Pieces of my Heart

by Jamie Canosa

  "Are you kidding me, right now?" Caulder smacked my hand away from my middle, scowl firmly etched into his face. "You need to put on at least another forty pounds before you could even be considered healthy, but I can't talk about that without getting pissed off, and I'm trying to keep things light today. So, for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to pretend that you did not just think you were fat and you're going to promise me you'll never think that again. Deal?"

  Keeping things light sounded good to me. I could use a little more light in my life. “What if I win the lottery and eat Raisinets until I’m three-hundred pounds?”

  “Then you’d be a three-hundred pound twig.” A crease formed in his stubble with a twitch of his lips. “You like Raisinets?”

  “Mmm. They’re my favorite candy.”

  Caulder hummed thoughtfully. “Good to know.”

  What did that mean?

  ***

  I don’t know why I was surprised to see Mrs. Parks’ car in the driveway. She lived there, after all, but to hear Cal tell it, it seemed as though she was hardly ever home.

  “Your mom’s home?”

  “Yeah. For a change. And she wants to see you.”

  I cringed. I hadn’t seen her since my outburst over dessert. “I sort of . . . owe her an apology, huh?”

  “Angel, you don’t owe anyone anything. I explained the situation. She isn’t upset. Not with you, anyway. She is worried, though. Made me promise to bring you over today.”

  “Did you happen to mention the accident, too?”

  Caulder shrugged, looking not the slightest bit apologetic. “It’s kinda half the reason she insisted on taking a look at you. She was royally pissed that I let you walk away without having a doctor examine you. I didn’t, however, mention that I also let you go to work. So if you wouldn’t mind keeping that detail between us, I prefer having my head attached to the rest of my body.”

  “Jade!” I’d barely set foot inside the house before I found Mrs. Parks’ arms around me, hauling me in for a firm, yet controlled, hug. After a moment, she pushed me back by my shoulders far enough to examine me from head to toe. “How are you feeling?”

  “Think you can let the girl get her shoes off first?” Caulder braced my arm so I could lift my leg and slide off the muddy sneakers.

  My movements were stiff and slow, and I saw Cal cringe from the corner of my eye when his mother scowled at him.

  “Come and sit.” Mrs. Parks ushered me away while Caulder toed off his own shoes, and parked me on the living room sofa. “I heard about the accident, sweetie. It sounded terrible.”

  I mentally rolled my eyes as she dug into a duffle bag situated on the cushion beside her. Like mother, like son.

  “You really should have let a doctor take a look at you. I know it’s not the funnest thing in the world, but it’s always better to be safe than— Oh, here we go.” Pulling out a small white cylinder smaller than a lipstick case, she twisted to face me and I had to bite back a gasp when her knees collided with mine. “Look right here.”

  She held up a finger and I tried to focus on it as she lifted the tube, but when a small bulb lit at the end I blinked against the sudden exposure.

  “Right here.” She wiggled her finger again and I forced myself not to squint.

  “Mom, it’s been almost forty-eight hours.” Caulder was leaning up against the door frame with a healthy dose of amusement lighting his face as he shook his head at her. “If she had a concussion, don’t you think someone would have noticed by now?”

  She shot him a look that shut him up completely as the question of ‘Who?’ hovered silently in the air between them.

  “No double vision? Headache? Nausea? Vomiting?” I shook my head as Mrs. Parks ran through her checklist, until the tightness around her eyes and mouth began to ease.

  “Okay. That’s good.” The light went out and she dropped it back into her bag. “Do you have pain anywhere else? Joints? Muscles? Bruising?”

  It seemed like a silly question to ask someone who’d been in a car accident, but I indulged her. “I’m a little sore and I have some bruises, but nothing major. Really, Mrs. Parks, I’m okay.”

  She smiled and eased back into the cushions as though a weight had been lifted from her. A weight of worry. For me. Something warmed like a tiny sun inside my chest.

