Made for Breaking

by Lauren Gilley

  With his unbroken hand on the truck for support, Drew got shakily to his feet in time to see Josh retreating. His vision was a blurred tumble of shapes and shades, but he still registered the image of Lisa standing behind the tailgate of the truck, a revolver in her hands.

  Her head swiveled in his direction, and her face divided into two. “You okay?” Her voice sounded like it was coming down a drainage pipe.

  He started to nod, but the motion sent his insides catapulting up his esophagus. He doubled over and puked all over his shoes.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to the hospital this time.”

  19

  They came. Both of her parents. Drew had never met the wife before, but she was brunette like her daughter, and lovely, her face creased with worry as she and Ray stood facing the exam table. By contrast, Ray had a cardboard mask of pleasantry in place and looked like he might dissolve into an angry tirade at any moment. Lisa was on the rolling stool where the doctor would sit when he finally came in, her legs crossed, folded arms and head resting on the counter beside the sink.

  Drew wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. He’d had lights shined in his eyes and his hand had been prodded and poked. After a wait in the ER, staring at his puke-spattered shoes, he’d endured an exam and an X-ray; his hand had been casted, much to his displeasure, and now here he sat again, still staring at his shoes. His skull still felt as heavy and pulpy as a bruised melon, the blood throbbing through his temples, but the nausea had receded…some. He still felt sick. His vision still blurred if he lifted his head too fast.

  Ray and his wife – Cheryl, she’d said her name was – had arrived when he’d been brought into the private exam room, but Lisa had been off-and-on the phone with her father the entire stay. Cheryl had brought coffee, which he’d been unable to drink, and he was guessing it had to be dawn by now or close to it. The elder Russells were both dressed and groomed and looked like they were starting a day rather than ending it.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about your hand?” Ray asked what had clearly been on his mind since he’d first laid eyes on the blue cast Drew wore with nothing short of shame.

  “I – I didn’t wanna be a bother.” He could barely bring himself to say it.

  “How is putting a head-shaped dent in her truck not being a bother?”

  “Dad,” Lisa sighed.

  “Baby,” Cheryl said quietly. “Let’s give the poor kid a break.”

  Ray opened his mouth, and then closed it again, but his eyes were brimming with questions. Who did this? Is he gonna try it again? Was it about Lisa? Or you? Are you bringing shit down on my family?

  “I’m real sorry, Ray,” he said, his head feeling too heavy to hold upright anymore.

  It was Cheryl who consoled him. “It’s fine, honey.” He heard the light rap of her shoes come closer over the tiles. “We’re just glad you’re okay.”

  Ray snorted.

  “He got the shit beat out if him,” Lisa said, and though it set the world to spinning, Drew had to glance her way because he couldn’t believe she might be about to defend him. “Just…leave him alone.”

  Whatever her dad might have said, it was interrupted by the doctor’s arrival. She was Asian and even tinier than Lisa, narrow, rectangular glasses perched on her nose, her glossy hair half-fallen from its topknot. She looked like the last thing she wanted to do was see yet another patient, and given the hour, Drew figured he might be one of her last stops before she went home and fell into bed.

  She breezed in on sneakers that squeaked over the floor, his chart in her hand. “Forester?” she verified, giving him a glance.

  He nodded.

  She had a recap of his treatments that she read in a tired, flat voice, and then the prescription pad came out and he was told when to take the Vicodin – as if he didn’t already know – and was cautioned to use Advil if possible instead. He had a mild concussion and would need to be monitored – which he already knew. By the time she’d exited with a swirl of white lab coat, Drew realized he hadn’t actually listened to a word she’d said. He knew the drill from previous trips to the ER and instead, he’d been imagining all the ways in which Sly or Eddie or Ray – or all three of them – were going to punish him for this. And he was resigned to the knowledge that, whatever their plans, he was completely at their mercy. He had not a friend or ally in the world.

  “Okay.” Lisa yawned and stretched and got to her feet. “Let’s blow this place.”

  “You ride with your mother,” Ray told her, “and I’ll take this one back.”

