The Brokenhearted

by Amelia Kahaney

  School continues to be awful, with Will making me hang on him at every possible moment and Zahra still only speaking to me when I corner her, and barely even then. Sometimes I catch her looking at me in the halls and at lunch when I’m parading around with Will, her expression sad and confused, as if she can’t quite believe her eyes. The sadness in her face gives me a little hope that maybe there’s still some part of her that can forgive me, if not understand me. In those moments, I feel like if only I could tell her the whole truth, things between us might be okay again. But then Will catches me looking at her and jiggles his stupid flash drive, and I go right back to hiding behind my wall of lies.

  As soon as I get him off my back, I tell myself, I’ll tell Z everything.

  Besides ballet practice, which is a distraction from everything at school and from the aching pit of grief and guilt inside me, training with Ford has been the only bright spot in my daily slog through life.

  “Fine.” Ford grins. “Watch and learn.”

  After Ford does an impressive boxing sequence that ends with a spin-kick, I turn to the mirror and practice my left-hand jab, my weakest punch according to Ford, bobbing and ducking in front of the mirror. My eyes still look haunted, but my body is much stronger than it was a week ago. Hours of sparring, weights, and drills have morphed my scrawny-but-strong limbs into sinewy, toned muscle. My stomach—always flat and toned from ballet—has real definition now. There’s an actual six-pack, especially after I’ve been moving around for a while. And by the end of every workout, my biceps look like they’re carved of stone.

  “Okay, you again,” Ford says, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror as he thrusts his chin toward the bag. A trickle of sweat runs down the side of his jaw. “Take it down this time. That bag killed your boyfriend.”

  Of course I can’t take it down, I think as I take a few big steps back, preparing to come at it with as much force as I can. This is how we end all the sessions—with a final, do-or-die attack where Ford encourages me to go to my “crazy place” and give it all I have. If you only knew, I thought the first time he used this phrase. My crazy isn’t just a place, it’s a whole continent.

  I start spinning in circles as I approach, gathering momentum with every turn, then I aim the flat of my foot straight at the chubby center of the bag and make contact. Hard. Harder than I’ve ever kicked before, I realize as I hear a metallic crack. I don’t register what I’ve done until the bag is in midair, flying across the room. It lands with a thud, all two hundred pounds of it draped over a set of barbells forty feet away from where it hung.

  “Holy Christ on a cracker!” Ford cries. “Jesus, Green! You snapped the chain!”

  My hands on my hips, I look up at where the bag was hanging and see a link of steel with a chunk missing, swinging in the air. “Oops.”

  Ford looks at me, his mouth hanging open. “Okay, let’s assume I’ll be able to fix that by morning,” he mutters. “No more sparring the bag. You’re ready to fight a real person.”

  “You?” I say, turning in circles as he dances around me and jabs the air with his taped hands.

  “You see anyone else here? Come on, Green. Bring it.” His smile is wide and confident. I look at my own hands, my pinkie bruised, calluses on my palms covered with the white tape. I asked about gloves the first night I came here. No gloves, he’d said. We do it open-handed in Bedlam. We’re out for blood.

  Whatever, I remember thinking as he showed me around Jimmy’s Corner. Physical pain, a broken hand, it’s nothing compared to how I feel inside. It would feel good, probably.

  But now, all I can think about is how much I don’t want a punch in the nose, since it would mean an interrogation from my parents and weeks of monitoring, maybe even that anxiety assessment with Principal Bang. More important, I don’t want to accidentally kill Ford. I duck down low, protecting my head as Ford and I begin to circle each other.

  “Come on,” I plead. “Let’s not do this.”

  I feel my heart pumping hard, banging out a ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk rhythm in my ears, pushing my blood around my body as I match Ford’s shuffle with a step-ball-change dance of my own.