  “Alright then” She patted my leg gently and hauled herself off the sofa, taking her bag along with her and looped it over her shoulder. “I’ll leave you two alone. I think there’s something Caulder wants to show you. And, Jade . . .” She reached down to run her fingers through my hair. Such an affectionate gesture, I had to make an effort not to get emotional over it. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Parks.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was trying. Muddling through like the rest of us. But deep down, she was hurting.

  “You have something to show me?” When Mrs. Parks had retreated upstairs, I shifted my gaze to Caulder and settled back on the soft throw pillows, in no real hurry to move a muscle.

  The same couldn’t be said for him. “Yeah. Come on. Let’s do this.”

  He turned down the hallway and I was half tempted to throw one of those pillows at his head. Instead, I kept my grumbling to a minimum and used the arm of the sofa to drag my sorry butt back up. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I grabbed hold of the door frame to keep my feet from stumbling over each other as a halo of darkness tinged the edge of my vision.

  “Jade?” Cal turned back, brows slamming down over worried eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, trying to fight back the encroaching blackness. “Nothing.”

  I couldn’t really see more than his hard chest centered in the pinhole of my vision, but I knew he was quietly giving me a chance to rethink that lame answer.

  “I’m lightheaded. I think I’m dehydrated.”

  “Dehydrated?”

  Caulder’s thick arm wrapped around my back, leading me like a blind person. My feet shuffled slowly forward as my head started to swim. Silently, I commanded myself not to faint. I hadn’t done that since I was a kid—and I wasn’t going to do it now. Not in front of Caulder.

  He deposited me in a kitchen chair and the change in altitude helped a little. The room still appeared dimmer than I knew it was, but I could see him near the fridge, filling a glass of water.

  “Here.” The cold glass was pressed into my hand and lifted to my lips. “Drink.”

  The water went down cool and smooth, but it did little to help with the lingering darkness that had receded to the fringe of my vision again.

  “Okay, so now you’ve had a drink.” Caulder sat perched on the edge of the seat beside me as though he may need to catch me should I decide to slip out of mine into unconsciousness. “Tell me . . . What have you eaten today?”

  Crap. I really thought the dehydration excuse would work. I’d looked it up before. It was a reasonable explanation of my symptoms. And it wasn’t the first time I’d used it. No one else had questioned its validity. But, then again, no one else knew me the way Caulder did. Knew all of my dirty little secrets.

  “Angel, you either tell me the truth or I’ll have Mom in here examining you again in a heartbeat. You’re not dehydrated.” He pinched lightly at the skin on the back of my hand as though that were supposed to prove something and then nodded. “So, either this is because you haven’t eaten, or it’s something else. Which is it?”

  “Umm . . .”

  Caulder’s frown lines deepened and he shook his head. “That’s what I thought.”

  He seemed to move so fast it made my head spin and I had to press my eyes closed to avoid another dizzy spell. I didn’t reopen them until I felt him beside me again.

  “Eat this.” Something scraped over the table in front of me and I looked down to find two pieces of toast, smeared with grape jelly, lying on a plate.

  My hand shook as I lifted the first piece to my mouth and there was noth
ing I could do to hide it. Caulder stood, watching me like a hawk, waiting until the entire first slice was devoured before reclaiming his seat at my side.

  “Jade?” He waited until I was looking at him—still chewing a bite of toast—before continuing. “I need you to be perfectly honest with me right now. I know you don’t like to ask for help. You don’t even like accepting help when it’s offered. But this is important.”

  His gaze bored into mine, pinning me to my seat when all I really wanted to do was run for the hills because I knew what was coming out of his mouth next.

  “Is there food in your apartment?” And there it was.

  I opened my mouth to spew some well-rehearsed bullshit response I’d given a hundred times throughout the years, but he lifted a hand, cutting me off.

