by Claire Adams
He could barely contain his eye roll. “Give me a fucking break.”
“It’s true.”
“Yes, well, again, I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, this has been going on ever since you showed up in my back yard with a bloody nose, like some fucking abandoned dog that didn’t have anywhere to go. Do you remember how my mother fucking babied you? It was disgusting. But you didn’t care. You just waltzed right in there and made yourself at home. You think I wanted you there all the time? You think I liked suddenly having this pseudo brother around, this kid that could do everything better than I could?”
“Um . . .”
But he wasn’t interested in hearing a single thing I had to say. “Remember how she took us to baseball tryouts when we were in sixth grade? How you didn’t even like baseball? You weren’t even interested in playing, but you went along with it because my mother was excited and thought that we both wanted to try out. So she goes out and gets you all the shit, the glove, the cleats, the fucking stirrups. And then we have tryouts, and who makes the fucking team? Do you even remember that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I made the team. And you’re right—I didn’t want to play, but I did because your mother liked baseball so much.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Of course that’s what you’d remember. What you don’t remember is the fact that I tried out too, and I didn’t fucking make it!”
“You did?”
I tried to recall the memory of tryouts, but I couldn’t. Jonathan hadn’t been there though, had he? “I thought you didn’t even like baseball.”
“That’s what I started telling everyone after the fact, so it wouldn’t seem so pathetic. That here you were, the person who had probably never even picked up a bat, other than maybe a fucking whiffle ball bat, and you make the team, and I don’t. Do you know how many lawns I mowed and driveways I shoveled to earn enough money to buy my glove? But my mom just runs out and gets you one—before you even tried out! It was like she knew. I guess everyone just knows.”
“Jonathan.” I didn’t know what to say, though. I didn’t know if he was really telling me the truth, or if he was just making all this up in an attempt to make me feel bad. He wouldn’t even look at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really had no idea about all of that stuff. If I had known that you were so into baseball, then I wouldn’t have tried out! I just did it because your mom kept talking about it. If you had told me that you didn’t want me to try out, then I wouldn’t have.”
“I wanted you to try out,” he said after a minute.
“But—I thought you just said you didn’t—”
“No, I did, actually. I wanted you to try out, and I wanted to be the one to make the team, and you didn’t. Or we both made the team but I was a starter, and you weren’t. I just wanted to be better than you. I wanted you to know that there were some things that I could do better than you could, that you didn’t always get to the one who came out on top. And same with Daisy. I knew that you’d think she was hot, but I thought we really had this connection. And I thought it would just really tick you off if I got the girl and you didn’t.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “So you’re basically telling me your entire existence is to get back at me? I mean, it sounds like you really hate my fucking guts, Jonathan. How have you been able to stand the fact that we see each other all the time? That we work together?”
“It hasn’t always been easy,” he said. “And I don’t hate you, Ian. I don’t want you to think that. But no one has ever made me feel more . . . shitty and inferior about my life than you have, and you don’t even realize it. I guess I just wanted one thing to work out for me, and not for you. But that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen after all.”
“Do you want to hit me?”
“Of course I want to fucking hit you.”
“Then go ahead.”
He gave me a suspicious look. “I thought you said you didn’t want to fight.”
“I don’t. But if you want to hit me, if you think that might make you feel better, then go ahead.” I’d always considered Jonathan a friend. No, we didn’t see eye to eye on everything, and we had different interests, but we’d known each other for so long, and we’d been through a lot. It hurt to think that the whole thing had been a façade, that he’d just been biding his time, wanting to get back at me for something I didn’t even realize that I was doing.
“You’re saying I can hit you.”
“Yeah. Wherever you want. Well, maybe not the balls. Go on. Punch me in the face if you want. I’m ready.”
He didn’t say anything right away, and I thought he wasn’t going to do it. At least I had offered.
But then he spun around and caught me right on the cheekbone with a thunderous right hook. Any harder and my cheekbone probably would have cracked; as it was my head snapped to the side and I felt something in my neck pop, though that sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The whole left side of my face though, felt like it was on fire. A giant pulsing white hot fire. My initial instinct had been to fight back, but I clenched my jaw and stood there, not doing anything. My eye started to water. Jonathan flexed and released his fist.
“Jesus,” I said, half-expecting him to jump on me and start hitting me again, but he didn’t. “That’s some fucking arm you got there.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been working out, remember? That’s where I met Daisy.”
Touche.
“Thanks, though,” he said. “That did make me feel a little bit better.”
“Well,” I said, bringing my hand up to the side of my face and gingerly touching my cheek. “Now that you’ve got that out of your system . . .”
“I’ve been giving it some thought, though, and I think it’s time for me to move on.”
“Move on? From the company?”
