Broken (3 page)

***

Before I even go to my locker, I’m scanning the junior hall for Cam. At first, I don’t see him and I’m filled with fear that he might not have come to school today, that he might have stayed home. I tried calling his house last night at around midnight, after Brody left, but the phone just rang and rang, not even being picked up by an answering machine.

And then I spot him. He’s standing in the hallway with Aidan, pulling books out of his locker and sliding them into his bag. He’s wearing khaki pants and a black sweater, and his hair is all messed up. He looks amazing, and it’s all I can do not to scream out his name and run to him. But I force myself to take my time, pushing myself through the crowd until I reach him.

“It was sick,” Aidan’s saying. “The car did like three rolls over and over, and when they finally pulled the dude out, his whole arm looked like a package of hamburger.

And that wasn’t even the worst crash they showed.“

“Sick,” Cam says, clearly not paying much attention.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi, Natalia,” Aidan chirps happily. “How was your weekend?”

“Um, good.” Lie.

Cam doesn’t say anything, just keeps pulling books out of his locker and putting them in his bag.

“Hey, Cam, can I talk to you for a second?” I ask. His jaw clenches, and I clear my throat nervously.

Aidan must sense the tension, because he says, “Uh, I’ll meet you in a little bit, okay, dude?” and then takes off down the junior hall.

“Hi,” I say once Aidan’s gone.

“Hi.” Cam’s not looking at me.

I take a deep breath. “So you’re pissed, I guess? About last night?” He doesn’t say anything. “Hello?” I say. “Are we going to talk about what happened?”

He slams his locker door shut and turns around angrily. “Yeah, let’s talk about it.

Let’s talk about how you looked down at me from your bedroom window and then just left me standing there in your driveway like a fucking idiot.”

“Cam, I was coming down!” I say. “I was waiting for my mom to come back upstairs. You have to know that I would never leave you out there on purpose.” He goes to move by me, but I put my arm out, blocking his path. “Please,” I say, feeling my eyes fill with tears. “I came downstairs, I did. I was trying to get to you. I even called your house.”

He stops for a moment, considers. “You did?”

“Yes. I left a message with your mom.”

His eyes go dark at the mention of his mom, which makes me think my hunch was right – she was probably drunk last night and out of control, which is probably why he never got my message.

“Nat, you can’t be afraid to stand up to your mom,” he says.

“I’m not afraid of her!” I say. “I just have to make sure that I act like I’m playing by her rules, otherwise –“

“Playing by her rules?” he yells. “Are you kidding me? So now you want to sneak around, act like we’re some kind of typical teenagers with overprotective parents?

Do you have any idea what I saw this weekend, what happened?”

“No,” I say, “You know I don’t. And I’m sorry for that. I am. I want to remember, I do.” I soften my tone of voice. “And besides, weren’t you the one who told me that we need to keep my mom happy, at least for now? You told me that at the hospital, remember?”

He looks at me, and I can see the pain and the fear in his eyes. But then it starts to slowly fade, and his face starts to relax. He takes a step toward me, but then suddenly, Brody’s come up beside me.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He steps in between me and Cam, his large frame becoming a barrier.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “We were just talking.”

“Yeah?” His eyes never leave Cam. “Because I heard him yelling at you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cam says. “I wasn’t yelling at her.”

“Well, that’s what it sounded like to me.”

“He wasn’t yelling at me,” I say. “He was just upset, he – “

“I don’t care if he was upset,” Brody says. “He shouldn’t have been raising his voice, especially after all you’ve been through.” Again, his gaze is still on Cam, and I know his statement is more for Cam’s benefit than mine. It’s a threat. The threat being that Cam needs to leave me alone, to stop yelling at me, or he’s going to have to deal with Brody.

“After all she’s been through?” Cam says. “What the hell do you know about what she’s been through?” Brody doesn’t answer him, and Cam looks at me. “Nat?”

“He…he came over last night,” I say. “After you left. He was worried, and so--”

Cam laughs. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“It’s not like that,” I say. I feel a panic rising up inside me, panic at the fact that Cam could think that I would leave him standing in my driveway while allowing Brody to come into my house. “My mom, she thought – “

“Stop, Natalia,” Cam says. He usually calls me Nat, and I don’t like the way it feels, him calling me by my full name. “Whatever bullshit you’re about to tell me, I don’t want to hear it.” And then, before I can stop him, Cam turns around and heads down the hall, leaving me standing there with Brody.

