“I can’t.” The truth hurt like hell, but doing exploratory surgery on her own heart would hurt even more. She needed someone to help her forget about mom and dad and the group home and how badly all of it had ravaged her ability to trust. Maybe Crash was right. Maybe she wasn’t capable of really loving him, or anyone, anymore.
“Not even for me? You can’t take a risk and say, yeah, I know shit has happened, but what the hell, maybe this time won’t destroy me?” It wasn’t attacking, wasn’t judgmental. It was fair, and there was a clarity to the way he said it that made Rion feel just how fair it was. “Because I swear it won’t, Rion. I won’t. I would never.”
“I don’t do complicated emotions. I hate them. They make me vulnerable and weak and that makes me nervous because for so long I was all on my own. When you’re on your own, you can’t be weak.”
“Well if you want to keep being fucking alone, then fine, Rion! You can keep being hard and closed off and distrusting. But as long as you are those things, I’m pretty sure alone is all you’ll ever be. You can’t love someone and be all those things. They just can’t exist together.” Crash chucked the chalk to the ground and growled.
“I do love you. And, Crash, I’m only eighteen. I have a whole lot of shit behind me and probably plenty of it ahead, too. I didn’t figure out how to survive on my own for nothing.”
“I know that, Rion. I do. But here’s the thing. Loving somebody means you put yourself out there, you have faith in things that don’t always make sense to you, and sometimes, even though it’s a leap, it can expose your weakness. Really loving someone means letting yourself be vulnerable.”
Crash just looked at her, then the ground, scuffing his toe on the gravel. “I told you I loved you, Rion, and I meant it. I should have said more, though.”
Rion looked up. The tears had started to collect at the bottom rims of her eyes, and she knew that his sharp challenges, plus the surprise of seeing him there at all, had punched a tiny hole in the dam that had been holding back every soul-shattering feeling for so very long. It wouldn’t be long until buckets of tears burst forth.
“I should have been more clear. I should have told you that you are so beautiful it makes me want to paint you a thousand different ways on a thousand different walls. I should have told you how the smell of your skin can distract me from pretty much anything. How you’re the first person who I thought could really understand me in the longest fucking time, and how losing that would destroy me. I should have said that you’re so easy to be around, and that that’s a goddamn treasure, because that does not come along every day, or even every year, for a guy like me. I should have told you that, so many times, I would stay awake while you slept watching you breathe and trying to figure out exactly how to tell you how damn much you mean to me, to make you understand that, to me, you are the best person in the world. You are funny and smart and you have so much fucking love inside you, and sometimes you let it out, and I was so goddamn lucky to be there to catch so much of it.
“I should have told you that I never, ever, ever wanted to lose that. I should have fought for you harder, but Rion, I’m so tired. I was, and I am, and I don’t want to go another day without you, but if you can’t trust me, I’ll have to.”
At that, his voice broke, and Rion’s heart broke, and she launched herself at him, folding him in her arms and feeling the sorrow and the stress and the frustration she’d caused him—she had contributed to this whole fucking mess—flow through him and into her where it really belonged.
And then, she cried.
Crash pulled back and studied her while she did, while her chest heaved and she fought to find enough breath to say, as clearly and as surely as she should have six weeks ago, that she was sorry, and that she trusted him, and that even though she only had enough of that to give to one person in her life, she wanted it to be him.
But instead, all she managed was, “I love you. I trust you. I’m so, so sorry.”
He watched her, wiping away tears and brushing the hair back from her face, like he was appraising a piece of art, trying to weigh risks and benefits and decide whether it would be worth the cost.
It didn’t take him long to decide.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, whispering “Shhhh…I’m sorry I didn’t say all this sooner,” and pressing kisses onto her head. With the other arm, he pulled the other piece of chalk out of her pocket, reached up and drew two hearts, interlocking, and then let it drop to the ground.
“Why two?” Rion sniffled.
“In all the other pictures I only painted one because I wasn’t sure you were really in this. Now, I am.”
Without another word, Crash reached down, twined his fingers with hers, and led her silently out of the alley. Rion didn’t know what came next, but for the first time in a very long time, she was trusting someone else to help her figure it out.
Arielle
A school year practically ending in April, with only finals left in May, it just felt wrong to Arielle, who had spent her entire life on a “Passover means you still have six weeks left” schedule. Lauren, who had never tasted Manischewitz, had passed out after the third glass of wine at the Duval family Seder, and a couple hours later, Arielle had wandered from her room, bored with reading in the dark and watching Lauren sleep.
Wrinkling her nose as she bit into the first of what would be dozens of matzah peanut butter sandwiches, Arielle jumped when the garage door rattled.
Rion and Amy shouldered in through a tiny gap, like they were hiding the fact that they were sneaking back in—because, presumably, they had snuck out. They clutched fast-food bags in their hands, and met Arielle with a shock on their faces that was completely comical.
“Passover food not good enough for you?” Arielle deadpanned, and Rion rolled her eyes while Amy still looked mortified.
“We were so fucking hungry, Ari. You have to give us that. Gentiles are not made for this. What the fuck do you even eat on this damn holiday, anyway?”
Arielle held up her peanut butter and matzah, and Amy frowned.
“What?” Arielle laughed. “It’s not so bad. Plus, there’s also ice cream.”
Five minutes later, the girls sat with two half-gallons between them in a dark circle of the family room. “It’s just like old times,” Rion said with a mouthful of raspberry chip.
“Yeah, when we were all miserable and limping through freshman year. Look at us now, all self-assured and grown up and mature.”
Something about that sentence sobered the other two girls. Amy was the first to speak again. “Is this our last Society meeting?”