  “No,” both the women said in unison.

  Drew glanced between the three of them, startled, confused, not at all sure why Lisa or her mom might stick up for him. The expression on Ray’s face indicated he was thinking something similar.

  “No,” Cheryl repeated. “You will not take him back to that rat nest and ask Sly and Eddie of all people to play nurse maid.” She shook her head. “We’ll bring him home with us – he can stay in the carriage house,” she said in a rush, hand raised as Ray began to protest, “just until he’s feeling better.”

  Ray grumbled something under his breath that Drew couldn’t hear and his wife glared a hole through him. “This isn’t up for negotiation. You will not tell me I can’t invite a guest to stay.”

  Drew looked over at Lisa and saw that she was trying to hide a smile behind her hand. For all the ways Ray scared the bejeesus out of him, Cheryl Russell looked about as friendly as a cobra at the moment. And she was defending him. Him.

  He half wondered if he’d fallen into some kind of wormhole when he’d hit his head, because God knew he’d never had a lucky break in his life.

  The hardwood planks that covered the floor had long ago lost their sheen, if they’d ever had one, and the wallpaper, once-white with tiny yellow flowers, was faded and peeling up along the ceiling. But there were four walls and lots of space, a sturdy-looking wood bedframe in one corner, a patchwork quilt and white pillows making it inviting. His eyes moved over the café table and chairs, the huge armoire against the back wall, the free-standing floor-length mirror, and felt like he’d stepped into a scene from a movie set fifty years ago.

  “The bathroom’s just through that door,” Cheryl said as she stepped in behind him. “The bathtub faucet leaks a bit, but it’s not too loud.”

  Drew stood rooted to the spot, dumbstruck, maybe because of his still-pounding head, but maybe because he didn’t understand, or trust, this sudden kindness. He wanted to, though; boy did he want to.

  Fragile, early rays of light passed through the unadorned windows and captured dust motes in their beams. The air smelled of old wood and dryness, like the pages of a library book that hadn’t been opened in a long time. When Cheryl had said “carriage house” at the hospital, he’d half-expected to be led to a barn. But the two story white clapboard structure with a drive-under garage below was just as impressive from the outside as the Gone With the Wind house that sat in front of it. He’d stared like a fool as they’d pulled around the drive, all the weeping willows and porch columns unexpected. Cheryl had rushed to make apologies, saying they were still fixing it up, that they’d inherited the house and that it had been “a big box of shit” when they’d moved in three years ago. Drew had wondered if those were the things that wealthy people said to make losers like him feel better about their lives.

  “Ray’s grandmother lived up here for a while, back when his parents were alive.” When he turned to face her, he watched guilt flicker across her face. She tucked her hair behind her ears in an almost nervous gesture and walked past him, moving to tidy the pillows on the bed. “It’s a little musty, but should be comfortable.”

  When he compared it to the room at Sly and Eddie’s house, “comfortable” was too modest a word. It’s great, he wanted to tell her, but instead, “Why are you doing this?” came tumbling out of his stupid mouth before he could stop himself.

  She tucked her hair back again bec
ause it had slid over her shoulders, and when she faced him, a sad smile on her lips, the sun poured across her features and for a moment she looked just like her daughter…only a friendlier, softer version of her. Lisa and Ray shared a strong resemblance, but there was a healthy dose of her mom in there too.

  “What can I say,” she said, “I’m a mom. And you look like you’re badly in need of one of those right now.”

  He’d felt older than his years for a long time, and suddenly he was a child again. Only, a child he’d never known, because Drew had never had a mom in his life.

  “Ray’s not a trusting person.” She went to the armoire and one of its ornate, carved doors came open with a pop. “He thinks everyone in the world’s out to get him.”

  Maybe they are.

  She withdrew a plastic shopping bag and sealed the chest. “He’s done his best to make Lisa just like him,” she said as she crossed the small apartment. “Somewhere along the line, my sweet girl turned into the biggest cynic.” Cheryl sighed, but the smile returned, and she pressed the bag into his hands. “Toothbrush and mini toothpaste. Deodorant. Just some of the basics to get you by until you can go get the rest of your things.”

