Breakable Read online

  “You’re late,” Karyn squealed. Like a tiny, fat, piglet.

  “Sorry, got held up.” Mark pulled himself out of my car and wrapped his arms around her, his chin dropping to rest on the top of her head.

  You got held up by your abusive father, Mark. Tell her that. Go on. Tell her about your screwed up life.

  Oh, wait… you don’t want to. I’m the one who gets to mop you up, then watch you fall into someone else’s arms.

  I couldn’t bear it. I threw my door open and jumped out.

  I should have known she wouldn’t let me leave unscathed.

  “Hey, Stacy,” Karyn squeaked.

  “Hey, Karyn.” I said without looking at them, then locked the doors and muttered “See you guys inside.” I started towards the building as fast as I could go without actually being seen to flee.

  Which, unfortunately, wasn’t fast enough to avoid hearing the stage-whispered “You told her? Finally!”

  And to hear Mark murmur, “I told you I would. Don’t worry. It’s all good.”

  It was all good.

  Yeah, Mark. Sure. It was brilliant.

  Just freaking wonderful.

  Excuse me while I go bleed to death internally.

  It’s all good.

  Chapter Four

  Doc examines his thumbnail. While I'm grateful for the lack of eye contact, part of me is offended that he can listen with such detachment. I’ve just told him my high school sweetheart was almost killed by his father, and oh, by the way, I talk to myself in the mirror. To my other self.

  If he’s read my file, he knows where this is going.

  "Karyn?" he says to his thumb. "The same Karyn who was involved in your…incident?"

  I frown. Is this some kind of trick? Surely he’s more interested in the mirror? I’d rather talk about that than Karyn.

  But he waits, so I have to reply.

  "Yes." I spit the word. It is the wrong way to respond. Doc's gaze has risen to meet mine.

  "That must be hard, looking back."

  I scoff and cross my legs, tipping my weight so I don't stretch the scars on my side. "Where do I start?" It was rhetorical, but he answers anyway.

  "The beginning. Did Mark introduce you?"

  “No.” I try for an ironic chuckle, but it comes out cold. “I introduced them.”

  Both of Doc’s eyebrow’s pop up, just a little. “So, you were friends with Karyn first?”

  Sigh. “I was friends with all of the girls first, Doc. I was popular until eighth grade... Sort of. Mark didn’t even go to the same school as all of us until freshman year.”

  “How so?”

  “His dad sent him to some private, rich-kid middle school in the next town over.”

  Doc looks at his notes, frowns. “So, tell me about your relationship with Karyn, and the other girls, back when you still categorized them as friends. I’m especially interested in what changed your relationship with Karyn.”

  Should have known. This is about the mirror after all.

  I roll my eyes to pretend I’m unfazed. “Why? What’s your point? She isn’t why I’m here. Not really.”

  He sighs and removes his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt. “Stacy, I can assure you that none of my questions are pointless. If we’re going to get through this today, you’re going to have to trust me to identify what is important and what is not.”

  Trust.

  Now there’s a word.

  Doc returns his glasses to his nose and stares at me.

  Okay, fine. Let’s do this.

  I’d never been the girl everyone wanted to be, or even the girl people wanted to be with. But as far as eighth grade, I hung out with the girls who were: Belinda, Terese, and eventually, once she transferred, Karyn.

  Things were never easy for me socially. I was a little too awkward. Too quirky. Definitely too prone to running off at the mouth. But as far as the girls were concerned, there was one day I always saw as the turning point, where everything had gone wrong.

  It started innocently enough.

  The bell for break had just rung. I was walking past the tech wing with Karyn, on our way to meet Belinda. Some guy walked past us – I don’t even remember who he was – and flipped up my skirt. Right in front of a long, line of shiny windows. The windows into the computer tech class.

  Wolf whistles and cheering rose from the other side of the glass. I blushed and shoved my skirt back down – it had caught on my bag somehow. Karyn’s little-girl giggle turned into a hoot when some guy banged on the glass and pretended to hump the windowsill.