  “Before you answer that, please think. I’m not offering to give you money. I don’t want to buy you some nonsense gift or something outrageous. This is food we’re talking about. Okay? Something essential to your health. Your life. Your mother’s life.” He really went there. The sneaky little bastard wasn’t playing fair and he knew it. “There are things I can’t protect you from because you won’t let me. You have no idea how infuriating that can be. But I let it go because that’s what you need. This is something I need. You can’t expect me to sit back and watch you slowly waste away before my eyes. That would be cruel. You can’t refuse my help on this one.”

  “Cal . . .”

  He’ll start seeing you for what you really are. Leech. Bottom-feeder. Para—

  “Angel.”

  I nodded, dropping my gaze to the half-eaten slice of toast left on my plate. I’d suddenly lost my appetite.

  “Hey.” A forefinger and thumb lightly gripped my chin, tilting my head up until I caught Caulder’s eye. “Everyone needs help sometimes. There’s no shame in that. But there’s a hell of a lot of courage in having the strength to ask for it.”

  My chest felt sore. Swollen.

  “Okay.” I didn’t know why I was whispering, except that he was so close. And whatever this feeling was building between us . . . it felt like a secret.

  A cautious smile made Caulder’s scruffy cheek twitch. “Good. Now keep all of that in mind when I show you what I brought you here for.”

  “What—?”

  “Come with me.”

  Anxiety mounted with every step as I followed him along the hall to a side door, which I knew led to a garage, though I’d never actually seen any of them use it. When he pushed it open, I saw why. More than car storage, it looked like a workspace. Tool boxes lined the rear wall. More tools I couldn’t identify—which pretty much amounted to a hammer or a screwdriver—sat scattered around the floor. One of those rolley things you lie on to get under a car was parked in the corner and beside it . . .

  I was taken off guard by one of those overwhelming, heart-stopping, breathtaking moments. The sleek black and silver machine sat parked in the far spot and with just the sight of it, everything came rushing back. The tug of the wind in my hair. The vibrations carrying through my body. The heat of my chest pressed up against Kiernan’s back. The feel of his cut abs beneath my hands.

  I swallowed the tears creeping their way up my throat and took a deep breath through my nose.

  “What are we doing in here, Cal?”

  “You’re in need of a vehicle that won’t get you killed.”

  My gaze slid toward him, but caught on something else in the process. “Oh, no.”

  “You said you'd let me fix your car problem.”

  “I said I'd let you fix my car.”

  “Yeah, well, that hunk of junk was beyond saving. So you're getting this, instead.”

  “Are you insane? I can't drive that!” My knowledge of cars wasn’t enough to fill a picture book, but I could take a fairly reasonable guess that Kiernan’s car was worth more money than I’d ever even seen in my life.

  “You can. It's a good car, Angel. Safe. Reliable. And it's just sitting here, collecting dust.” Then he pulled out the big guns. “You know as well as I do that he'd want you to have it.”

  And I was defenseless. “Cal, please.”

  Big fingers pressed softly into my shoulder, turning me until I was staring at the hard planes of Caulder’s chest, visible through the tight V-neck tee clinging to his well-muscled frame.

  “I get it, okay? I know you think I don’t. Think I can’t because I have money. Because I have all of this.” He waved his hand idly indicating the cars, the house, and everything in it as though it were a mere afterthought. “But I do. I know what it’s like to feel . . . less than.”

  He didn’t, though. He didn’t get it at all. This wasn’t about me.

  You start accepting things like this. His gifts. His money . . . See how far he runs.

  “Angel . . .” Cal released me, running his hand through his tousled hair. “I never want to make you feel that way. Never. But, please . . . This is one of those things I’m going to beg you to give me. The car and the food, and I swear I’ll leave you alone. I won’t ask you to accept anything else from me. I just want to help you, Jade. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” His eyes connected with mine and I saw in them the vulnerability I knew without a doubt he never allowed anyone but me to witness. The fact that he was willing to share that with me meant everything. Even if he was using it against me at the moment. “Let me.”

