Breaking Glass (17 page)

Crap
. Either I really am the champion of sick fucks or…

Dad wakes me a few hours later. He’s laid out a full-court breakfast buffet of eggs, bacon, French toast, and fresh-squeezed juice on the dining room table—to fortify me for later, he chuckles with his patented half-smile. Apparently only a drunken buzz can enable the muscles on both sides of his mouth to work at once.

The heartwarming moment does little to loosen the clenching of my gut. I can’t decide which has me more shaken—my erotic phantom encounter or the prospect of being paraded in front of the whole town like a decorated war hero.

I don’t deserve any honors. I’m just a messed up asshat, scarred for life by my own stupidity. Susannah did nothing to deserve her fate, yet there is no dog and pony show planned for her.

Delusional or sane, halved or whole—it doesn’t matter. Susannah is lost. Probably dead. And no one in Riverton except for me, and her strange mother, seems to give a shit that she’s gone.

And so, imperfect vehicle for justice that I am, it falls on me to shoulder the load.

Susannah has chosen me for this.

C H A P T E R
f i f t e e n

Now

Dad stands behind me as I appraise my appearance in the full-length mirror. The gray tweed sports jacket he’s loaned me hangs just low enough to hide the stump. Paired with my black jeans and one black boot, I’m cleanly shaven, unruly curls slicked back. I look like a guy who just happened to forget his other leg at home.

“Not half bad,” Dad winks.

“Good one,” I say to his reflection. I can see how, in jeans, I will look almost normal once I get fitted with a leg. “You’re a fast learner, Dad.”

Dad pats me on the shoulder. “The car’s coming in an hour.”

“Car?”

“Pat Morgan is sending one. We’ll come in through the garage. Because of all the steps to their front entrance, he wanted to make sure you have the help you need to navigate them.”

“I don’t need any help.” I scowl and attempt to balance on one leg so that I have a free hand to adjust the jacket. Dad rights me before I tip backward.

“Of course you don’t. You’re Superman.” He folds up my wheelchair and carries it to the door. “We’ll bring this, just in case.”

Back in my room. I refill the Civil War canteen and slip it into my inside jacket pocket, grateful there is still a half-bottle left in my emergency stash.

At exactly six o’clock, a black BMW with tinted windows rolls up to our back door. A behemoth with bulging arms that strain at the sleeves of his three-piece suit emerges from the driver’s seat. Thwarting the man’s attempt to toss me over his brawny shoulder and haul me around like a piece of furniture, I insist on bunny-hopping down the three steps that lead to our snow-covered driveway. My boot sinks into six inches of white powder, but I soldier on.

“For crying out loud. Let the man help you,” Dad says.

“You could have at least shoveled.”

Dad shrugs. “Sorry. That was always your job.”

Then

Christmas two years ago, our sophomore year, Susannah was still living with the Morgans—even after Trudy Durban tried to file an injunction to force her to move back home. Anyone could have told Trudy she’d get exactly nowhere in the county courts, that all the judges had long since sworn their allegiance to the Morgans. The injunction was, of course, denied.

According to Dad, the Morgans’ attorney threatened to have her parental rights permanently revoked for neglect and abuse, and she backed off.

But not in silence.

The following week, the surveillance camera at the ShopRite parking lot caught Trudy Durban slashing Celia Morgan’s tires. She was arrested and slapped with a hefty fine for vandalism. It was in all the local papers. Susannah thought her mother’s public humiliation was hysterically funny and relished every minute of it. Secretly, I felt bad for Trudy Durban.

But I’d never tell that to Susannah.

That Christmas, the usual bash was cancelled due to renovation work on the Morgan house, so instead they’d hosted an intimate dinner party for fifty. Dad was invited along with a date, which threw him into a desperate frenzy because he hadn’t gone on a single date since my mother died. But he managed to round up a frowzy woman from the office and showed up, freshly shaven and dressed in one of his least worn-out suits.

I was also invited along with a date. And though my heart was barely in it, I’d finally succumbed to the dubious charms of Alicia Finley, a sprinter from the girls’ track team. She was as tall as me and about as curvy as a yardstick, but she was funny. And most of all, she liked to run. Fast. She also liked to do a few other things that made her fairly appealing off the track. I can’t say I was particularly attached to her, but at least she was good company. We were quickly named the Fastest Couple in Riverton.