  Cheeks hot, I stormed off.

  It was an embarrassing prank. Nothing more. And that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t the only thing upsetting me that morning. So I ran to the bathroom at the end of the wing. It was one of those small, little used communal bathrooms. One long mirror over two sinks, a couple cubicles and a hand dryer.

  I checked both stalls. No one was there. So I called Older Me.

  That was back when she usually appeared almost immediately. She’d only shown up in the mirror a few months earlier. I’d only recently accepted that she was real. We were still getting used to each other.

  She appeared, swathed to the neck in a thick hoodie as usual, took one look at my tearstained cheeks and sighed. “What happened?”

  “S-some guy flipped up my skirt right in front of the computer tech class. The one with all the windows?”

  She nodded tightly.

  I swallowed. “Everyone was there. Even Karyn laughed…”

  “And?” she said gently. It occurred to me that she was only six years away from this. She probably remembered.

  I tried to swallow the tears. They stuck in my throat. “Remember…remember how I told Belinda last week that I…that I liked Finn?”

  Older Me winced, but she nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “I don’t think Karyn knew. Or maybe she did, I don’t know…but…but she just told me that Belinda likes him! Belinda’s going to ask him to the spring dance! Why would she do that? She knows–”

  “Stacy, don’t waste your tears on Finn.”

  “But…but we’ve been spending a lot of time together since we barely get to see Mark. And… I mean, he’s–”

  “I promise you, he isn’t worth it.” Her voice was hard.

  “But–”

  “Stacy, I’m not playing. Listen to me: You don’t want him. Don’t waste another second on him.”

  “But–”

  “He’s a jerk. He’d only hurt you.”

  “What are you talking about?” My voice had slipped up an octave. “Finn’s my best friend next to Mark!”

  “Not for long,” she muttered. Her face twisted into a bitter sneer she directed at her own hands, clasped in front of her.

  Then I understood. I leaned onto the counter. Whispered. “What’s he going to do?”

  Older Me froze. Then shrugged. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It isn’t that. I just… I just know he changes later and I think it’s better if you just ignore him now. Don’t let him hurt you–”

  “You’re lying!”

  “I am not, Stacy. I’m just trying to protect you–”

  “Tell me what he’s going to do!”

  Older Me frantically motioned for me to be quiet. She looked around behind me. “Don’t yell, Stacy. This isn’t the time. We can discuss it later. At ho–”

  “No! I’m not going to let you blow me off again! Tell me what he’s–”

  A tiny rustle behind me was the only warning. I swallowed the words I’d been about to scream at her and whipped around.

  Belinda, Karyn and Terese stood together – a little triangle of bright-eyed judgment just inside the door. Karyn’s mouth was wide with delight. Terese barely stifled laughter. And Belinda… Belinda stood with her arms crossed, one eyebrow cocked, and her hip shoved out.

  “Are you okay, Stacy?” she said in mock concern.

  “I’m…I’m fine. I was just…�
�

  “Karyn told us what happened,” Belinda continued like I hadn’t spoken. “And Stephen said he was sorry if he upset you. He said you have a nice ass, if that helps?”

  Both the other girls tittered. Karyn covered her mouth with her hands. But she beamed from behind them.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I could feel the spite in them growing. Could feel their already tenuous loyalty to me shifting, breaking.

  Terese leaned into Karyn’s ear, whispering. They both laughed.

  “Well,” Belinda said. “It seems like you’re busy. I guess we should leave you to it.”

  She turned for the door. Karyn and Terese fled, their laughter audible outside.

  I just stood there, gaping, trying to figure out how to cover for this. But Belinda was at the door and pushing it open before she stopped. Then she looked at me over her shoulder with a wicked smile and said “Just so you know. Finn asked me to go to the movies on Friday.”

  “C-cool,” I managed, despite the punch-to-the-gut sensation.

