent times listening to the other’s voice rise out of our purses, or a mirror in a wall somewhere. No one else could hear it, of course. But it’s hard when you’re surrounded by normal people who don’t talk to their alternate selves. Distracting.

  It was worse for Older Me because she was married. Tom – her husband – might get suspicious if she kept running off to the bat
hroom.

  I settled in to wait. Since it was break, this was as good a place as any to kill half an hour. Besides, this one had a full-length mirror, so I could sit on the floor and still see her if she arrived.

  I pulled a book out of my bag, but called for her every couple minutes, so she’d know I was still waiting.

  Twenty minutes later, I’d given up on Older Me and on the book. My eyes kept flitting over the words without absorbing them.

  All I could see was Dex’s face, his mouth forming those words.

  Had he been serious?

  He couldn’t have been. Surely…?

  When the bell rang I was no closer to deciding whether or not I’d really turned down an invitation to the prom. But I knew one thing. I needed to watch Dex.

  If he really had changed, maybe I wouldn’t end up alone when Mark saw that letter after all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Doc leans his head on his fist and asks me a question without meeting my eyes.

  “Did Dex know about your mental health issues?”

  He means the mirror. I always have to remind myself that. They all think she doesn’t really exist. That’s why I don’t belong here. Because they don’t understand.

  “Stacy?”

  “Yes. Sorry, what?”

  “I asked if Dex was aware of your alternate self in the mirror and so forth.”

  Strange. I’ve never actually thought about that. “Um…I’m not sure?” I look him in the eye when I say it because it’s the truth. “I s’pose someone must have told him.” Someone being Belinda. “It seems like he couldn’t have avoided it.”

  Doc nods. “Yes, but I’m wondering if he was aware of any of that during your first relationship?”

  “I don’t think so. If he was, he never said anything about it that I can remember. Keep in mind, he was pretty drug addled.” Something I didn’t even know until later. “He could have forgotten it. Or thought it wasn’t true…”

  Doc nods again and makes another note on his pad.

  I hate that thing. Every therapist here has one and they write things about me without telling me what they’re writing. Sometimes I fantasize about reading it. But then I think, I probably don’t want to hear what they have to say.

  “The reason I ask is because I think that the stigma attached to your struggles affects how you believe others view you. By this I mean, you feel more comfortable, more accepted by those who aren’t aware of your issues, than those who are. Which would be natural.”

  I frown. “No. I wouldn’t say that.”

  One of Doc’s eyebrows slides up. He begins ticking off on his fingers. “Mark didn’t know, Dex didn’t know. Yet your mother, Finn, Karyn, Belinda were all at least aware of an issue… I know you’d probably characterize those individuals as your antagonists. But I’d just like to explore whether there’s any chance you encouraged the antipathy in the relationship? Perhaps after they began questioning whether you were completely balanced?”

  Anger flares hot and liquid. He seriously wants to imply that I’ve invited problems with these people? “No. I would have to disagree with you there,” I manage through gritted teeth. “The people you mentioned expressed their problems with me. I didn’t start it.”

  Doc sits back, but his lips pull forward. “Would you be willing to entertain the concept that these relationships could have been different if–?”

  “No. I wouldn’t. Doc, you can psychobabble all you want, and over-analyze, or whatever. But the truth is, there are some people in this world who can’t stand me. And no matter what I did, they were never going to think happy thoughts when I was in front of them.”

  “Now, Stacy–”

  “No, don’t try to twist this around!” I hear my voice go up and stop for a second to calm myself.

  Deep breaths. Cold. Calm. Sane.

  Then I swallow the prick of fear and look him in the eye.

  “I spent all my high school years having to watch over my shoulder. Then after my incident, I woke up in a hospital thinking I was finally out of that hell. But the hell just came with me and cut itself into my skin.” I pause again, searching for calm. “Do you know what happens when I walk down the road now, Doc?”

  He shakes his head.

  “When I walk down the street, or into a store, or whatever, the way I’m treated all depends on how I’m dressed.” My mother’s face flashes in my head for a second and I have to laugh at the irony of it. “If it’s cold and I’m in long sleeves, and a scarf with my hair down they can’t really see my scars. Hence, I’m normal. They notice me or they don’t, they help me or they don’t. Whatever.

  “But if it’s warm outside, or there’s a reason I have to wear shorter clothing? Everything’s different.”

  “Different, how?” I can see the glimmer of interest in Doc’s eye.

  “They don’t deal with me, they deal with my scars. They talk to my scars. They avoid certain words in case it reminds me of my scars. Or they avoid me.