  He was standing right there. Right in front of me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to breathe in his scent. He didn’t look ready to run. In fact, quite the opposite. He was digging his heels in in a way that made it clear there was no point arguing with him.

  And maybe there wasn’t.

  ***

  When I left, it was behind the wheel of a midnight blue Bentley with bags of groceries crowding the backseat. All of which Caulder had amassed from his cabinets, fridge, and pantry, promising to restock his mother’s shelves first thing in the morning.

  Mom and Michael had already retired to the bedroom by the time I arrived home, struggling under the weight of more food than our apartment had ever contained. I snapped off the television and shuffled into the kitchen to empty the bags. I smiled as shelf after shelf filled to capacity, to the point that I had to store a few bottles of soda and juice on the floor beneath the table because they wouldn’t fit in the fridge. Maybe accepting help wasn’t such a terrible thing.

  Reaching into the bottom of the last bag, I burst out laughing so hard tears streamed down my face. I cried out my relief over having one less thing to worry about. My joy over having someone so wonderful in my life that he would take away that fear for me. That someone cared enough about me to want to. And because I knew my high had reached its pinnacle and there was nowhere left to go but down.

  Without thought or reason, I collapsed to the floor, sobbing as I cradled that box of Raisinets to my chest.

  Thirteen

  Drip.

  Drip. Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  I swatted, blindly, at the splash of cold water on my arm. What the hell? Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling through the early evening gloom and tried to let my brain catch up. I’d fallen asleep, that much was obvious. And now I was . . . wet?

  My blanket, shirt, and sheets were all soaked.

  Another drip splattered against my cold skin, sending a shiver through me. Rain continued to pelt against my window and the stain on my ceiling had grown darker. Damper. Hundreds of tiny droplets dangled from the cracked plaster, sliding along predetermined lines like threads of a spider web toward one central spot where they coalesced and then plummeted . . . straight into my bed.

  Crap. Throwing back the blanket, I jumped out of the soggy mess I was lying in and shook out my shirt. Gross. A pale brownish stain covered everything. My blanket landed in a heap near the door and I tugged the bedframe away from the invading leak. Looked like my bedroom would come equipped with its own water feature for the foreseeable future. It took them months to repla
ce a light bulb. God only knew how long it would be before they got around to fixing the roof. At least it hadn’t collapsed on me. Yet.

  Stripping the bed, I tossed the sheets on top of my blanket to be taken to the laundry room, and flipped the mattress. Now, if I could just find a bucket. Something big enough that I wouldn’t have to get up every twenty minutes to dump it.

  Mom sat on the couch, staring blankly at an infomercial for some sort of magical cooking device blaring on the television at an ear-piercing volume. Michael reclined in the chair, picking his teeth with the prongs of a fork. Stacks of dirty dishes and empty cans and bottles littered the coffee table and surrounding floor.

  Disgusted, I took a step toward the kitchen, muffling the string of curses fighting to break out of my mouth when pain lanced through my big toe and an empty vodka bottle skidded across the floor.

  Goddammit. I was so sick of it. Sick of my home smelling like a bar and looking like a dump. Sick of hiding out of sight to help my mother pretend I didn’t exist. Sick of living this way. Sick of feeling this way.

  Hobbling over to the coffee table, I dug around for the remote and hit the mute button, plunging the room into a near deafening silence.

  “If you don’t turn it down, the neighbors are going to call the cops.”

  Michael huffed and tossed the fork he’d been using toward the overcrowded table where it bounced off an empty can, sending both to the floor.

  “Do you even know what a sink is?” My tongue lashed out along with my hand, snapping up a precariously piled stack of plates with green fuzz beginning to grow on them.

  “Not a clue.” Michael kicked up his feet, blocking my path, and folded his hands behind his head as a gruesome smile bared his brownish, gaping teeth. It was a sickening sight. “But while you’re at it, why don’t you grab me a cold one?”

  “I’m not your damn waitress.” My fingers clenched around the plates and I regretted picking them up. “Or your friggin’ maid.”