The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C

by LeighAnn Kopans

  “Yeah, and Crash too. Does he know?”

  “He kind of told me he loved me? Right when I was about to come get you?”

  Amy’s eyes opened so wide Rion could have wedged coasters under her lids. “What?” she screeched. “You didn’t tell me that!”

  “It’s not a big deal. Not like you’re not busy enough with your own stuff.”

  “It is a big deal, and it’s Society news! I’m never too busy. Really.” Amy’s face turned serious. “You guys have helped me so much that I really don’t know what I would be doing without you right now. Wait,” she said, her eyes going wide again. “Did you say it back?”

  “Um, yeah. Well, kind of. I mean, I kind of…yelled it on my way out?”

  “Rion! And you haven’t talked to him since?”

  Rion shrugged, trying to tamp down the weird crazy fluttering in her stomach. “No.”

  “Well, you should!”

  “I don’t know, isn’t this the kind of thing you’re supposed to talk about in person? You know, so you can see his expression and everything? And he can throw you into bed right after?”

  Amy’s cheeks blazed and Rion smirked. “You’re welcome. Anyway, he’ll be back in a couple days. They’re going to pay him overtime to staff the shop when all the other students who work there are still on break. I can wait.”

  Amy just grinned at her. Clearly she could tell just how far of a reach that last sentence was.

  Two days of waiting for Crash to come back felt much longer than Rion would have expected. A lot of things had changed, and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that made the connection stronger. She wasn’t planning a wedding or even making a stupid Pinterest board with diamonds so big she’d be embarrassed to wear them, like she’d definitely seen Arielle doing. She wasn’t mentally decorating their first apartment together, or even thinking about how they’d spend Spring Break.

  But for the first time ever, Rion wasn’t on guard, wasn’t stressed about falling—maybe because she had a parachute. Her roommates were awesome, and even though Amy had spent days frantically making addenda to her Arielle-assigned lists and crying in the spaces in between, Rion knew that they were cool and that they had each other’s backs, at least when it came to relationships.

  Now she had a relationship, a real relationship, that she was part of. An idea she was still getting used to during her usual text check-ins with Crash. Always about what they were listening to or what they were watching. Sometimes she would ask him which song to mix with another. Sometimes he’d actually be familiar with all of the choices. His was always the last text before she fell asleep. They talked once, but didn’t say the L-word again. Maybe he sensed the same thing she did—maybe he knew how important it was to really look at him the next time she said it, to make sure that he knew and that it was real.

  Crash’s first shift back was a Thursday afternoon. He’d told her when they first met that when college girls were bored, they drank, and when they were bored and drinking, they came to get tattoos. It was a Thursday night, which was probably why it was so quiet—a weird day for most people to come back to campus, and too late for any of the girls left standing to be sober enough for a tattoo. Rion daydreamed as she drove from the off-campus lot where freshmen had to keep their cars and up toward Francis. She’d come and sit with him, thumbing through the same book of tattoo patterns to see if there was one she hadn’t seen before, and she’d listen to him make her promise, for the hundredth time, that if she got a tattoo she would let him design it. Maybe, this time, she’d ask him to go ahead and do it.

  But every warm, fuzzy, relaxed feeling she’d allowed to flood her during that two-minute daydreaming drive blew apart into a cold, panicked emptiness when she pulled up to the Studio on High and saw two police cars in front, one with a K-9 unit designation. There was only one reason police would bring a dog in the middle of business hours—drugs.

  Shit. Shit shit shit. Shit.

  Who the hell would have brought drugs into Olivia’s studio? She took care of every one of her workers like they were family—who would fuck with someone who took care of them that well, would do anything to ruin the integrity of her business? Maybe that asshole sophomore who’d come from one of the top fraternities on campus, trying to disguise the fact that he’d lost his bank teller job from his parents? Maybe the old rasta guy who swept up at night, and didn’t seem to give a shit about much of anything? Rion peered into the front desk area of the Studio and saw Olivia talking to an officer, one hand ghosting at her throat, as if she was trying to keep her head attached to her body, and another on her hip. She half answered the officer’s questions, half looked around the studio like she was hoping the scene would magically change any minute now.

