Breaking Read online

  Poof.

  Chapter Five

  “Are you drunk, or are you dead?”

  A finger jabs my shoulder. I groan. Light burns my eyelids, and my skull throbs. Someone is pounding a nail straight through my forehead. Someone has fitted a vise around my temples and started to squeeze.

  “Charlotte? Seriously, are you okay?”

  I have to wake up before Zoe runs off to get the school nurse. Here I go.

  I open my eyes. There’s something thick and sticky crusted into the corners, holding them closed. I blink. The room blurs. It’s like looking through foggy glass.

  “What time is it?” The words scrape at the sides of my throat. I imagine them leaving thick red slashes on my vocal cords. I lift a hand to my neck, almost expecting to feel blood.

  Water. I need water.

  “It’s eight fifteen,” Zoe says. “Jesus. What happened to you last night?”

  Last night I tried to find my dead best friends at the bottom of a bottle. I remember lifting the mysterious liquid to my lips, but everything after that is blank. I must’ve passed out. So much for wild experimentation.

  I blink again, and the room slams into focus. Everything is in Technicolor, too rich, too vibrant to be real. I try to swallow, but there’s no moisture in my mouth. My gums and tongue feel tacky. Swollen.

  Zoe stares. I’m supposed to say something. She asked me a question.

  “Water,” I croak. Zoe’s lips curl—half sneer, half smile. I can’t tell whether she’s grossed out or amused. She pulls a water bottle out of her backpack and tosses it to me.

  “You look like that furry apple in our fridge that we should have thrown out last week,” she says. “I’m not even kidding. You look like moldy, rotten fruit. Except greener.”

  “Thank you.” I unscrew the lid from her water bottle and drink deep. The water is warm, but it tastes like heaven. I suck down the whole thing, the plastic bottle collapsing beneath my fingers.

  “Did you really get booted?” Zoe asks. She doesn’t look like a fuzzy apple. She looks like a sixties movie star mixed with a ninja. She’s dressed in workout gear—black leggings, black sports bra, slouchy black T-shirt. Liquid liner flicks away from the corners of her eyes.

  Last year she was more meek, less chic. Puberty: it works wonders.

  “I was asked to take a break,” I say. I screw the cap back onto the now empty water bottle and set it on the floor next to my feet. Zoe frowns. Actually, it’s more of a pout. I wonder if she practices in the mirror.

  “How is that different?”

  “It probably isn’t.” I push myself up to my knees and glance around the room. My luggage sits next to my bed, neatly packed and ready to go. I groan and press a hand to my forehead. At least I wasn’t a complete failure last night. “Have you seen my phone?”

  Zoe plucks the cell off my bedside table and hands it to me. My fingers feel like they’ve doubled in size, like they’re too big and clumsy for the tiny device. I click over to my home screen, and one unread text message glares up at me. It’s from Mother.

  Car. 8:30. Main entrance.

  I check the time at the top of the phone’s screen—8:22. “Shit,” I mutter, standing. “I have to go.”

  “Like that?” Zoe wrinkles her nose. “You aren’t even going to shower?”

  I glance down at myself. I fell asleep in my uniform. The heavy skirt hangs low on my hips, limp and creased. A yellow stain dribbles down the front of my top. I can picture Mother’s expression when she sees me like this: her eyes narrowing, her upper lip curling in distaste. I jerk a hand through my spiky hair—dammit, my hair. Mother hasn’t seen it since I played drunken stylist.

  I dig my nicest coat out of the suitcase—black wool, double breasted with gold buttons—and tug it on over my disheveled uniform. Then I spit into my hands and finger-comb them through my hair. Gross, I know. But at least I get it to lie flat. I peek at my reflection in the mirror on the back of our closet door. Zoe was right. I do look like rotten fruit. My complexion has taken on a greenish hue, and deep circles color the skin below my eyes. And I look so thin. My cheekbones cut hard angles away from my face, and my chin comes to a near-perfect point.

  At any other school, I’d pass for strangely beautiful. I’m skinny and my hair is messed up, but my face isn’t so bad when I, like, wash it and throw on some blush. I have a sharp chin and good eyebrows. Ariel used to say I looked like a hot alien.