  We each take a few swings, but then I land both hands on his shoulders and try to pull him down. “First one to the floor loses.” Ford grimaces, his biceps straining and slippery with sweat under my grip. Nervous I’ll hurt him, I take it easy. So easy he’s able to push me off him, then snakes his leg behind one of mine to take me down. I fall forward, toward him, but catch myself at the last minute, punching my way out of his grip. He’s not taking any jabs at my face or body. He’s playing nice, too, I realize. Doesn’t want to hit a girl. I dance toward him and kick the air in front of him. When he comes close again, I duck low, railroading straight toward his stomach and slamming my right shoulder into his midsection, sending him flying backward so far he’s past the edge of the mat. After a moment of shock, he springs up, but I come at him again and slam him to the ground, pinning his windpipe with my forearm, half-sitting, half-lying on him, keeping him pinned according to the rules of the match—rules he taught me.

  I look at the mirrored wall for a half-second and see a girl in a black tank top with rippling arms atop a guy twice her size, and it almost feels like a dream, like I’m watching a movie, because it’s so hard to believe she’s me. Ford’s neck is warm and vulnerable under my arm, and I remind myself to hold back.

  I ease up a little on his neck and start to count out loud—one, two, three—but then I notice Ford is trying to say something, and that he’s trying to pull my arm from his throat, and that his face is turning purple. I yank my arm away, scared by my own capacity to hurt, and my obvious inability to control it.

  “Sorrysorrysorry,” I’m saying over and over, my face redder than his now.

  Ford rubs his neck. “It was just my windpipe,” he croaks, giving me a funny look. “Who needs a trachea, really?”

  My heart kicks when I see the look on his face, the way he tilts his head and studies me, an expression of wonder and something else I can’t quite read. “What?” I ask, even though I know what he’s thinking—some variation of Is this for real?

  “Nothing,” Ford says, still rubbing his neck as he scoots an inch or two away from me. “I’ve just never been afraid of a girl before.”

  My face flushes deeper, like he’s caught me without my clothes on. He’s the first person aside from Will who sees the dark side of what I can do. “Here’s to new experiences.”

  He laughs, a horsey guffaw that fills the room. “You’re going to be a great fighter. You already are.”

  “I don’t know,” I mutter, turning away from him to walk to the water fountain, avoiding the mirror, and trying not to pay attention to the fluttery feeling in my stomach. Ford’s attention makes me uncomfortable. But it feels good to do something well, to think that maybe I can use what I’ve learned to take down Rosie and her crew.

  Lately, in the few hours of sleep I’m getting after training, my dreams are filled with finding the kidnappers, overpowering them, making them suffer.

  All I can do is register what Ford tells me and hope it might be enough to ensure that Rosie is punished, locked away forever in a maximum security wing of Bedlam Prison, a black metal tower on Dead Man’s Hill, deep in Exurbia, with narrow slits for windows and a spiked, electrified fence sealing thousands of criminals inside.

  I bend over the water fountain, swallowing the lukewarm water that trickles out of it, and picture attacking Rosie, my hands around her neck . . .

  Until water shoots up into my eye.

  When I let go of the metal spigot, I discover it bent to one side.

  I didn’t do that . . . did I? I look around quickly, but Ford is busy trying to roll the punching bag back to where it used to hang. If I’m not more careful, I’m going to destroy more than just the boxing studio. A closer look at the water fountain reveals indentations in the metal where I was holding its side.

  I swallow hard. Rosie might no
t make it to Bedlam Prison after all, I realize. Because if I’m as strong as it looks like I am, I might not be able to stop myself from killing her.

  CHAPTER 26

  When the church bells ring for lunch hour the next day, something like optimism clangs in my chest along with them. Normally lunch is the worst part of my day because I have to spend it with Will and his crowd, playing the part of the loyal if aloof girlfriend. But today I have it to myself because Will has a student council meeting.

  I’ve got my backpack full of books slung over one shoulder as I enter the cafeteria. The smell of marinara sauce and meatballs hangs in the moist air. It’s a warmish day for a Bedlam winter, and even though there’s a mist of fog in the air, at least fifty students sit outside on the covered patio overlooking the cathedral’s courtyard, their coats unbuttoned. The cafeteria is quieter inside as a result, with a hundred juniors and seniors spread out among the round aluminum tables.

  I spot Zahra right away, in our usual corner table, against the back wall. She’s slumped over her cell phone, her burgundy sweater vest a pilled relic from seventh grade, hugging her curves and looking far less dowdy than it does on me. When she looks up and sees me, I wave my crumpled lunch bag and head toward her. She raises her eyebrows for a second, gives me a neutral look acknowledging my wave, then looks back at her phone. It’s a start, I think, and keep moving toward her.