“I’m sorry,” Brody says immediately. “I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t mean to let him know I’d been over.”

I want to be mad at him, but I know he was just sticking up for me. “It’s okay,” I say, trying to clear my thoughts. My headache is back now, the same one from this morning. “He’ll get over it, he just… he’s upset.”

“Yeah.” We watch as Cam disappears around the corner of the junior hall with Aidan.

“I’ll see him again in study hall,” I say. “And I’m sure I’ll be able to explain it to him then.”

Brody nods. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you to homeroom.” And for the second time in twelve hours, it’s Brody who’s taking care of me, not Cam.

Chapter Four

Campbell

As I’m walking away from Natalia, Aidan runs over to me, his eyes so big he looks like a cartoon. “Dude, what the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing’s going on with me.”

“You haven’t answered my calls for days, you won’t tell me where your car is, and now you have a blowout in front of the entire school. Seriously, dude, you’re turning into a bad show on ABC Family.”

“Have you ever considered becoming a therapist?” I ask, walking faster in an effort to burn off some of my adrenaline. My legs are tingly and my lips feel numb.

“You have such a way with words.”

“Thanks.” Aidan grins at me momentarily but then his face turns serious. He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You have to get a hold of yourself. People are going to start to talk.”

“So?”

“So, I’m just looking out for you, the way you look out for me.”

Suddenly a voice booms out from nearby. “I knew I smelled something foul. I thought to myself, either I stepped in dog shit or it’s Aidan Jacoby.”

I glance over and see Lancaster standing against the wall, his face red, eyes narrow.

“Is there a problem?” I ask him, hoping to God he says yes.

“Nah,” he says, ambling over to us. “Me and you are cool, Cam. It’s the little piece of dog shit next to you that I have beef with.”

“Yeah, well, whatever your problem is with Aidan, I think you might want to take it down a notch.”

Aidan puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m good, dude. You don’t have to do this.”

I look at him. “No you’re not. And yeah, I do.”

Lancaster points to Aidan, stepping even closer. “You heard him, Cam. He’s good. This has nothing to do with you.”

“You’re twice his size.”

“So? Is it my fault I was gifted with size, speed and athleticism and this punk still hasn’t gotten hair on his balls yet?” He laughs.

Aidan doesn’t seem fazed. “I heard you love checking out other guys’ junk, so I’m not surprised you keep imagining what mine looks like.”

The smirk dies on Lancaster’s face. “What did you just say to me?”

Aidan holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I don’t have a problem with you being into other men. No wonder you want to wrestle with me so bad. It’s just that I don’t really swing that way.”

“I was only fucking with you before, dumb shit. But now you really fucked up.”

Lancaster starts forward and I immediately step in between them.

“Back off, dude.”

Lancaster moves so close to me that he’s actually breathing on my face. His breath smells like wet cabbage. His eyes are narrow, his forehead red. “Get out of the way, Cam. I told you, this shit has nothing to do with you.”

“Aidan’s my friend. You touch him and we will have an issue. Believe me.”

“Fine, whatever you say,” Lancaster replies, turning to walk away.

I make the rookie mistake of glancing at Aidan to make sure he’s not going to do anything dumb. In that split second, Lancaster comes back with a sneaky overhand right that I just barely glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I duck my head just enough to take away the full force of the punch, but he still clips me in the side of the head and I stumble backwards.

The next thing I know, Lancaster’s on top of me. He’s big kid, and strong as an ox. But I’m not scared for even a second, just annoyed that I let myself get distracted.

“I’m sick of your shit, Elliot,” Lancaster says, trying to hold me down. He raises his fist to throw another punch at me.

That’s when Aidan grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls so hard that I can see the cords of muscle standing out on Aidan’s arms and neck. He screams a wild scream as he somehow lifts Lancaster off me and tosses him to the side.