  All the generosity was making him twitchy. “Thanks, but…I don’t plan on staying.”

  Her smile went all the way up to her pretty brown eyes. She patted his arm. “We’ll see.”

  Drew stood, trying to absorb all of this, and listened to her footfalls retreat to the threshold, then down the stairs once the door was closed. Was he dreaming? No…no, this was just a brief flash of something better. A chance to let his concussion heal, to catch some true rest in a safe place.

  But was it safe? Was it really?

  He closed his eyes and felt blood pounding at the backs of them. His head hurt so bad, this might very well have been a hallucination. Regardless, the lure of dreamland was too great to fight off anymore. In the car, in the passenger seat beside Cheryl, he’d tilted side-to-side like a drunk. Every pothole along the way had sent his churning stomach halfway up his throat. And he seemed to have semi-permanent double vision.

  The shopping bag fell out of his hand and crackled when it hit the floor. He took the lumbering steps necessary to reach the bed and flopped onto it face-first, the tired old mattress groaning in protest. He was asleep almost immediately.

  Lisa had reached a point of sleepiness in which nothing existed save the inside of her skull. She sat at the kitchen table, pitched forward in her seat, lying across its surface, fresh sunlight from the window above the sink battling against her oh-so-heavy eyelids. She heard the coffeemaker and the low drone of the washing machine in the mud room, cozy sounds that only intensified the problem of staying awake.

  With her ear pressed to the table, the sound of Ray’s coffee mug thumping down over a square of the morning paper reverberated like thunder through her head. “Ugh.” Whatever she’d wanted to say turned into a wordless groan instead.

  Ray sighed. “Just go up to bed.”

  “No…work,” she managed, and made a rallying attempt to sit that went nowhere, and she stared at a spot on the opposite wall instead.

  Another sigh echoed above her. “Mark can answer his own phones. Saturdays are slow anyway. It’s not like you’d be any help like you are now.”

  That was true, even if it wasn’t easy to hear. With more effort than it should have taken, Lisa pushed up onto her elbows, blinking against the brightness of the morning. She wasn’t going to put up a real fight about staying home from the garage, but before she crawled up the stairs and slithered in between her sheets, she wanted to say what had been nagging at her all evening…well, morning, really.

  “Dad.” He flicked a glance toward her, but his eyes returned to the paper. “I know Drew’s kind of an idiot, and I know better than to put any trust in him yet.” His eyes returned, and stayed this time. “But don’t chew him out over this. I know you didn’t hire an underground fighter and think he didn’t come with baggage, and anyway…” She stifled a yawn behind her hand. “It doesn’t matter ‘cause I took care of it tonight. The guy’s tried to come to my rescue twice, now. Just…don’t rag on him, okay? It’s really not fair if we’re both shits to him.”

  A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Both?”

  She made a face and got unsteadily to her feet. “I’m not nice and you know it. Just…please?”

  He made a show of deliberating, shaking his head like he argued with himself, but caved with a shrug. “Sure, I won’t ‘rag on him.’”

  For some reason, his promise made falling asleep that morning all the easier.

  20

  Something touched his shoulder. He was home, back in Augusta, the dry, cracked stretch of red clay in front of the house as hard as pavement under his bare feet. He heard the door slam on its hinges with a sound like a gunshot behind him and didn’t flinch; he’d learned never to flinch, because it only made him angrier.

  “Boy! Where are you, boy?”

  The glass jar in his hands started to slip beneath his now-clammy palms. Within, the praying mantis he’d found in the woodpile tilted its alien, green head and regarded him through the glass. He’d found a nice stick for it to climb on, and a leaf for shade, some dirt in the bottom. His friend at school, Brandon, had brought a jar of crickets for show-and-tell last week. But this week, he was going to bring the mantis, and it was going to be the best thing anyone in his class had ever seen.

  “Boy! What the hell did I tell you?”

