Broken Fairytales

by Monica Alexander

  I stared at him, not knowing for sure what he meant, but I knew he was insulting me, just like he’d done in the car when the conversation had turned girly.

  “Take a drink,” he said. “Relax. Be quiet.”

  I glared at him, scrunching up my nose slightly, before I put the cup to my lips and proceeded to down the entire beer out of aggravation that he was treating me like I was an idiot. I would prove him wrong. I could hang with him and his friends.

  Or, maybe I couldn’t. In surveying the crowd, I saw that I was definitely in the minority. I had no piercings, no tattoos, my hair was a normal color, and I didn’t look like I’d just crawled out of a nightclub. I was definitely not with people who were like me.

  “Alright,” Chase said, taking my cup and handing me his full one. “Now do it again, and you might prove to me that you can actually hang.” He was taunting me, which just urged me to show him I could keep up.

  I stuck my tongue out at him, and tilted the cup back, spilling a little on my shirt as I did, but managed to get it all down. Staring at him, I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head to the side, as if to say, ‘see, I’m not as out of place as you think I am’ and ignored the fact that I was already starting to feel a little buzzed and definitely felt out of place.

  “See, I’m not so rigid,” I said, proudly. Chase just shook his head and smiled at me before walking away.

  At the end of two hours, I was drunk, a little wobbly and definitely not in my right mind, but I’d achieved my goal and had to say it felt good. Chase had disappeared, leaving me talking to two guys with multiple piercings who were engaged in a heated conversation about their motorcycles. Realizing that I hadn’t added anything to the conversation in about fifteen minutes, I decided to step away. They didn’t seem to notice.

  I half-stumbled, half-walked over to the bonfire, where a guy with a backwards baseball hat over his dark hair was playing the guitar. A few people had gathered around to watch. He was in the middle of Paint it Black, my all-time favorite Rolling Stones song, his fingers dancing along the strings at a rapid-fire pace, his head down, as he concentrated. I watched him, hypnotized by his movements, caught up in the song as my head buzzed along, feeling light and fuzzy as I mouthed the words he sung. I was enamored and couldn’t seem to look away.

  When the song ended, he stuck his pick in his mouth and looked up, surveying the crowd around him. His eyes stopped on me for a few moments, as he tried to place who I was and what I was doing there. I must have looked more awkward than I realized. I smiled to show my appreciation for his talent, and to show him I wasn’t strange, but he looked away before he could see it. I stared at him for a minute. He looked familiar to me, and I almost gasped out loud when I realized he was the guy I’d talked to for five seconds at the coffeehouse at home and obsessed about for the greater part of a night. I knew I’d recognize those eyes anywhere, but it didn’t seem like he recognized me.

  As he started playing Hotel California, I knew I needed to step away. If I’d thought this guy had been sexy when he spoke, it was completely game-over when he sung. I couldn’t hear his accent, but his voice rolled so smoothly over the words to the songs he played that it was hard not to get drawn in. If I wasn’t careful, in my inebriated state, I would do something I regretted. Distance definitely seemed best.

  I got up from the log I’d been sitting on and stepped away, looking around for Chase. He was talking with Molly off to the side of the fire. I didn’t want to interrupt them, especially if he was making his move, so instead I walked away from all the activity to a deserted part of the beach close to the water, falling fast on my butt as I tried to sit, realizing that I was really drunk. I wasn’t as out of it as I’d been the night I’d hit Ashleigh, but I was close.

  I’m not sure how long I sat and stared at the ocean, sipping my beer. After a while, I zoned out as I watched the waves roll in and out, in and out, the mix of classic rock songs emanating from the single guitar causing my head to move up and down slowly in time. It honestly could have been ten minutes or an hour before anyone came over to me, but in a rush of movement and sound, Molly plopped herself down next to me and handed me a new beer. Her skinny, white legs in her tall boots extended out in front of her, giving me a full view of the bright blue koi fish tattoo on her left thigh.

