The Heart That Breaks

by Inglath Cooper

  I watch in stunned silence as the boot swings back again, taking aim. And then all of a sudden, without making a sound, Henry launches himself at Lance, his teeth sinking into the boot just before it reaches me.

  Henry plants his front paws and pulls with all his might, his back legs slipping on the floor, and then regaining traction. He growls now, and for a moment, I let myself enjoy the look of sheer terror on Lance’s face.

  “I’m going to kill you, dog!” Lance roars, struggling to free himself from Henry’s hold.

  Henry charges at him, snarling him into the corner of my room, his beautiful white teeth bared. And every time Lance makes a run for the door, Henry barks him back.

  I try to get up, but the pain in my hip stops me. It takes me five tries to get to my feet, holding onto the post of my twin bed. “Henry!” I call out.

  He turns his head to look at me, and Lance makes another attempt for the door. But Henry is on him in a flash. Lance trips and falls to the floor. Henry straddles his chest, barking into his face as if his life and mine depend on it, which they probably do.

  The snarling coming from Henry’s throat is enough to keep Lance frozen on the floor, afraid to move.

  “What on earth is going on?”

  Mama is standing in the doorway, a look of blended shock and horror on her face.

  Lance raises his head, his voice now that of the victim when he says, “Your daughter’s damned dog attacked me.”

  “Henry was just protecting me,” I say, one hand on my now throbbing hip.

  “From what?” Mama asks in a voice so low I can barely hear her.

  Silence falls over the room like a lead blanket. I feel Lance’s gaze on me, daring me to say anything. His eyes are like red hot coals, and I imagine them burning a hole in my skin.

  Henry trots over to my side, sitting with his back against my leg, still fully focused on Lance.

  I want to spare her this, but I realize that I can’t. She deserves better, and even if she doesn’t believe that, I do.

  “Mama, I’m sorry, but…”

  She raises a hand to cut me off, and my heart drops with the realization that this time isn’t going to be any different from the others. Lance can do no wrong in her eyes. Just the thought of what he will do now that Henry and I both have challenged him brings a swell of nausea flooding up through me.

  “Did you hurt her?” Mama asks in a low voice.

  All of a sudden, I realize that she is staring at him with steel in her voice, a fury there that I have never heard before.

  “What do you mean?” Lance throws back at her, the words laced with innocent disbelief.

  “Did. You. Hurt. Her.”

  I’ve never seen Mama like this. She is as still as stone, and I can see in her face that she already knows the answer.

  “You know I told her not to bring that vicious monster in the house!”

  “Whose house is this, Lance?”

  He glances from Mama to me, and I can see him weighing his options. “Now, baby, you know it’s yours. But I thought we agreed it wasn’t a good idea to have a dog in the house.”

  “Actually, I never agreed to it at all. You insisted on it, if I recall. And I was stupid enough to go along with you.”

  “Do you see this hole in my boot?” he snaps, holding up his foot to show her the tear.

  “Henry was protecting me,” I say again, my voice sounding strangely uneven to my own ears.

  “He attacked me,” Lance says, attempting to drill me into silence with his furious gaze.

  “You know why,” I say, refusing to be silenced by him ever again.

  “Get out,” Mama says, her voice wavering on his name. And then in a stronger voice, “Now. Get out!”

  He glares at her until his gaze turns to ice. “You two bitches have no idea what you’ve just done,” he says, taking a step backwards toward the door. Henry growls, but I put my fingers under his collar, holding him still.

  “Get out!” she screams.

  He takes off then, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

  Mama and I both stand there in silence for several moments. And then out of nowhere, I am crying, in relief, in disbelief, in happiness.

  *

  Ann-Elizabeth

  SHE INSISTS ON taking me to the emergency room.

  The bruise on my left hip is alarming. Even I have to admit that.

  Henry rides with us and stays in the back seat of the car with the windows cracked while we go inside. Mama had refused to leave him at home, clearly worried that Lance would come back and do something to him.

  Sitting in the cubicle, waiting for a doctor to come in, I look at Mama, somehow seeing her with completely new eyes. “Thank you for what you did tonight,” I say.

  “Oh, baby, if it weren’t for me, none of it would ever have happened in the first place. How could I be so stupid?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “I already have,” I say, reaching out to squeeze her hand with mine.

  The curtain swings open, and a young guy in a white lab coat walks in. “I’m Dr. Martin,” he says, looking at me with a compassionate smile. “Want to tell me how you got that awful bruise?”

  I glance at Mama. She nods once, and so I tell him. He listens quietly, then says, “Would you like to file a police report?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, we would.”

  *

  Nathan

  ANN-ELIZABETH ISN’T answering. I’ve tried calling her and texting her a dozen times, and I’m beyond worried.

  When my phone pings at ten o’clock, I grab it from my nightstand.

  Had a little incident with Lance. At ER. Should be fine.

  My stomach sinks as if I have just swallowed a rock.