“From the company, from the city, from this state. Maybe even the entire country. I don’t know. I want a change. Not just a change of job, but a complete change of environment. I think it would probably do me some good.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding, though I wasn’t quite sure what to think about the whole thing. My cheek was still throbbing. “It sounds like you’ve thought it through, so I’m certainly not going to try to change your mind. And hey—maybe it would be good.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe it will.”
That night, Daisy came over and we ordered take out because neither of us felt like cooking. I told her about my conversation earlier with Jonathan.
“So just like that, he’s leaving?” she asked.
“Just like that.” I pulled one of the cartons out of the paper bag and opened it. “I think this one’s the kung pao chicken.”
She peered into the container. “Yeah, it is. Wow. That surprises me. About Jonathan.”
“I know. I was surprised too.”
She looked at me, a piece of chicken held in between the two chopsticks. “Was this before or after he hit you?”
“After. Pretty much immediately after. I let him hit me though. Just so we’re clear.”
“Yeah, I’m still not quite sure I follow the logic in that one.”
“It was sort of . . . cathartic for him, I think. It’s not like we got into some sort of crazy brawl or anything. Which is what I think he wanted to do at first. So we talked about the whole leak thing, and then he hit me, and then he seemed to feel better and told me that he was going to be leaving. He didn’t say where he was going, though.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the better. I know I’m going to have to eventually talk with Martin, and have to listen to him tell me I told you so, in regards to whose side the leak came from.”
“It might be better that he leaves,” Daisy said. “You wouldn’t be able to completely trust him again, would you?”
I shrugged as I opened up another container, this one containing egg rolls. “You know what’s weird is that I feel like I still could. Even after all that stuff he said, I still feel like if he wanted to stay, that we’d just mov
e past this. But if he wants to go, I’m not going to stop him. It does kind of feel like it’s the end of an era, though.”
She set her container down and looked at me. “This can be the start of a new one, then,” she said. “For us, anyway. And I really believe now, more than ever, that as long as we stay true to our feelings, then that is what’s most important. Because if I had done that to begin with, we could have probably avoided a lot of the stuff that we’ve been through so far.”
I thought back to the day she first showed up in my office for that job interview. If you had told me then that I’d be sitting here now, feeling how I did toward her, I never would have believed it, but there you have it. Things sometimes worked out in ways that you couldn’t even fathom.
“We have been through a lot,” I said, “but honestly, Daisy, there’s no one else I’d rather go through it with.”
She smiled. “I feel the same way.”
Epilogue
Daisy
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, taking a deep breath.
Ian squeezed my shoulders. “Of course you can,” he said. “You’re going to be great.”
I took another deep breath and tried to ignore the knots in my stomach. Everything seemed so surreal. I was about to walk out on stage, in front of a (large) group of people, and give a talk, as part of the TEDxBoston conference. My book, You’ve Got This: Overcoming the Quarter-Life Crisis, about my quarter-life crisis, had come out a few months ago and gotten some really good reviews in some very important places, and suddenly, it seemed, everyone thought that I had something important to say. And it had all started with that article I’d written at my mother’s encouragement, which, once posted on the blog, had been liked, retweeted, and favorited tens of thousands of times. Subsequent essays I’d written had later been compiled, and I’d written a few more to round out what had turned into a best-selling book you could now find in the personal development section.
Ian kept his hands on my shoulders, massaging them lightly. “I am so proud of you,” he said.
I took another deep breath and felt my anxiety quell a bit at the sound of his voice. “Thanks.”
People that I didn’t even know were hailing me as an expert on my generation, despite the fact that I felt like I still knew nothing. I mean, all I had done really, was written a book—and a rather short one at that—about my experience. I spoke about it candidly, and didn’t sugar-coat anything, and ultimately, I guess I found my happy ending, because Ian and I were still together, because I’d put my college degree to use, because I finally felt a measure of contentedness with my life that I hadn’t before.
So that made people believe I somehow had answers that could help them, too. The idea that I was helping people made me feel good, even though it seemed crazy that I would be someone people would turn to for advice like this.
Even my mother had been begrudgingly happy for me, despite the fact that the deal for her own book had fallen through and she was currently looking for a publisher.
“And after your book signing, I’m going to take you out to celebrate, and then we’ll go pick up Aaron.”
I smiled, thinking about Aaron, who was almost two now. We picked him up Saturday afternoon, and he stayed with us until Monday morning. He was definitely not the handful that everyone told me he was going to be once he was a toddler. He was actually really fun to be around, and I enjoyed the time he was with us. Even though Ian and I weren’t married, I’d settled into the role of step-mother much more easily than I thought I would have. Eventually, I knew, Ian and I would tie the knot, but for now, living together and learning how to be parents to Aaron was good enough for the both of us. And maybe, some day, Ian and I would have a kid of our own, but there was still plenty of time for that.