For his part, Ryan seemed relieved when I started dating Alicia. Susannah, on the other hand, stopped talking to me. I couldn’t figure it out. I’d thought she’d wanted me to date.

At the party, Alicia on my arm, all I could think about was how I was going to get Susannah alone and beg her to talk to me again.

And then, a miracle happened. Alicia got a phone call. Her brother had broken his arm and had to be taken to the emergency room. She needed to get home and stay with her baby sister.

And I got the chance I was hoping for.

I’d been observing Susannah all night. Watching how she smiled a lot, but was unusually quiet, other than the times I saw her whispering and laughing with Patrick Morgan.

Ryan had gone off to play Wii in the game room with some of the guys. And Susannah was nowhere in sight.

I finally found her in the indoor pool atrium. The Morgans had two pools—one for winter, one for summer. I’d made a point of avoiding them both as best I could.

I watched from behind a potted tree, trembling as she peeled off her gown, my heart hammering in a twisted drum solo, caught between panic and arousal.

I felt slimy, a total creeper, but I couldn’t look away, half-relieved and half-disappointed when I saw she wore a scanty bikini, as if she’d planned to go for a midnight swim all along.

She slipped gracefully into the water, and I held my breath waiting for her to break the surface. Waiting. Waiting.

Something was wrong
.

Without thinking, I was out of my shoes, stripped down to my Jockeys, and cannonballing into the water. I swam the length of the pool, my swimming skills not developed beyond those of a nine-year-old, to where I found her at the bottom of the deep end, hair streaming like sea grass. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up to the surface.

“You idiot!” she screamed, hitting me, mascara running from her eyes like black tears. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting you to talk to me,” I sputtered, panting. She broke free of my grasp and left me treading water.

That’s when I realized I was in trouble. Frozen, my heart thumped violently inside my temples. I couldn’t breathe or get my legs to kick. Red spots clustered at the edge of my vision.

Weakly, I raked the water with my clawed hands, fruitlessly trying to paddle to the edge of the pool that was a mile away. An ocean away.

“Jeremy!” I heard her scream. “What’s the matter with you?”

Hands were pulling at me. Pulling me down to the bottom.

I couldn’t answer.

I came to, a dead weight floating at the edge of the pool. Susannah clutched at me frantically, unable to get a firm grip on my slippery skin.

I just wanted to sink like a stone and come to rest gently at the bottom.

“Help!” I heard her scream. “Somebody, help!”

I must have blacked out again, because the next thing I knew I was flat on my back on the tiles, a crowd of concerned faces peering down at me.

I woke in a bed, a towel draped around my shoulders, with a steaming cup of tea and a plate of cookies beside me. Mrs. Morgan sat on the edge, her brow furrowed with concern. Patrick Morgan stood in the doorway to the room, glaring at me.

“Drink some tea,” she said, and I dutifully obeyed, slurping down the whole thing.

I was in one of the Morgans’ many guest rooms, I realized, nestled under a mountain of soft bedding.

What the hell had I done?

“I’m sorry I ruined your party,” I murmured, so groggy I could barely keep my eyes open.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Jeremy. Everyone had already left.”

“But you did give your father quite a scare,” Patrick cut in. “Poor man is so shook up, we sent him home. You’ll stay here tonight.”

Tired. I was so tired. My eyes were slipping closed.
Had they drugged my tea?

“Sleep, honey,” Celia Morgan whispered, pulling the comforter up to my chin. “It’s okay. Just sleep.”

I let my eyes close, and snuggled, cozy and warm under the covers, my breathing slow and steady. Celia Morgan adjusted my covers and I thought I could just stay like that forever, soaking in her maternal touch. Feeling safe, protected and cared for, I listened to them talk about me in hushed voices when they thought I was deep asleep.

“I think he’s still affected, Patrick.”

“Nonsense. It’s been eight years. The kid’s fine. He just never learned how to swim.”

“Teresa was my best friend. I have to take care of him. For her.”

“Teresa Glass was nuts, Celia. A total basket case. He’s been better off without her.”

I tried to cling to awareness, but I was so tired.

I never did catch Celia’s response.