  I start to pick my way past the cluster of tables in the front, where the junior boys who are into role-playing games tend to congregate, then past two perfume-scented clusters of junior girls Zahra calls Team Ice. Team Ice—the next generation who will inherit Bang’s and Fitz’s titles as the queen bees of Cathedral when we graduate in the spring—flout the excessive jewelry clause in our uniform handbook, each of them sporting enough diamonds and gems to support a small country for a year. Their leader is Martha Marks, the daughter of Mayor Manny Marks, a tall, gap-toothed brunette who has nurtured a mania for horses since kindergarten. I’ve known Martha a long time, and she’s always been nice to me. For as long as I’ve been attending charity balls with my parents, she’s always been there, one of the small pack of little girls regularly stuffed into a crinoline dress with a red velvet sash. One gala when I was eleven and she was ten, we spent the entire evening hiding under the mayor’s table, protected by thick tablecloths, grooming a stable of plastic ponies Martha had brought with her in a pink lunchbox.

  She’s standing with a few of her friends, whispering about something and eyeing another girl, the only junior in my AP Physics class, Duffy Doolittle. Duffy is five or six tables away, near the windows of the cafeteria, eyeliner smeared under her eyes, her sleek blond hair in a high ponytail on the exact top of her skull. It sprouts from her head like a geyser. She’s yelling loudly at someone seated in the group of pillheads who hang out back there. I shouldn’t be able to hear—she’s too far away—but I pick up something like “I prepaid for a hundred, not fifty!”

  I catch sight of Roderick Dodge, a baseball cap pulled low on his head, shrinking away from Duffy. He mumbles something and shrugs.

  “Screw you, Roderick!” Duffy says, clearly agitated.

  Then Roderick says something else I can’t hear, and Duffy goes ballistic. She grabs Roderick by his lapels and yanks him from his seat. She’s sweating, like she’s been running laps. Now Martha Marks and Team Ice are standing on their chairs, straining to see the fight. I move to one side of them to a spot where I can see a sliver of their faces between onlookers.

  Roderick raises his hand to Duffy, then thinks better of it and backs off. “I’m out of here,” he mumbles, and starts pushing his way through the crowd toward the exit, but Duffy chases after him, screeching, “There’s nowhere to run! I will find you! We had a deal!”

  That’s when I notice the two uniformed cops watching from the doorway. Suddenly they stride quickly toward Duffy. Her always-pink face is scarlet and pinched with anger.

  “This her?” one of the cops asks Principal Bang. Bang nods, and the police begin reciting their ancient script: “Youareunderarrestanythingyousaycanand willbeheldagainstyou. Nopictureskidsyouknowthelawcameraswillbeconfiscated.”

  Duffy emits a guttural growl and tries to bolt, but they grab her and tie her wrists with plastic restraints behind her back. She falls to the floor and thrashes in vain to break free. The cops hoist her upright again and say something in her ear, and she hangs her head and walks, handcuffed, flanked by the two cops, her ponytail leading the way like a single antenna.

  The room erupts in noisy chatter when she’s gone, and I hear the word Zenithin over and over as I walk toward Zahra, who’s still surreptitiously videotaping the scene with her phone.

  “What’s Zenithin?” I say when I reach her. She ends the recording and shoots me a look that says I’m still mad at you, proceed with caution.

  “You are so out of it.” She sighs after a beat. “Zenithin is a stronger, illegal version of Accusolve.”

  “The study drug?”

  “I heard Roderick bought a huge stash of it from some Syndicate dealer. Guess Duffy wanted an edge.” Zahra says all this while texting someone on her phone. I get the message. To Zahra, I’m an afterthought at best.

  “She’s been amazing in physics class,” I tell Zahra, feeling awkward about standing and trying to decide if I should pull up a chair. “Practically answers the question before the teacher finishes asking it.”

  “Zenithin turns you into a machine,” Z says, now watching a replay of the arrest video on her phone. “You feel brilliant and unstoppable. But it has a comedown from hell—no sleep, uncontrollable rage. Not my thing,” she says with a shrug. “I’m too raged out already.” She looks up at me at last and gives a half-smile.