  “Alright Emily?” she asked, cocking her head to the side and assessing me.

  I nodded, and realized how sleepy I felt all of a sudden, my head feeling heavier than usual. I drew in a deep breath in an effort to wake up, and said, “Yeah, I’m good”.

  “Good, I’m glad. I know this isn’t really your scene.”

  I looked at her skeptically, honestly a little irritated by her assumptions about me so soon after meeting me. The alcohol gave me courage, so I said a little too curtly, “And why is that?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, catching my tone. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that Chase told me a bit about you.”

  I raised my eyebrows and simultaneously felt myself get hot at the idea of Chase mocking me, which he probably had.

  “Oh yeah? What exactly did Chase tell you?” I asked, a definite bite to my tone.

  She sucked in her breath and paused, pulling a cigarette out of the pack in her hand. I waited for her to continue, watching her light it, inhale and exhale, blowing smoke toward the ocean. She extended the pack to me in offering. I shook my head, but kept my eyes on her, waiting for her to continue what she was saying.

  She took another drag before saying anything. I couldn’t tell if she was stalling or just someone who didn’t take things too seriously and therefore didn’t think it was a big deal to make me wait on her.

  “He just said that you’re not like him. You don’t really do anything bad, ever, and you tend to look down on people who do – people like him. He said you’re in a sorority, you date a football player, and your friends are all just like you.”

  Taking this all in, I realized that none of it sounded that bad to me. When I thought about it, I knew that was a pretty accurate description of me, but when Molly said it, it sounded awful. I came across as an intolerant, shallow person who only surrounded herself with people like her. Letting this all sink in, I leaned my head back all the way and looked up at the stars above us. There were thousands of them that I could see. It looked as if the sky had been salted like a pretzel. I never saw stars like that at home.

  I tilted my head back up and noticed Molly was staring at me, slowly smoking her cigarette. “What do you think of me,” I asked her, realizing that I suddenly needed to hear the opinion of someone who didn’t know me at all.

  She thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t really know you, so I guess I don’t have an opinion.”

  I closed my eyes for a few seconds. “Okay, not good enough,” I said, shaking my head. “What is your initial impression of me, just in meeting me tonight?”

  She took a drag off her cigarette and thought for another moment.

  “That you seem like a really sweet girl who’s still trying to figure out who she wants to be in life.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes, but for some reason, Molly telling me I was sweet didn’t bother me so much. She’d gotten the other part right.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “That’s pretty much it.” I could feel my face falling as I said it.

  “Hey,” she said, moving her cigarette to her right hand and putting her left arm around my shoulders. “Don’t feel bad about not knowing who you are. You’re only, what, eighteen?”

  I laughed a loud, barking laugh. It was a typical assumption. “I’m twenty-one,” I said. “Chase and I are twins.”

  “Oh, really,” was all Molly said, and I could tell she was surprised. “Well, you still have time to get your shit together. When I was your age, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I took some time off to figure it out.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I traveled for a while, worked some different jobs. I act
ually ended up in L.A. where I live now. A mate of mine needed someone to mind the phones and make his appointments. He owns a small record label. I had experience in the industry, so he hired me to be his assistant.”

  “That’s cool,” I said, thinking how fun her job probably was. Rachel would kill to meet Molly with her connections.

  She just laughed. “It’s okay. He’s just getting started though, so the pay’s shit, and we only have two bands, but I do get to see a lot of live music for free.”

  I smiled. “Can I have one?” I asked her, gesturing to the pack of cigarettes that sat on the sand beside her.

  She looked down at them for a second, registering what I was asking.

  “Sure,” she said, pulling one from the pack. I watched as she lit it against her own cigarette and handed it to me.

  “How long have your worked in the music industry?” I asked, holding the cigarette between my fingers, watching it burn slowly, contemplating if I really wanted to smoke it. Messages I’d heard in health class and on TV about how smoking was bad resonated in my head.