  Something touched his shoulder again, only this time, he knew it was someone instead. His father’s big hand wrapped around the top of his arm, his cruel fingers digging grooves into his skin until it felt like he would draw blood. He was spun around, and the jar flew out of his hand. It shattered on the hard-packed earth and Drew didn’t know what happened to the mantis because his father’s face was shoved in his own, his breath sour with onions and meat and bourbon.

  No, no, no, no, Drew chanted inside his head. This couldn’t happen anymore. He was an adult now, and he wasn’t going to let this happen.

  Never again, he’d promised himself. Never again was he going to let himself be weak.

  He bolted upright and realized too late that the old house and Dad, the jar, the hand, all of it had been a dream. A nightmare. He heard a gasp and tried desperately to blink away the fog in his head. His skull was pounding like someone had driven a railroad spike through his temples, and he fought to grab hold of logic.

  “Let go of me!” Lisa’s angry hiss dissipated the last scraps of the dream and he was on his stomach in the bed up in the Russell carriage house. He’d jacked up on his bad hand, the whole thing numb under its cast as it supported most of his weight. He had a death grip on Lisa’s wrist with his left hand, and she was glaring at him with a volatile mixture of fury and terror as she struggled to pull away from him.

  “Oh, shit.” He dropped her immediately and she backed away, rubbing her arm with her opposite hand. “Oh, damn, I’m sorry. I thought you were…I, ah, shit, Lisa, I’m – ”

  “Whatever,” she snapped. She turned away from him, her loose hair hiding her profile from him, but he saw her shoulders heave and knew she was trying to catch the breath he’d frightened out of her.

  How many times had she braved the clutter and stench of her cousin’s room to go in and shake him awake in the mornings? More than she’d like to count, and that was why she’d thought nothing of rousing Drew the same way.

  Big mistake.

  She stood, gulping deep breaths down into her lungs, cradling the slender bones of her wrist that had been ground together in his hand, and told herself that she hadn’t been at all frightened, only startled. But where was the line drawn between startled and frightened exactly? She didn’t know.

  He’d come awake so suddenly, without a sound, his arm striking out of reflex, that she hadn’t had a chance to move away. When his dark eyes had found her, they’d been wild and white-rimmed at first. When recognition came, sh
e’d seen the shock and shame in them; he hadn’t meant to grab her

  But it didn’t change the fact that her pulse was an erratic rush of butterfly wings behind her breastbone.

  The bed springs groaned and the worn, soft old sheets rustled. “Are you okay?”

  Lisa couldn’t pretend there wasn’t true concern in his voice, and she glanced over her shoulder to see that he was sitting up in bed now, his bare feet on the hardwood, rubbing at his eyes with his good hand. The wifebeater he’d slept in was so full of holes it looked like it might dissolve on its next trip through a washing machine. The hems of his red plaid boxers were frayed. His right hand looked clumsy in its cast. Sympathy welled up inside her before she could stop it.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was steady. She let both her hands fall to her sides; the one he’d grabbed felt sprained now. “Mom wanted to know if you’d like lunch.”

  He rubbed at his face, at his hair – it needed a trim, but she liked it longer – and gave her a worried glance. “I don’t wanna put your mom out or anything.”

  “We’re just having sandwiches.” He frowned. “And my dad’s not home.”

  His head tipped in silent thanks for that piece of news, but the frown didn’t leave him. If anything, it deepened, his brows drawing down over his eyes. “You pulled a gun on Josh,” he said in a voice like he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “Yeah, I did.” Drew’s head had punched a dent in the side of her truck and she’d been left with two options: fling up her hands and scream and act like a flustered female who couldn’t handle the situation…or handle it. I won’t lie to you, Ray had told her once, a girl your size can’t ever hope to physically overpower a grown man. And then he’d pulled a .38 revolver from the safe in the back of his closet and taken her to the range where she’d been drilled until she could get eleven out of every twelve shots inside the 10 ring on the target. Until she could make the most of two cylinders’ worth. “You getting knocked unconscious wasn’t much of a deterrent for that asshole.”