  I notice she’s wearing eyelash extensions and feel a pang for how it used to be between us. We used to help each other glue them on for special events back during freshman year. Before I wrecked everything and lost her.

  “Which reminds me . . . why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the power table with his highness Sir Suckwad?”

  I look down at my crumpled lunch bag in my hands, suddenly losing my appetite. “I’m sorry, Z. That’s what I came over here to tell you. I know this thing with Will doesn’t make sense to you, but . . . but I miss you,” I say.

  She nods tentatively, her lips pressed into a thin line as if to say I miss you, too.

  It’s time, I decide suddenly. I’m telling her the truth about Will, the blackmail, my surgery, everything.

  My hands shake as I pull a chair out to sit down with her, the prospect of finally confessing everything so close at hand. But just as I’m about to sit, I hear Will’s voice beside me. “There you are. Come sit with us, babe.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes them, hard. It’s all I can do not to scream.

  “What about the student council?” I shrug his hands off me and turn to face him, even though I’d rather look anywhere else.

  “It got postponed. The VP broke her leg skiing or something,” Will says.

  “That’s too bad,” I say in monotone. Inside, I’m crestfallen.

  “So come on.” He’s getting impatient, looking over my shoulder to see who’s watching us.

  “I’m sitting here today.” My eyes meet Zahra’s. She looks disgusted and a little ill watching me and Will, like she just got a whiff of someone else’s fart.

  “Anthem, are we back together or not? Because if not, I’ll just turn around and walk away. Maybe spend lunch in the computer lab, uploading some old movies . . .” Will chuckles a little, but his threat is anything but funny. Behind him, I see a few people watching us, Olive Ann Bang and Clementine Fitz among them, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “Fine,” I say icily. “I’m coming.”

  “Seriously, Anthem?” Zahra calls, shooting me an incredulous look.

  “‘Seriously, Anthem?’” Will cuts in, mocking Zahra. “You’re choosing Will over me?” he continues, hi
s voice high and girlish. His eyes bulge as he turns on Zahra. “Just sit here by yourself and enjoy your irrelevance, okay, Zahra? Nobody cares about your opinion.”

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” I say quietly, my face burning as more of Will’s admirers turn to watch the fight. “Apologize, Will.”

  “Or you’ll what? Break up with me?” Will laughs. “Sorry, babe, not worth the oxygen.”

  I stare miserably down at the floor, the black and white tiles smearing into gray. When I look up, Z’s eyes meet mine, radiating shock and hurt.

  “Wow, Anthem. Thanks for the support,” Zahra says in a tight voice. “I’m done here anyway.” She pushes her chair away from the table and walks past Will, slamming into his shoulder as she goes, and heads outside to the patio.

  “Problem solved!” Will chirps. “Coming, dear?”

  “I’ll be right back,” I mutter, then I take off after her.

  I catch up with her on the patio and barely touch her shoulder, but she whirls around and shakes me off. “What?” she says tightly.

  “Just give me two minutes,” I say. “I’m sick about what happened at lunch. That was . . . beyond horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Apology not accepted. How can you be with such a prick?” She’s whispering, conscious of kids at nearby tables watching us.

  “I realize how it looks,” I say in a low voice, grabbing her hand, the hand I first held in kindergarten, when we were paired as buddies on a field trip to the Bedlam Hall of Science. “Just bear with me and soon I’ll exp—”

  “I think I’m just about done waiting,” Zahra snaps, wrenching her hand away like I’m poisonous. Her eyes swimming with hurt tears, she walks backward away from me. “Have fun, okay? I hope he’s worth it.”

  Then she spins around and walks toward the courtyard.

  I swallow a howl of frustration as I walk back to Will, my breath coming in short little puffs. Then I almost trip over an empty wrought-iron chair. “Damn it!” I mutter as I shove it out of my way. But I’m out of control and I push too hard. Way too hard, actually. The heavy chair flips and skitters ten feet, clattering off the edge of the patio and onto the half-dead grass that borders it. Everyone turns to stare at me, all lunchtime conversation ceased, all eyes on me.