  “The problem is, some people used to act that way before too. So now, when I walk into a room, if my scars show and someone ignores me, or is cruel, or even teasing, I have to wonder – do they just think I’m weird? Would they have disliked me anyway? Or are they reacting that way to my body?” I swallow the tension that comes with the images flicking through my head of shop assistants eyebrows climbing before they find a reason to ask their colleagues to help me; Of strangers whose eyes fix on me for a moment, then move on without a word, or a smile; Of running into former classmates on the street and their obvious desire to be anywhere else but near me.

  Doc clears his throat. “I can see how that would be…disturbing.”

  “Can you? I doubt it. But let me say this: Dex may not have known about my “mental health issues”, but whatever his other faults, he never pretended to be anything but happy to be near me. And people like that are precious few in my life.”

  Doc’s hand pauses mid-stroke on his page. “What about Mark?” he asks, quietly.

  Curse him.

  The next day, I was bent over the trough washing brushes under the faucet when the bell rang. Mark appeared at my side, turned on the next faucet down and started washing his.

  “Did you want to come to the rec room with me?” he asked casually.

  I froze. “What, now?”

  “Yes, now. If you’re coming Friday, they need to get used to you.”

  “But–”

  “You said you thought it was a good idea.”

  “Yes, but–”

  “It’s just break, Stacy.” He finished rinsing the brush and flicked it over the sink a few times to rid it of excess water. Then he turned to face me, his expression blank. “Trust me,” he said quietly.

  Oh, geez.

  I swallowed hard and turned off my faucet, tapping my brushes on the side of the steel sink. The hollow sound of the metal echoed the feeling in my stomach. “Okay,” I said to the sink.

  Mark patted my shoulder, then walked off to get his bag. I followed reluctantly, half-warmed by his touch, half-frozen in fear at what I was about to do.What had I been thinking, agreeing to this?

  Oh, that’s right. His bovine of a girlfriend was cheating on him.

  Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my bag off the back of my chair. There was good reason to put myself in the firing line. I had to stay focused.

  Karyn was waiting when we stepped into the hall. She smiled at Mark, kissed him, and shot me a look of unguarded fury as soon as he turned to greet another guy walking down the hall.

  Moo.

  Once again, they wandered down the hall, talking and laughing, letting everyone give them space. And I tagged along. This was going to be fun.

  By the time we reached the rec room, I’d almost convinced myself it wasn’t worth it. The ratio of Stacy-Haters to Stacy-Ignorers rose dramatically when I stepped through that door. Any time Mark turned his back, I was risking–

  The door squeaked open. Mark held it for Karyn, then for m
e. I offered a smile as I passed him, but frankly I’d been hoping to follow him in, stay in his shadow, let them ignore me if they would.

  Instead, I followed Karyn into the long, narrow room. I’d only been in there twice before. Nothing had changed. It was still lined with ragged furniture, the walls still covered by motivational posters – most of which had been changed to read something obscene.

  Karyn made a beeline for the long couch on the left where – surprise, surprise – Finn was already seated. She plopped down next to him, then baldly looked at me.

  I had to hand it to her, the girl had guts.

  I hadn’t realized I’d stopped in the middle of the floor, staring, until Finn sneered at me, “Take a picture, C.”

  Heat rose on my cheeks. I was sorely aware that the volume in the room had dropped dramatically as soon as I walked in. I turned to look for Mark, found him standing just inside the door, talking to Liam, and my stomach dropped to my toes. I needed to find a seat. Preferably somewhere out of the way. But I didn’t want to stand here, turning circles like a moron–

  “Stacy?” The deep voice rose behind me, uncertainly.

  I turned and almost clapped my hands with relief. Dex sat on a little two-seater, one arm thrown over the back. When I met his gaze, he dropped his eyes to the empty seat next to him, then back to me. One eyebrow rose.

  I exhaled and practically lunged the three steps to where he was seated. “Hi,” I said as I dropped into the seat, scanning the room for threats. I couldn’t be too careful.

  “Hi,” Dex said, pulling my attention from the room. When I looked at him, he smiled. “Fancy seeing you here.” There was a note of relief in his voice, too, I realized.

  “Yeah, well, remind me never to do it again,” I muttered.

  “Ditto.” He rolled his eyes.

  “So, anyway…” The snarky whine rose from Dex’s other side. Belinda. Of course. Seated in the chair next to Dex’s side of the couch.

  As Dex turned back to listen to her, I reached down to find something to eat in my bag. Banana. Perfect. That would give me something to do for a while.