  I bolt off the bed and jerk my way into jeans and a t-shirt, my hands shaking so hard I can barely get them on. I take the stairs to the living room two at a time, yelling out to my mom and dad who are watching TV. “Ann-Elizabeth is at the hospital. I’m heading over there.”

  “What happened, son?” Mom calls out, worry in her voice.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know something,” I say, slamming the front door behind me and running for the Jeep.

  *

  I PRAY ALL the way to the Emergency Room.

  I know I’m new to Ann-Elizabeth, and she’s new to me, but I also know that we have found something special in one another, and I feel sick with fear at the thought of losing her.

  In the parking lot, I create a space where there isn’t one, leaving the Jeep sitting with one tire on the curb. I’ll risk a ticket rather than spend another minute not seeing her with my own eyes, not knowing what’s happened.

  I run through the double doors of the hospital, coming to an impatient halt at the information desk.

  A woman in a pink smock with a volunteer badge on her lapel smiles and asks if she can help me. “Ann-Elizabeth Casteel. Can you tell me where I can find her?”

  “Is she a patient?”

  “She’s in the ER,” I say.

  I try to be calm while she clicks keys on the keyboard, and I do my best not to barge through the double doors marked Emergency Room.

  Finally, finally, she looks up and says, “I’m sorry, young man. She is here, but are you a relative?”

  The question catches me off guard. “No. I’m. . .a friend. Please. Can you just tell me how she is?”

  She stares at me for a long second, clearly wrestling between the desire to go by the rules and the realization that I am obviously in need of her pity.

  “Let me check with one of the nurses,” she says, conceding with a shake of her head as she picks up the phone.

  It takes her a full minute to convince whoever is on the other end, but she hangs up with a convicted nod and says, “Right through there. The nurse will meet you on the other side.”

  “Thank you so much,” I say, hoping I sound as grateful as I feel.

>   I punch the red button to the right of the double doors, charging through, only to come to an abrupt stop at the wall of a woman on the other side. Her arms are folded across her chest, and she has the kind of look on her face that lets you know she doesn’t suffer fools. Or whatever that saying is.

  “I’m looking for Ann-Elizabeth Casteel,” I say, holding my stance, even though her stony glare is enough to make me back up.

  “I understand you sweet-talked Helen out there. You’re cute enough, so I can see why she fell for it, but I don’t break rules back here. You’ve got five minutes, son.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I say, following her to a curtained off area. She hesitates, glancing over her shoulder. “Girlfriend?”

  “Ah, I can hope?”

  The nurse laughs, seeing me, I think, for the first time. “There you go. She’d be lucky to have you, I suspect.”

  She yanks the curtain open, and there’s Ann-Elizabeth looking so different from a few hours ago that I have to draw in a deep breath and press my lips together because I swear, all of a sudden, I want to cry. I don’t even remember the last time I cried about anything.

  Her face is pale, and I can see her lower lip trembling from where I’m standing. “What happened?” I ask, my voice so low I can barely hear the question.

  She doesn’t answer, just shakes her head as if she doesn’t trust herself to speak.

  I cross the floor and sit on the side of the bed, picking her left hand up and lacing our fingers together. “Tell me.”

  “I was stupid. It just seemed so unfair that Henry could come in your house and be welcome, but not in mine. I was just going to bring him in for a little while.”

  “Is Henry okay?”I ask, suddenly fearing something awful has happened to him.

  She nods. “He’s in the car. Mama went to check on him.”

  “What did Lance do to you, Ann-Elizabeth?” My voice is stone-hard, and I’m not entirely sure I want to know the answer. I’m not sure I trust myself with the information.

  She studies the corner of the room, refusing to look at me when she says, “It doesn’t matter now. I’m fine.”

  “It matters to me.”

  She looks up then, meets my narrowed gaze with a grateful, “I know. But the police are going to question him.”

  “They better arrest him,” I say, fury boiling up under the words.

  “Guys like Lance tend to get away with stuff.”

  “But you’ll tell them what he did.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where did he kick you?”

  She places her hand on her left hip. I don’t know what possesses me to do it, but I reach out and lift the edge of the hospital gown just enough that I can see the blackish-blue bruise marring her skin.

  She pushes it back down. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Ann-Elizabeth. Yes. It is.” Fury boils in the pit of my stomach. And I swear, if Lance was anywhere within my reach, I don’t know that I could stop myself from killing him.

  “Nathan, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?” I ask, my skin prickling at the note of resignation in her voice.

  “This isn’t going to work.”

  “What’s not going to work?”

  “Us,” she says, her gaze meeting and holding mine, and I can see an awful sadness in her eyes that tells me she is utterly convicted of the truth in what she’s just said to me.

  “Why?” I ask, the word rolling out on a note of confusion.

  She lifts her shoulders in a tired shrug. “Isn’t it obvious, Nathan? We’re from two different worlds. We could never work.”

  I sit on the side of the bed, reach for her hand and press it between mine. “That’s not how I see it,” I say.

  She stares at our intertwined hands. A tear slips free from her lashes and slides down her cheek.