  When Rion walked in, Olivia’s head snapped to the door. “Rion. Are you scheduled?”

  “No, but I came to see—”

  Olivia shook her head sharply, once in each direction. “You should go home, Ri. I’ll call you in a little bit, okay?”

  Rion’s stomach bottomed out when she heard the click of handcuffs and the undertone reading of rights. Shit. Shit shit shit. The cops had found enough drugs for it to be considered a felony, so there had to be an arrest. Olivia just prayed no dumb-shit freshmen were around to tweet about this and bring the name of the whole studio down.

  A shadow approached the doorway, and Rion’s heart stopped. Stephanie’s unmistakable spiraled mop peeked out the doorway, then the rest of her, her dark skin looking somehow grayer, her expression a mixture of shock and sorrow as she shuffled out of the back room.

  But she wasn’t the one in cuffs.

  Rion wanted to throw up when she heard his voice, softly assenting to everything the cop said. No way. There was no fucking way she had fallen in love with a guy who not only carried, but probably sold, pot—then lied, over and over again, about the fact that he did.

  Crash’s Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow as a cop on either side of him escorted him to the front door. He looked up at her and squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d actually shown up. Or that he’d actually been caught. Either way, the bastard had the balls to look her in the eyes, and if she hadn’t been in such complete and total shock, she would have reached down and torn them off.

  She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to beat the everloving shit out of him for wanting her bad enough to chase after her, to spend so much time with her, to be the first person to care about who she was and what she did, to make her fall in love with him, goddamn him, only to have been a motherfucking liar.

  Maybe it shouldn’t have been a shock. Maybe she should have known better, and maybe she actually had. Maybe she should have taken his lip ring and his tattoos and on-again, off-again student status and his over-21 drivers’ license into account and seen how it all added up to a guy who had to be trouble, couldn’t possibly stay out of trouble. Maybe that was on her.

  The lying, however, was on him. She knew exactly one thing was true as she watched the cops lead him to their car, help him into the back, and drive away, with no sirens, thank God for Olivia—she had absolutely nothing left to say to Crash. Not now, and not ever again.

  It didn’t matter how much she hated him, how much the burning rage in her chest should have eradicated any emotion—by the time she made it back to Harrison, hot tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she couldn’t get her coat off her body fast enough. She burst through the door of 17C and tossed her jacket and bag on the floor. Arielle and Amy were on the futon, Amy watching something—Kill Bill, Rion recognized from the music—and Arielle on her laptop, typing like a madwoman and occasionally pounding on a sticky key.

  “You could use the coat hooks I put up, Rion.”

  That was it. Just those words, Arielle nagging her about the neatness of their Suite like her entire world hadn’t just turned upside down, sent Rion sobbing. She slumped against the door, just like she remembered Arielle doing so many weeks ago,
when she’d thought she was such a pathetic loser. Well, now Rion was the pathetic loser. And it was all Crash’s fault.

  Just thinking his name started a fresh wave of pain, and she pulled her knees to her chest, trying to hold something—anything—together.

  Rion heard the thunk of Arielle’s laptop, noticed that the telltale fight sounds from the movie had stopped. She felt two hands on her back, opened her eyes to see a girl crouching on either side of her. “What did he do to you?” Amy asked in a quiet growl, the first time Rion had ever heard that girl sound remotely dangerous. “I should have seen it. I should have fucking guessed.” Rion lifted her head and smoothed her palms down over her eyes, feeling the greasy resistance of the eye makeup she’d so carefully painted on. Crash liked smoky eyes on her—said they brought out the blue of her irises. Fucking shit. Another jolt of pain, just thinking about him telling her that.

  “Shit,” Arielle said. “Is it another girl?”