Lancaster spins across the hall and then finds his balance. This time when he moves forward I throw two fast jabs at his face. They snap his head back and he falls to one knee. His nose is bleeding.

“Goddamn it! Stop right there!” an adult screams from down the hall. I turn around. It’s ’s the vice principal, Mister Curtis. “All of you! Stop right there and don’t move.”

“Shit,” I whisper.

Mr. Curtis is not going to let us off with a warning. I know that right away.

When he finally gets to us he’s huffing and puffing and can barely speak.

“You…three…are in….deep…deep….” He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. “Deep trouble.”

“Mr. Curtis, you really ought to stop smoking,” Aidan says. “You can’t hardly breathe and you only ran like twenty feet!”

“Everyone else, get to class!” Mr. Curtis shouts.

It’s only then I realize that the entire hall full of juniors has been watching us. I scan the crowd, looking for Nat, but I don’t see her. I wonder what she would have thought if she’d seen the fight. Would she have even come over to see if I was okay?

The crowd disperses as Mr. Curtis glares at us. His jaw works from side to side and his mustache quivers. “You kids have no damn respect anymore. None.”

We all look at the floor, pretending to be ashamed of ourselves.

“We were only kidding around,” Lancaster says, wiping the blood from his upper lip. “Hell, Cam and me are on the football team together.” He sneers at Aidan, unable to control himself. “It’s only the runt that makes any trouble.”

“Fuck off, Lancaster,” I say.

“That’s it,” Mr. Curtis hisses. “You’re suspended. All three of you are suspended! Go home. Now. I’ll be contacting your parents to let them know you’re on your way so you best go straight there.”

As we start to leave, Mr. Curtis grabs Lancaster by the arm. “You wait here.

Don’t think I’m stupid enough to allow a repeat performance outside in the parking lot.”

Aidan and I turn and walk quickly down the hallway, then we’re out the front entrance and Aidan is laughing hysterically. “That was so goddamn funny!”

“Yeah. Real funny,” I say sarcastically, not sharing his enthusiasm.

“What’s your problem?”

We get to my mom’s car and once we’re inside, I put the key in the ignition and then look at him closely. His beard is coming in thick but patchy, and his eyes are dark and intense. “What’s my problem?” I say. “I’d like to ask you the same thing. What the hell is going on with you, dude?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do.” I start the car and guide it out the student parking lot.

“All I know is that Curtis gave me a day off,” Aidan says. “I’m psyched.” He rubs his hands together in anticipation of his unexpected freedom.

“Yeah, you’ll be even more psyched when he calls your parents. That’s going to be real fun.”

Aidan waves it off. “Curtis is full of hot air. I’ll tell my parents I was getting bullied and decided to fight back. My dad’s been wanting me to do that my whole life.

He’ll be happy I stood up for myself.”

“Good for you, then.”

“It is good. I’m sick of letting idiots like Lancaster walk all over me.”

For a little while I don’t say anything and neither does Aidan. Thinking about it from his perspective, I guess I can see why he’d be happy.

“I get it,” I tell him finally.

“You get what?”

“I get why you feel good about standing up for yourself.” I sigh. “But what I don’t get is how you got Lancaster off me the way you did. He weighs almost two hundred pounds.”

“I don’t know how I did it, either. It just…happened.”

“This summer when we went to the gym you couldn’t even bench one twenty-five.”

Aidan laughs. “Maybe it’s like that story about the mother who lifted the car off of her son. Maybe when I saw Lancaster crushing you I got superhuman strength.” He flexes his arms.

“Right,” I say, rolling my eyes. “That must be it.”

He throws up his hands. “I don’t know man. Look at me!” He turns his cheek to me and leans in. “Look at this beard I’m growing. It’s like a Brillo pad! Feel it. Feel it!”

“Uh, no thanks. I believe you. And I think it’s called hitting puberty.”

“Yesterday I decided to try and do some pushups just for fun while I was watching TV, you know? I did like a hundred of ‘em without stopping. I swear to God, ever since homecoming I’ve been different.”

My stomach churns uneasily at the mention of homecoming. The image of Aidan hanging from that tree branch is burned into my brain forever. “You’re probably just trying to make sense of what happened that night. Since it was so insane.”