Right now, I had a talk to give.
Ian leaned down and gave me a kiss. “You’re going to be great,” he said. “I love you.”
I kissed him back. “I love you, too.” Then I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage.
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BROKEN BOX SET
THE COMPLETE BROKEN SERIES
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
BROKEN #1
Chapter One
Natalie
“I don't think I can have another shot, Julie,” I yelled over the music.
All around me the thump, thump, thump of the bass was felt right in my bones. Why must they play the music so obscenely loud? Was it so that you forgot that you were in a normal world? You stayed because you didn't realize there was anything else out there? I suppose it appealed to the people who came there to dance. I wasn’t one of them. As I peered over, I judged them for their carefree nature as they sweated all over each other on the dance floor. A bar, especially a dance bar, was an illogical place to go to have a conversation, but they had cheap drinks, and there was enough eye candy to keep Julie happy. Julie needed her entertainment as well. My friend just giggled as she ordered us another round. There was no point in arguing with her. I was feeling dizzy, but I allowed it, as I only really came there to forget. Forgetting was easy when it came to drinking. If it wasn't for hard liquor, I would not be able to function as a human being, and that was fairly important. All I needed at that moment was to forget that I was who I was. Because at that moment in my life, I didn't like whom I was.
Partying had become a regular occurrence for me these past few months. I was never much of a drinker, but times were tough, and a girl had to do what a girl had to do. Thank God I had a partner in crime in which to do my deeds with. I had only even known Julie for a couple of months, and she had seen me as the party girl, and only that. She had no idea that I was a good girl only a few months ago. The old me would never have spent so much time in a bar. But there I was, and the reason for that was because my whole life, my whole world in fact, had spun out of control recently, and I hadn't begun to pick up the pieces from that. Life, in fact, scared me at the moment. I had never expected to be in the position that I was. I had thought things would have turned out much better. I always had a plan; everything was in order in my life, until it all started to fall apart, of course. It was funny how life often snuck up on you like that. Not only had things not gone as planned, but it gave me an entirely different horizon that I didn't look forward to meeting.
Unbeknownst to me, the man I had loved most in the whole world had carried on an affair with my best friend for months before I found out about it. Months! Months! God, the very idea baffled me. How did I not know? Was I just blinded by my love for him? Finding them out―it was not something that anyone should ever have to experience. The betrayal of a best friend. You almost expect it from a man, but not a girl you grew up with from the time you were 9 years old. Men were always the ones whom you feared would stray. It never occurred to me to not trust a beloved best friend. She and I had been through thick and thin; we had shared many scraped knees, broken hearts, and provided one another with a shoulder to cry on when needed. And all it took was for her to become attracted to my man. A man I thought I would marry one day. Shouldn't that have been sacred―something no other should think of touching?
There truly was no amount of alcohol that could erase the image of catching them having sex. He had her bent over the couch, doing the unthinkable. I had walked in just as she had been screaming out his name. I could have killed them both right then and there. The shock had been incredible, and I felt ill every time I thought about it. Walking in early from class, excited to surprise him with pizza and beer
, it had all dropped to the floor as I rushed in and saw him having sex with her on the couch. Right there, right where we often watched movies and cuddled, he had done the unspeakable with one of my oldest friends. I may have even been able to forgive it had it only been a one-time occurrence, but that wasn't the case at all. They were in love, and just didn't have the heart or the balls to tell me about it. They had been involved for months, right under my nose. I often wondered when it had first begun. Had he and I been going through problems at the time? What made him look at her in a different light? I thought about it a lot―too much, in fact. I wondered who had initiated it; which one of them crossed the line first? I couldn't bear to think that it was she who made the first move. The thought was just too evil; how could she betray me in such a way? Take away the only thing that really mattered to me. How could I not have seen? How do you miss something so significant?
There must have been lingering looks between them when they were around each other, text messages to his phone, and every time he wasn't with me, had he been with her? Had he been responding to her messages while he was with me? Surely he would have been. He received many texts in my presence. Who knows how many had arrived from her phone? There was nothing in the world that could make a girl feel more stupid than to realize I had been made a fool of for months. Did they often laugh about me? Joke about how I had no idea about what they were doing? Did they talk about me? Discuss how they would have to eventually tell me the truth? I could bet money on the fact that it was he who decided to avoid coming clean. Women were different, she would have wanted to lay claim to him as soon as possible. She must have been bugging him for quite some time to come clean, or at the very least, break up with me so that they could begin their own love story. Love Story. One that used to be mine. It was thoughts like that which could cause me to be in a bar on a regular basis.