  She tipped her head. “Sorry, but he just doesn’t feel that way about you,” she said, her voice so smug and patronizing, I wanted to slap her.

  “I get it, Belinda,” I ground out.

  She snorted and, shaking her head, opened the door wider and stepped out.

  “Freak!” she called back, just as it swung closed.

  Doc taps his pen on his notebook. He’s frowning. “I’ll admit, I’m surprised to hear about your feelings for Finn. I’m right in assuming we’re speaking about the same Finn? Finn Patton? The one involved in your incident?”

  “Yes.” Sometimes I find it hard to believe I ever felt that way about him. Or counted him as a friend.

  “So the initial rejection came from your…habit of speaking to yourself in the mirror.”

  I shrug. “I guess. When I look back now, I think maybe they were just waiting for an excuse to drop me. They’d never been very good friends in the first place.”

  “What made you think that?”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t patronize me, Doc. You know how it is – the whispered conversations that stop when you walk in, the delight when something bad happens to you. The way you find out Monday morning they went to the movies on Friday night and no one called you…”

  He nods thoughtfully. “And Finn?”

  Gawd, I hate talking about him. “What about him?”

  “Did he go to the movies with Belinda? Did he choose her over you?”

  I shrug. “I’m not sure there was ever a choice. As far as he was concerned, I mean.”

  “Belinda told him about you and the mirror?”

  Snort. “Belinda told everyone about me and the mirror.”

  Doc nods again and writes in his notebook for too long. The silence is killing me. What’s he thinking? What’s he writing? What conclusion is he drawing?

  I look at the mirror. It’s only 10:15. There’s still time. But he isn’t asking me about her and…

  “I don’t see her anymore,” I blurt.

  Doc stops writing. His brows push into the top of his nose. “I’m sorry?”

  “In the mirror. I don’t see her anymore. It’s important that you know that. I’m telling you all this and you aren’t asking about her and–”

  Doc puts his hand up to stall me. “We’ll get there, Stacy. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried. I just think it’s important for you to know. All this…everything I’m telling you… she isn’t there anymore.” It’s almost true. It will be true. Eventually.

  I think.

  He purses his lips and makes a note in his notebook. “So your alternate self is yet another person who’s left your life?” he asks quietly.

  And, oh geez, I hadn’t thought about it that way before. But I shake my head.. “No… not this time. This time, I left hers,” I say quietly.

  Doc holds my gaze for a few seconds, then looks down and writes one more thing. “We’ll come back to this,” he says. “But right now, I don’t want to get side-tracked. Let’s continue with the night of the dance.”

  Oh, wonderful.

  “Tell me what happened after you learned about Mark and Karyn.”

  What happened? “Well, I ran.”

  “From Karyn?”

  “From Mark.” To the mirror.

  Chapter Five

  As I fled the poorly lit parking lot, I’d known Mark and Karyn would use the main doors. On nights like this, it was more important to be seen than to actually dance with people. So everyone lingered in the foyer. And since this was apparently their first appearance as a couple, Karyn would want to make the grand entrance.

  Thinking I was smart, I ducked into the shadows around the building and took a side door. I’d still have to cross the foyer. But hopefully whoever was hanging around would have their attention on the entrance. They wouldn’t notice me come in the back.

  I hadn’t factored in Finn’s predilection for slumping against back walls. As soon as I opened the door into the foyer, three heads turned: Tony, Derek, and Finn. All footballers. All at least a foot taller than me. And Derek was a linebacker.

  The other two immediately dismissed me, but Finn’s rat-eyes narrowed. He was leaned up against the wall, all angles and hard edges. He had to have grown a foot in the last year. His intentionally-messy dark hair added another couple inches.

  Jerk.

  Then, that awful half-grin crept onto his face.

  “Hey, C! You made it! What, were they out of dog food at home? I’m sure I saw a couple biscuits around here somewhere.” The other guys laughed. Finn’s gaze locked with mine, and I imagined plowing my fist into that smug smile.