  “She’s more like an Alexander Wang model,” Devon would counter. “Wang likes thin, odd-looking girls.”

  I wipe the crusts from the corners of my eyes and smooth down my eyebrows. Strangely beautiful doesn’t cut it at Weston. The girls here are insane-looking. I could never do better than average. I pinch my cheeks, hoping for a burst of pink. But the color fades as soon as it appears.

  “Better,” Zoe says. She pushes herself to her feet and grabs her practice saber from the floor. She had one specially made. The handle is hot pink. “Look, I gotta go. Practice.”

  I glance at my phone: 8:26. “Yeah, me, too. I’m going to be late.”

  We stand awkwardly at the door. Zoe’s only been my roommate for a month. I don’t really know her. Rosenthal decided I shouldn’t live alone after Ariel’s suicide, and, for reasons I never quite understood, Zoe agreed to give up her private suite to sleep in Ariel’s bed. For a while she even tried to be my friend. Everyone else acted like suicide was contagious, but she ate lunch at my table. She asked me questions.

  Zoe parts her lips like she might say something. I feel the moment hovering in the air between us. This is when she’ll explain why she moved in. What she wanted from me.

  Zoe closes her mouth and the moment’s gone, a balloon popping. She shrugs. “See you, I guess.”

  She pulls the door open and steps into the hall. I count to five before following, giving her enough time to get to the gym so we don’t run into each other. Then I pull my duffel over one shoulder and wheel my suitcase out of the room.

  The last of my hangover burns off as I drag my suitcase through the school. Maybe there was something in that bottle Ariel had left for me, because I feel great. Like a fog has lifted. I glance around with clear eyes, taking in the glittering trophies in their cases, the blue ribbons lining the walls behind them. Wax shines up from the floor, and the smell of freshly cut flowers hangs in the air.

  I’ve never seen a broom or mop inside the walls of Weston, but the floors are always polished, the bookshelves dusted, the wastebaskets empty. Ariel used to say that a team of elves cleaned the school while we were sleeping, like in Harry Potter. Devon rolled her eyes and said it was normal cleaners, but she’d heard a rumor that Rosenthal threatened to fire anyone who was seen by the students or faculty.

  I have a theory of my own, though I was too embarrassed to admit it to Devon and Ariel. I think the school doesn’t need to be cleaned. It’s exceptional, like the students who go here.

  I pause next to the gym’s double doors and peer through the glass. Zoe’s already inside, dancing across the far end of the room with her whip-thin saber clenched in one hand. She darts forward, the capped tip jabbing into her competitor’s side. I used to take fencing with her, back when I actually attended classes. She’s deadly.

  Jack was on the fencing team for a hot second earlier this year. He and Ariel hadn’t been dating long, so we went to a match to cheer him on. Ariel thought it would be sexy, but it was just a bunch of dudes dressed up like marshmallows poking each other with sticks. Ariel covered her eyes with her hands and asked me to tell her when it was over.

  Then the girls’ team came out, and Zoe stepped up to compete.

  I’d seen her in class before, but watching her during competition was something else. She had this way of moving, this slow, easy elegance. Almost like a snake. She’d ease up on her opponent, ducking out of the way of their sword so casually you’d think it was luck.

  Then, out of nowhere, she’d strike. She’d come at her opponent again and agai
n, giving them no time to retreat or catch their breath. It was merciless. I hear she’s headed to the Olympics.

  “Can we keep her?” Ariel whispered to me. She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, practically salivating as she watched Zoe dance around the gym. “Please? She could be our Sleeping Beauty.”

  Ariel was always saying shit like that. She loved talent, had a thing for anyone who was the best. She’d constantly threaten to recruit someone else to our little group. I remember how my cheeks flared. How I tightened my hands into fists and tucked them beneath the folds of my skirt, where Ariel wouldn’t see them.

  But Ariel could always tell. She took my hand and squeezed.

  “You know I love you best, right?”