  “What? No. No, it’s not another girl. At least, he’d better not be fucking anyone else. No, it was drugs. Fucking marijuana, probably in little plastic Ziploc baggies. Just like last time. Except this time, it wasn’t me who got caught with it, which he’ll probably regret, because if I ever see him again I might actually kill him.”

  “No. That’s…are you sure? It was his? You’re absolutely certain,” Amy said, shaking her head.

  “Yeah. With fucking intent to sell.” With one tight fist, she smashed into her own calf, having nothing else close by to hit. “Pretty straightforward. The cops somehow got a tip, or maybe they were waiting for it in the Studio, who the fuck knows? They came in with dogs, pried open a few break room lockers. Next thing I knew I was listening to them read him his rights.”

  “That just doesn’t sound like him. And I asked Matt, when you first met him. I know it’s weird, but with his student government stuff, he knows a lot of the campus police—and they said he’s never even been suspected in a case. Not once.”

  “You did a background check on my boyfriend?” Ex-boyfriend.

  Amy looked sheepish, tucking her chin down. “It’s in the charter. If your heart gets broken, it’s my fault. I was just doing everything I could.”

  Rion laughed shortly. “Well, my heart’s fucking broken. It’s not your fault, though.”

  Arielle raised a single eyebrow, tentatively raised a hand to touch Rion’s shoulder, then let it fall when Rion glared at her. “Rion, I…”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rion continued. “I don’t give a shit. I told him right from the beginning, if he smoked, bought weed, was friends with weed growers, any of that shit, I wouldn’t see him. That’s my line. More than alcohol or parties or cigarettes, pot was the line I drew. He knew that. I was very clear about that. And he liked me enough to take a fucking piss test, but didn’t love me enough to be honest with me. Goddammit! What is it about me, guys? Do I seem so fucking fragile that everyone has to lie to me about everything, or do I just look stupid? Or—maybe this is it—am I just doomed to have everyone I love and trust be total fuck-ups, and lose them?”

  “Hey now,” Arielle said, reaching out to gently rub her back again. “I’m not a total fuckup. Only mostly a fuck up.”

  Rion laughed, managing to choke out the sound between tears.

  That was when her phone rang. Once, twice, and she didn’t bother to answer. The only person who ever called her anyway was her mom, and Rion would rather talk to fucking Putin right now than her mother. But after two long rings and all three girls staring at the phone, Arielle bent forward to grab it and hit ‘answer,’ putting it on speaker at the same time.

  A bored, nasal voice droned, “You are receiving a phone call from the Francis county jail, will you accept it?”

  Mom was in a state prison, and there was really only one other person who had her number and would be in jail. Fucking Crash. She leaned forward to yell into the speaker. “No I most certainly do—”

  “Yes!” Amy said, cutting her off and grabbing the phone from Ari. “Yes, put him on.”

  If looks could obliterate someone on the spot, Rion’s to Amy would have done just that. “I have nothing to say to him,” Rion growled. “There’s nothing he can say to me. No matter what, we’re fucking finished.”

  “Rion?” Crash’s voice was crackly and tired, and her heart twisted at the thought that maybe he’d heard something she just said. Like she should fucking care. She didn’t. She didn’t care about him at all. She imagined little bricks being laid at the foundation of the wall around her heart. Fucking asshole made her start from scratch.

  But all she could manage to say was, “Why are you calling me?”

  “Why am I—baby, you’re my one jailhouse phone call. I need you to come get me out of here. I’ll explain everything after we—”

  “Two words in what you just said are a huge problem for me right now, you nutclutching douchebag. Calling me baby and the word ‘we.’ You don’t get to call me that anymore, because there is no ‘we.’”

  “Rion, I know this is killing you. I promise you, I will tell you literally everything as soon as I’m out and you’ll understand, but right now my two minutes are almost up and I need you to come post bail for me. I have some cash at the apartment, in the back of the pantry inside—

  “It’s not killing me, actually. I have zero fucks to give about you or anything your sorry lying ass has been involved in for the last four months. The only thing that slightly bothers me is that I was dumb enough not to realize what a fucking liar you were for this long.”