  “About three years. My cousin asked me to manage his band a few years back, so I did. I’d just moved here after graduating from university and didn’t have anything else to do, so I figured, why not. I did that for about two years and when the band broke up, I traveled for a while before I decided to see if I could break into the industry for real. That’s when Adam hired me, and I’ve been working for him ever since.”

  “What’s the name of your label?”

  “Live Ammunition,” she said, and I just shook my head. I’d never heard of them. “Are you going to smoke that or stare at it?”

  I slowly brought the cigarette to my lips and sucked lightly on the end. I felt the smoke curl into my mouth, so I inhaled deeply and immediately pulled the cigarette away as I started violently coughing smoke out of my mouth. Molly reached over and hit me on the back a few times.

  “Have you never smoked a cigarette before?”

  I shook my head, still trying to catch my breath. As my lungs cleared, I wasn’t sure I liked the aftertaste. It sort of resembled an ashtray. I took another drag, hoping the taste would improve, and only coughed a little that time.

  She smiled. “I figured.”

  I got worried all of a sudden. “Am I doing it wrong?” I asked, thinking I was doing my best to mimic everyone I’d ever seen smoke a cigarette.

  She smiled again. “Nope, you’re not doing anything wrong. It just takes some getting used to.”

  I took another drag, feeling empowered all of a sudden that I was doing two bad things in one night. It was pretty liberating.

  “You’re going to sleep with my brother aren’t you,” I said to her, feeling fearless all of a sudden.

  “No,” she said, not at all surprised by my question. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t. He’s fucking hot, but he has a girlfriend who he’s pretty serious about. I wouldn’t want to intrude on that.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. “Chase has a girlfriend?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you didn’t know?”

  I shook my head. “We’re not exactly close.”

  She nodded in understanding. “That’s too bad,” she said, getting up from where she was sitting. “He’s a pretty great guy. You might want to get to know him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, as I watched her dust the sand off the back of her skirt.

  “Alright, so I’m going to head back up, but we should hang out again.”

  I called out to her as she started to walk away. “Molly?”

  “Yeah,” she said, turning around to face me.

  “Would you mind if I had another cigarette?”

  She smiled. “Not at all, although, you should know that it’s a filthy habit.”

  I smiled at her out-of-character health warning. “I don’t think two will kill me,” I said, as I took the cigarette from her outstretched hand.

  “No, probably not,” she said, as she winked at me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke up the next day to my phone ringing loudly on my nightstand. My head was pounding, my mouth tasted like an ashtray, and it felt like I’d swallowed a bottle of sand. I realized I had a raging hangover, and I tried to remember just how many beers I’d consumed, but I couldn’t recall. All I remembered was bumming cigarettes from Molly and letting Chase continue to fill up my cup late into the night and then stumbling home after them, laughing most of the way.

  “Hello?” I said putting my cell phone to my ear, sounding decidedly not like myself.

  “Hey babe,” came Ben’s voice, and I had a sudden flashback to something I’d done the night before.

  Memories hit me in spurts. One minute I was laughing, the next I was crying. Why had I been crying? I recalled getting home, Chase telling me to sleep it off, that everything would be better in the morning. Then I cringed, as I remembered calling Ben around three in the morning. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d said, but by the tone of his voice, I was fairly confident it hadn’t been good.

  “Hey,” I said, softening my tone to the one I always used around him. It wasn’t baby talk, but it was a close cousin to it. “How are you?”

  “Confused,” he said, then took a deep breath. “I woke up this morning to a very incoherent message from you. It sounded like you were crying. Are you okay?”

  My stomach tightened. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was really drunk. What did I say?”

  “I have no clue. You were really hard to understand. Why were you drunk?”

  I cringed at his tone. It was definitely laced with disappointment or concern. I didn’t know which. Ben wasn’t used to me being out of control and losing my faculties. I was usually the one playing mom and making sure everyone got home okay at the end of the night.