  It was her promise to us. No matter who came into our lives—boys or family or other friends—Dev and I were always her favorites. Devon made the promise, too, and so did I, and I really meant it. Until I didn’t anymore.

  “Charlotte?”

  I turn. Jack stands behind me, his hair slicked with sweat. He wears gym shorts and a white T-shirt that sticks to his skin in patches.

  You know when you’re on an elevator and it kind of … lurches? And your stomach clenches before you even know what’s happening—like your body has started preparing for the elevator’s inevitable plunge while your brain is still stuck on what you had for breakfast or that pop song you can’t remember all the lyrics to?

  That’s what happens to me right now. I stare at Jack’s face, and every muscle in my body tightens, like I’m on lockdown. Jack and I haven’t spoken since before Ariel died. Thirty-one days—wait, no, thirty-two now. The last thing he said to me was “After a while, alligator.” It was a joke, because he was always mixing up words.

  Jack’s eyes move from my face to my suitcase. “You’re leaving?”

  I blink. Leaving.

  “Dammit!” I dig my cell out of my pocket and check the time. 8:42. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so late. I should—”

  “Wait. Stop for a second.” Jack shakes his head, like he’s trying to get the information in his brain to fall into the right places. “Are you quitting school? You never quit anything.”

  I tilt my head in the special, asexual way I reserve for Jack. Half kid sister, half one of the boys. “This from the expert on quitting?”

  Jack has the decency to look embarrassed. “Hey, that’s not—”

  “Lacrosse your junior year? And chess club? And remember when you wanted to be an actor for, like, five minutes?”

  “You know that was just to piss off my dad.”

  Impressed with our banter? We’ve perfected it over the last year, all the better to fill awkward silences that seem to stretch for days and months and years. I’m not even paying attention to what we’re saying. I’m too busy staring at his hands.

  Jack has big hands. Strong. Ariel used to talk about them in hushed, reverent tones. She said he could wrap them all the way around her waist, his thumbs touching. She used to paint his fingernails pink. And he let her.

  He lifts one hand to scratch his chin, and I have to remind myself not to stare. He used to cuff me on the shoulder and ruffle my hair and hug me with one arm. Like I was his little sister. Then one day he stopped. All of a sudden there was this two-foot barrier of space between us, like I gave off some sort of toxic gas that only affected Jack. I try to remember what his hands felt like. Were his fingers soft? Callused? Were they warm, or always cold like mine?

  “Are you really leaving?” Jack asks, cutting into my thoughts.

  I clear my throat, grateful that I don’t blush. “I’m taking a page out of your book.”

  Jack stares at me, too. Don’t think I don’t notice. His eyes always wander to this spot on my neck, just above my collarbone.

  “Take a different page,” he says, and his voice sounds deeper than it’s supposed to. Husky. Less protective older brother and more illicit lover. We’re verging on dangerous behavior here.

  I tug my coat closed. “I’m going to be late.”

  “I don’t quit everything,” Jack says. “Not always.”

  His voice reminds me of rain. Does that make sense? Is it possible for someone’s voice to remind you of rain? I want to kiss him. No, I want to slap him. And then kiss him. I want to grab him by the collar of his shirt and scream in his face, and bang my fists against his chest. And then kiss him.

  Unfortunately, none of those things are appropriate. Not when the guy in question is your dead best friend’s ex-boyfriend.

  “That’s right,” I say, clearing my throat. “You never gave up on Ariel, and she gave you a million and a half reasons to.”

  For a second, Jack looks like I really did slap him. He shuffles backward, his tennis shoes squeaking against the floor. “That’s not fair.”

  “Who said I was playing fair?” I start to move past him, wheeling my suitcase behind me.

  “Wait,” he calls before I make it to the door. “I’m sorry about Devon.”

  I stop, but I don’t turn back around. “Me, too.”

  “I hate how weird things are between us,” he says. “I get why you didn’t want to see me after what happened with Ariel. But now Devon—”

  “Things aren’t weird between us.”

  Jack is quiet for a second. “Aren’t they?”