  “Ri, please, I’m—”

  “I’ll tell you what you are. Fucked. Have a nice life.” And then she threw the phone across the room, where it mercifully landed in the corner of the futon with all the throw pillows Amy had meticulously arranged on their first day in 17C, and every day thereafter.

  Thank God at least she and Arielle were still here. Looking at those girls, their mixed expressions of shock and pity, the way they watched her, frozen, Rion glimpsed the tiniest bit of faith that maybe someone in this backwards, fucked-up world really loved her. That maybe she could trust these girls.

  So she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, until the heavy buzzing of rage and confusion and shock in her chest poured out. Though the lightness that followed was a slight improvement, it still sucked because now all she felt was empty.

  “I should have done what Amy did,” Rion said into the peaceful quiet of the 17C common room when the tears finally stopped flowing. “I should have said no dating, under any circumstances.”

  “Yeah, because look how well that worked out for me,” Amy snorted.

  “Besides,” Arielle said quietly, “you still would have slept with him.”

  Rion laughed and smacked her on the shoulder lightly. “Shut the fuck up.” And then, a few seconds later, “Yeah, you’re right.” And then to Amy, “and you are too. I still would have fallen in love with him.” She buried her face in her hands. “Ugh, just saying that makes me feel pathetic. Falling in love. Like I’m some kind of swooning hyperromantic pussy.”

  “Well, you did!” Amy said, “You did fall in love, and it happens to the best of us.”

  “No. I was stupid. I was stupid and wrecked from the last two years and I think I wanted to trust someone.”

  “Well I’m sorry. He was a damn decent person to trust. Good job, nice place, gets along with everyone.”

  “Clear pee test,” Amy interrupted.

  “There was no way you could have figured out that he’s…what? A drug dealer?”

  Rion sniffed. “I don’t know. I don’t even fucking know anymore. I just know I’m done.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Arielle murmured. “Even Matt, Mr. Standup Citizen, said he was a really good guy. You have to talk to him. Get your answer as to why, how he thought it was a good idea to lie to you about the one thing he promised not to lie to you about. You’ve gained too much by being with him to walk away quietly like it never happened. You’re in lov
e, Rion. That doesn’t come easily.”

  Rion rolled her eyes.

  “Besides,” Amy finished, “If you don’t get his explanation, you’ll never trust anyone again.”

  “So maybe I won’t. Maybe I’m just fine on my own, thank you very much, and probably even better, because apparently the only people I can attract are high-caliber fuck-ups.”

  Arielle sighed. “Well, I guess it’s good we don’t have class for a few more days.”

  “No class, yes shifts at the Studio.”

  Arielle wrinkled her nose.

  “At least he won’t be there, I guess. Since he burned his one call on me. Even though I kind of wish I had just gone to get him.” The tears started all over again.

  With a last look of sad understanding from the roommates, they shifted their seating arrangement to fit Rion and her sporadic weeping. She watched the rest of Kill Bill, occasionally adding commentary on the brilliance of its weird mashup of a soundtrack and its Zen Buddhist themes that most people tried to ignore in favor of savoring the gore.

  Yeah, Crash had managed to tear out her heart and smear it all over her visions of her own future, leaving her weak and empty. But at least, for this one little moment, she had two really, really good girls willing to hold her up.

  Rion barely slept that night, tossing and turning and hating the memory of being able to reach out and touch Crash. Yeah, he had a ridiculously hot body, but damn him, he’d turned into so much more for her. A symbol that things she thought were impossible could turn into reality. That is, until that reality turned out to be one huge lie.

  She stared in the mirror and winced at her rumpled shirt, her eyes, still slightly puffy and burning from last night, and her tangled hair with roots probably one week past due for a dye. She shuffled around the room, trying to find some combination of clothes that were sort of clean and sort of went together. She couldn’t remember a time when she cared so little about her appearance, actually, and cursed her past self for scheduling any shifts during break.