  “I just went to a party and had more beer than I should have. I’m fine. I’m sorry I called you so late.”

  “That’s okay. It was good to hear your voice, even if I couldn’t make out what you were saying. I miss you like crazy, Em,” he said, making me miss him more than I had since I’d left. I suddenly wanted nothing more than for him to be there with me, his strong arms around me, holding me tight.

  “I miss you, too, Ben,” I said, my heart aching for him. I reached for the water bottle I’d put by my alarm clock the night before, grateful I’d been so forward thinking in my inebriated state. I chugged about half of it in thirty seconds flat. “I wish you could come visit me.”

  “I know,” he said. “Me too, but I have football.”

  We both knew he had to head back to school the following week. Summer practices were starting. It was probably better anyway. As vulnerable as I was feeling that morning, I knew the time apart would be good for us.

  “I know. It was just an idea.”

  “And a damn good one at that,” he said sweetly.

  He started to tell me about the team meeting they’d had the day before and the workouts he’d incorporated into his days to get back into shape. He then told me all latest news from home. I added an ‘oh yeah’ or a ‘that’s funny’ here and there to show I was still engaged in the conversation, but it was more than daunting hearing about a world I suddenly felt very disconnected from.

  I rolled over and looked out at the vast ocean just beyond my bedroom window. There was a great big world out there that I had sheltered myself from for so long. I was suddenly feeling stifled as I listened to Ben talk about our little homogenous bubble. I itched to hang up the phone and go out and see what was out there for me to explore, but when I heard Ben’s voice on the other end of the line, I was tugged back to that safe world where he resided at the center, and I knew I didn’t want to discount that world. Maybe I could find a balance?

  When we hung up, I figured I’d start my day. I did what I did everyday. I got dressed and went to the beach, except first I knocked on Chase’s door to see if he wanted to go, with the actual intention of hanging out with him. I really wanted to take what Molly had said to heart
about Chase being a good guy. I about passed out when he said ‘sure’.

  So I spent the day at the beach with my brother and sister, not really talking, but not fighting either. That night, Chase and I, along with Keely and Matt, who were holding hands and making out along the way, walked to Molly’s house to pick her up on our way to another bonfire. It seemed that was all people our age did at night on the small island.

  Molly’s younger brother, Jared, who was a year older than Keely, tagged along with us, chatting with her and Matt and staring at my sister like she was a goddess. I watched Matt place a possessive arm around Keely and knew it was a mistake. She hated that and would dismiss him in a heartbeat if he started to stifle her.

  That night I’d dressed in a short, green t-shirt dress, deciding that it was more my own style. I didn’t need to dress like Chase to fit in. I’d done just fine the night before. Besides, Keely was trailing behind me wearing skinny jeans, a purple fitted t-shirt and flip flops, along with Matt and Jared who were pretty much fighting for the title of Mr. Abercrombie and Fitch. I wasn’t so much the minority anymore.

  As usual, Molly was dressed to the height of punk fashion in black cropped pants that had more buckles and zippers in random places, purple high-top Converse sneakers and a white hoodie with the hood up over her hair. Her eyes were dark-lined with purple liner that matched her dark purple lips. She’d changed out her nose ring to a small hoop and her lip ring to a spike that looked pretty intimidating. I hoped she wasn’t considering kissing anyone that night since she’d probably draw blood if she did.

  The six of us walked to the same spot as the night before which seemed much closer after I’d stumbled home from it less than twenty-four hours earlier, falling into my brother and laughing at who knows what. A thunderstorm had threatened the island for most of the day, the clouds visible off in the distance, but so far the rain had held off. The air was dry, but it smelled like rain, so we would probably all get wet in a few hours. I wondered if that was why Molly had her hood up and instantly regretted not grabbing a jacket when we’d left the house.