  “C” was the first letter in the word he’d been suspended for calling me the semester before.

  Mark chose Karyn.

  Wrenching my gaze from Finn’s, I fixed my welling eyes on the opposite wall of the foyer. If I could just get to the other hallway, no one would be there. I could hide in the handicapped bathroom until they all left–

  At the last second I saw the foot sliding out to catch mine. I twisted, tried to step over it. But the jerk just lifted it higher to catch me at the ankle.

  Muttering a curse, I grabbed Finn as I toppled, swung on his arm and pulled him down too. I landed hard on my tailbone and couldn’t stifle a cry. Half a second later, all the air left my lungs as Finn landed on top of me.

  My purse skittered across the floor, trailing lipstick, a pen and… no… two shiny condom packets.

  Wolf-whistles, applause and laughter echoed to the vaulted ceiling.

  “I thought she wasn’t your type, Finn!”

  Finn’s face was barely an inch from mine. He glared and swore, rolled off me, landed a vicious elbow in my ribs in the process.

  “Get a room!”

  Raucous laughter.

  Finn was on his feet in two seconds, giving as good as he got. But no hands reached out to help me.

  My tailbone throbbed. It took a few seconds to get to my hands and knees. A few more to gather up everything that had spilled.

  As soon as I was upright, Finn got in my face. “I already told you I wouldn’t poke you if you paid me, Dog. So go bark up someone else’s tree.”

  The laughter and whooping behind him snapped up a notch. He held my gaze, upper lip curled, heat in his eyes.

  It was moments like this that always left me wondering how I managed to push people beyond annoyance and into rage. And why, when faced with someone who clearly couldn’t stand the sight of me, I lost all ability to think.

  I stared back at Finn. Waves of hatred rolled off him. Yet I had nothing; No quip. No pithy remark.

  Then a gasp rose from the door to my left.

  My skin went cold.

  One glance was all I needed. Karyn stood just inside the doors, both hands over her mouth, eyes twinkling. Belinda – smiling – leaned into her ear, eyes on me.

  Mark stepped up behind them, at first looking puzzled. Then his gaze rose t
o me and understanding dawned. He opened his mouth – to say my name? Who knew. But I didn’t want to see his face when he heard. I didn’t want his pity. Or worse, his discomfort.

  I turned and, shoving Finn out of my way, strode for the darkened hallway on the other side of the foyer. Laughter and cutting remarks chased me down the hall.

  Our high school was old. The disabled bathrooms were all separate little rooms. I knew the location of each one, and which had mirrors.

  The hallway was dark because it wasn’t in use, but that suited me. Even if they were all talking about me, at least if I was out of sight I couldn’t add fuel to the fire.

  As soon as I got inside the bathroom, I slid the door closed, slammed the lock home and flipped on the light. “Older Me?” My hands shook, but heat swirled in my chest. She had some explaining to do. “Older Me?”

  An ancient sink hung off the wall. Above it a large mirror showed me from the waist up, cheeks stained red, hair disheveled on one side, and dust covering one arm and my hip. I twisted to find a heart-shaped swathe on my butt. “Perfect,” I muttered. “Older Me?!”

  When she appeared, something inside me snapped.

  She must not have seen my expression. She just took in my mussed appearance and sighed. “I told you they’d–”

  “You didn’t tell me anything!” I yelled. “Why?”

  Older Me’s head jerked back.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d wished I could reach through the surface of the mirror and strangle her. But it was the first time I ever came close to trying it.

  Since I didn’t feel like severing an artery, I satisfied myself with slapping the shiny face of the glass. Hard.

  For a split second, my head rang, like my skull was a gong and someone had just whacked it with…well, with whatever those things are that you hit gongs with. I reeled back, but not before I registered the surface of the mirror rippling like a pool of water.

  Older Me cried out and stumbled back too. We both ended up a few feet away from the mirror, holding our heads.

  A few seconds later the ringing faded to nothing. I was left panting. But I’d been frightened out of my rage.