  “Hey,” I say, tipping her chin up so that she has to look at me. “We’re just getting started.”

  “Oh, Nathan,” she says, shaking her head and wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I’m at the bottom of the ladder, and I have every intention of working my way up it, but you’re already there. The only thing you’ll gain by reaching back down for me is to risk falling off yourself.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is. I don’t have anything to offer you but problems. And I need to figure out how to fight my own battles.”

  “It looks like you did a pretty good job tonight.”

  She looks up at me then, appreciation for what I’ve said clear on her face. “And that’s how it’s going to have to be. Because there will be more.”

  “You don’t have to do it alone.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Ann-Elizabeth…”

  “You need to go, Nathan. We’ll be friends. We’ll see each other in school. But that’s all it can be.”

  The curtain opens then, and Ann-Elizabeth’s mom steps in. “Henry’s just fine,” she says, and then spotting me, adds in a surprised voice, “Well, I didn’t know you had a visitor, honey.”

  “Mama, this is Nathan. Nathan, this is my mom.”

  “We chatted one day when you came in the store,” Ms. Casteel says.

  “Yes, ma’am. How are you?” I manage to get the words out, even though I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  She glances from Ann-Elizabeth to me, clearly trying to figure out the reason I’m here.

  “Nathan was just leaving, Mama,” Ann-Elizabeth says.

  “Oh,” she says, looking disappointed. “It was nice of you to come by, Nathan.”

  I look at Ann-Elizabeth. “I can stay if…”

  “No,” she says. “But thank you. For everything.”

  I want to argue, convince her she’s wrong about us, but I can tell from the look on her face it won’t do any good. A hard rock of emotion settles on my chest. I take a step back and turn for the door, leaving the room without saying another word, because I know if I do, I’ll make a complete fool of myself.

  *

  Ann-Elizabeth

  MAMA’S INSURANCE COMPANY doesn’t approve my staying in the hospital overnight even though Dr. Martin was furious about it. Instead, it was recommended that I see my GP in the morning as a follow up.

  “That’s what I get for working all these years to have insurance,” Mama says, her hands tight on the steering wheel as we pull out of the parking lot and wait for the traffic light to turn green. Henry is standing on the back seat, his head between us. Every few seconds, he licks my cheek and whines a little, as if he’s not convinced I’m all right and needs to double check.

  I rub him under the chin, staring out the window at the street with no other traffic. “It’s okay. I didn’t need to stay anyway.”

  “This whole thing is my fault,” Mama says, her voice low and filled with self-loathing. “He could have killed you.”

  “He didn’t. We’ll let the police take care of it.”

  “They won’t do anything. He’ll talk his way out of it.”

  “Maybe not.”

  We’ve cleared the second stoplight when Mama says, “When I think of what could have happened to you, I don’t know that I can forgive myself.”

  “I forgive you,” I say, reaching over to cover her hand with mine.

  Her voice is raspy when she says, “So you and Nathan are friends, huh?”

  I hear the hope in the question and say, “Just friends, Mama.”

  “I got a different feeling from him.”

  “Mama.”

  “Whaaat?”

  “It’s not going to happen.”

  “He sure seems nice.”

  “He is. Too nice for me.” Even as I say the words, I feel the break in my heart, an actual pain that makes me draw in a quick, sharp breath.

  She gives me a long look. “Of course he’s not too nice for you.”

  “We’re just too different.”

  She’s quiet for a string of moments, before s
aying, “You don’t think you’re good enough for him?”

  I shrug, trying to look as if it doesn’t matter. “He’s got a lot going for him.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Can we agree you might be prejudiced?”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t know talent when I hear it.”

  “A lot of people have talent.”

  “But not many of them have the drive to do something with it. You do.”

  “His dad’s a famous songwriter.”

  She gives me a look of surprise, and I don’t miss the flash of pain right behind it. “I knew that, but why does that make him too good for you?”

  I shrug. “Some mountains just seem too tall to climb.”

  “That’s a lot of wisdom for someone your age,” Mama says. “But I have to think it’s misguided.”

  “I don’t want to get hurt. And if you know that’s the likely outcome, shouldn’t you try to avoid it? And anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Nathan.”

  She stares straight ahead for a bit, her voice resigned when she says, “It’s not like I can blame you for not wanting to tell him about me. Hard to bring someone like that home to meet a mama like me.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, suddenly feeling horrible for the way I sound. “I’m not ashamed of you, Mama.”

  “You should be.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, I just think you deserve someone like that. A guy who can give you a different life.”

  “I don’t want anyone to give me anything. I’m willing to work for what I get. Just like you have.”

  She laughs a short laugh. “I haven’t gotten us very far, have I?”

  “Life was good until Lance came along. And he did a pretty good job of hiding things from you.”

  She holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t make excuses for me, honey. It’s way past time I got myself together. I deserve better than a guy like Lance, and so do you.” She gives me a sad smile. “From now on, I’m going to act like it. Promise me something?”

  “What?”