  “I really have to meet my mother,” I say. For a long moment, the only sound in the hallway is my suitcase’s wheels grinding over the wooden floor. I stop at the main entrance and reach for the door.

  “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” Jack calls.

  I lower my hand to the doorknob. Tighten my fingers around the cool brass. I close my eyes, and I pray that he won’t keep talking.

  Please. Please don’t say it.

  “About what happened,” Jack continues. “It’s not the reason she … that she killed herself. She was messed up, Charlotte. Devon, too. It wasn’t about you.”

  “You have no idea what it was about,” I say.

  Chapter Six

  Ariel and I met Jack on the same day. In the same class period. At the same moment. He walked into our homeroom, and we looked up and—boom—Jack was in our lives.

  He was a transfer student from the city. Started at Weston our junior year. I had the new-student thing down to a science by then, and I knew the drill. No sudden movements or loud noises. No unnecessary eye contact. You don’t want to spook the animals.

  Jack … did not follow those guidelines. His first week at Weston, he signed up to do a comedy set at the under-eighteen club in town. Every single student at our school showed up to see him. We figured he was a theater kid, that he must be some sort of comic genius to take such a big risk.

  He was not a comic genius. In fact, he stank. It was like watching an oddly charming train wreck. He grinned like an idiot when we all finally booed him off the stage. He bowed and doffed an invisible hat. Everyone at Weston fell in love with him at the same second.

  If Jack were a dog, he’d be a golden retriever. If he were an inanimate object, he’d be something bouncy and determined, like a tennis ball. He tries too hard and does too much and doesn’t care about what anyone thinks, except that of course he cares about what everyone thinks.

  “Dibs,” Ariel whispered to me that night, while we were watching him bomb onstage. It took me too long to realize what she’d meant. Jack wasn’t her type. She liked dark, brooding boys with leather jackets and bad attitudes. She liked tattoos and no futures and older, bordering on inappropriate. She didn’t date goofy high school guys. She didn’t appreciate determination and charm.

  But Jack was different. Jack was worth it.

  I felt something shift then that I couldn’t quite name. The sudden emptiness that comes with losing something you hadn’t realized you wanted.

  The floor was wet. I’d noticed that first. I was coming home from the library that night, late because I didn’t want to talk to Ariel about what had happened the day before.

  Ariel liked fights
that lasted for days. She liked to scream. She thought drama was healthy. That getting our blood boiling was the best thing that could happen to our relationship. I’d never been a yeller before I met her. I came from a house of silent dinners and single kisses good-night. But Ariel didn’t live like that. She’d push and push until I was standing across the room from her, screaming myself hoarse. And just when I got worked up, just when I decided exactly what I wanted to say to her—the thing that would make her understand why I was so hurt or angry—just when I’d perfected the phrasing in my head, she’d shut me out. Her face would go blank and I’d get the silent treatment for an hour. A day. A week.

  I hated the silence even more than I hated the fights, so I’d been hoping she was in the mood to yell when I pushed the door to our dorm room open that night. I was wearing my loafers with the thick soles, and I almost didn’t notice the water. But then I took a step into the room, and it sloshed around my heels. It made empty, sucking noises when I lifted my foot.

  I’d muttered something then—a curse, maybe. I don’t remember. I set my book bag on top of the narrow dresser by the door, and I tried to switch on the light, but the bulb had burned out.

  A sliver of light cut across the room. It leaked out beneath the bathroom door, glimmered over the inch of water sitting on top of the floorboards.

  I think that was when I knew something bad had happened. Right that second, staring at the light from the bathroom.

  I called out Ariel’s name. I crossed the dorm room in two long steps.

  The bathtub faucet was still running. That was where the water was coming from. There were candles lining the windowsills, sending flickering light onto the peeling paint of the bathroom walls.

  Water flowed over the sides of the tub. I took a step forward.

  Ariel floated just below the surface. Her hair fanned out around her, drifting in the water like tentacles. Her pale skin was luminous. Her eyes open.

  I didn’t scream. I didn’t even cry. I bit back the vomit rising in my throat and stumbled. Then I turned and ran. I grabbed my bag on the way out the door.