“Do you want it to be?” Arielle asked. Everyone’s eyes were still sad.
“I know this is a touchy topic, mostly because of our…situations,” Amy said. “But did you guys get that email from the housing director today?”
“I still haven’t figured out how to get my email onto this goddamn phone,” Rion grumbled, but Arielle looked panicked and scrolled through her email. “Oh, shit. We have to give him our decision.”
Amy cast her eyes down. “Matt and I aren’t going to live together. I’m not ready, and I don’t think he is either.”
“Crash wants me to move in,” Rion offered.
“Really?” Arielle said. “That’s fast.”
“I love him,” Rion shrugged. “But not enough to clean his pubes off the toilet. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
Amy’s gaze shot up. “So you’d think about staying in Harrison?”
Rion shrugged. “It’s cheap. And if you’ll swipe me for free meals in the dining hall, I don’t see why not.”
“I’m in too,” Arielle said. “As much as I love those Alpha Chi girls, there’s too much drama to live with them 24/7.”
“I thought you had to live there,” Amy said, relief flooding her voice.
Arielle brushed the scattered matzah crumbs from her lap for the millionth time that night. “Common sorority myths. There’s act
ually not enough space in the house for all of us. If I sit on the board of the sorority, I have to live there, but that wouldn’t happen til next year anyway.”
For one cheesy moment, they all shared a smile. Then Arielle shot to her feet. “Come on.”
“We can’t abandon the ice cream!” Rion said with a full mouth. Ari swore that girl could eat three meals of ice cream a day and not gain an ounce.
“It’s just for a second,” Arielle said. “Stay here.” She ran up the stairs and slunk into her room, deftly grabbing the pink notebook, now ragged and stuffed full of notes from every Society meeting, without waking Lauren. Then she grabbed her bag and headed to the printer. “Gather around it so the noise doesn’t wake up the house.” She pulled up her email and printed the Harrison Tower housing contract, then handed a pen to Rion first.
“Let’s sign now. Then we’ll know for sure this isn’t our last meeting. As soon as we all sign, we’ll schedule our first meeting for next year.”
“I don’t know. I was kind of worried we might decide we don’t even need the Society anymore,” Amy said, picking at her nails.
Arielle shrugged, making sure Amy saw her smile. “I figure we’ll never be one hundred percent happy, and the world has plenty of heartbreak. There’s nobody I would rather have hear all about mine than you girls.”
“You know I’m just doing this to stay in touch with my mushy-gushy side, right?” Rion halfheartedly grumbled.
“Yeah, and I’m only doing it for the exposure to swear words.” Amy smiled. “Don’t start slacking, Ri.”
“Oh, shut up. If you girls loved me and each other any more, you’d be as gay as I am.” Arielle was the last to sign.
The swooping blue ink that marked their signatures felt just as much like a promise as a prayer. Their hearts had been broken and put back together again, and they’d helped each other through. Everything in life changed, and there was no such thing as a guarantee when it came to love and friendship–they’d learned that much.
Still, Arielle knew, deep down in her soul, that she wouldn’t have survived this year without these two accidental, perfectly imperfect friends.
She slung her arms around their necks and grinned when they returned the hug. All three of them squeezed tight, and Arielle felt it down to her bones—their silent promise to keep holding each other up, no matter what.
First and foremost, to Jamie Grey and Trisha Leigh, the two women who nudge, push, nag, encourage and support me until the smallest of ideas I share with them turns into a real-life book – thank you, thank you, thank you. I can never say it enough, but I’ll keep trying anyway.
Over-the-top, teary thanks to Valerie Cole and Julie Daly, who took on this monstrous triple-main character manuscript for second-round critique sight unseen. Your confidence and generosity are extraordinary.
Arielle Cronig (A.K.A. “Real Life Arielle,) thank you for being so very cool with the fact that I put you in not one, but two books. Hopefully my writing is like some kind of voodoo magic and you find your happily ever after just like Book Arielle did.
To my beta readers, Kayti McGee, Michelle Smith, Brett Jonas, Marlana Fireman, Taylor Mandel, Rion Caldwell, Tara Marshall, Bethany Voyles, Tiffany Brun, and Adrianne Russell – thanks for volunteering to read this book with an enthusiastic, open heart, even though you knew it was still riddled with typos, grammar issues, and rogue yellow highlights. You are incredible.
I never thought the memory of doing copyedits would bring a smile to my face, but Shannon Ford made it happen. Thank you for taking on this behemoth of a novel and making it shiny and ready to read.
A book’s beauty lies just as much in its presentation as in its words. Thank you, Cait Greer, for once again designing something completely unique and absolutely perfect for Suite 17C. You are making magic, my friend.
Thank you to David, who supports this crazy book-writing career of mine 100%, even though he probably never would have dreamed I’d ever be doing something like this. I picked a good one.
And, last but never least, thank you to my readers. Your enthusiasm and support for these stories of love lost and regained, and the friends found along the way, keeps me writing them, which brings me more joy than I could ever say.
Raised on comic books and classic novels, LeighAnn developed an early love of science fiction and great literature. As an adult, she rediscovered her love for not only reading, but also writing the types of fiction that enchanted her as a teen. Her novels are packed full of flights of fancy, first loves, unexpected friendships, and all the other things that make self-discovery stories so fun to tell.
LeighAnn, her husband, and four children live in Columbus, Ohio. When she’s not immersed in the world of fiction, you can find her with her nose buried in her Kindle, obsessing over the latest superhero movie, or using her kids as an excuse to go out for ice cream (again).
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C Page 44
