Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns)

by Monica Alexander

  “Emily,” she said, as I started out of the room.

  “Yeah Mom,” I said, pausing in the doorway and turning around to look at her again. She had her hand over the receiver.

  “See if Chase wants to go down to the beach with you.”

  “Sure Mom,” I said, through gritted teeth, causing her to smile.

  Okay, fine, I would invite Chase. What could it hurt? He’d probably say no anyway. I would be the good daughter, as always, and do what was asked of me. Sighing, I headed out to the front hall to pick up my suitcase and went upstairs in search of the room that would be mine for the next two months.

  Noticing the explosion of Keely’s clothes on the bed, I saw that she had claimed the first room on the right that overlooked the front yard. The first room on the left, I assumed was Chase’s, as the door was closed and the industrial rock music he loved so much could be heard coming from inside. That left me the last bedroom on the left. Thankfully the upstairs bathroom separated my room from Chase’s, so it helped to muffle the sound a bit.

  The room itself was small but very quaint. It was decorated in typical beach fashion with white-washed furniture and little accents that would only look appropriate in a house near the ocean. On the dresser there was a vase full of sea grass and above it there was a framed landscape of the beach.

  On the nightstand was the quintessential seashell lamp, although this one was more tasteful with the base being made out of sand and the seashells appearing to be imprinted into it. The color scheme of the room was grass green and white, and the comforter on the bed was all white with green sheets and accent pillows. Under the window that overlooked the beach was a white wicker trunk that I gingerly placed my suitcase on so I wouldn’t hurt the paint. I was almost afraid to sit on the bed for fear of getting the comforter dirty but then decided what the hell and fell back onto the middle of it.

  Over my head the ceiling fan whirled around and around at a slow, hypnotic pace. I watched it for a few moments, lost in thought before remembering why I was upstairs in the first place and got up to change into my suit so I could get some sun before it set.

  On my way back downstairs, I remembered what my mother had asked and paused outside Chase’s door, listening for a few seconds. His music was either turned down or off, because I could no longer hear it. All I heard was a sound I never heard – Chase laughing.

  He was genuinely laughing, and not in the sarcastic way he usually did, but a real honest to goodness laugh that said he was actually happy about something. I was shocked. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Chase happy about anything. Okay, well, maybe I had, but it usually involved sarcasm and mocking. This was different.

  I knocked lightly on the door and waited for him to open it, knowing he would have a snarky comment for me when he heard what I was going to ask him. On the other side of the door, I could hear him say ‘hold on’ to whoever he was talking to.

  “Yes,” he said, as the door opened to reveal him wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, his tattoo of a green Celtic cross, prominent on his rib cage. His hair looked disheveled, as if he’d been lying down, but his cheeks looked flushed, like he’d been grinning and laughing for a few minutes. He still had his phone to his ear.

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked, not able to hold back what I really wanted to know. I was curious about who was sparking this uncharacteristic emotion in him.

  “No one,” he said curtly, as he told the person to hold on and muted his cell phone.

  “Fine, whatever. I just wanted to see if you wanted to come to the beach. Keely’s there and I’m heading down now.” I tried to sound as disinterested as possible, like his going or not wouldn’t faze me in the least.

  “What’s this?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Princess Emily asking her druggie brother to hang out with her? Am I hearing this correctly? Is this my reward for rescuing you last night?” He looked at me with an expression just past mocking. “Because if it is, I’m not interested.”

  “Fine, Chase, be like that. I thanked you for helping me last night, but if I knew you were going to hold if over my head forever, I would have told you to fuck off.”

  “Wow, twice in two days,” he said, in reference to my use of the f-word.

  “Fuck you,” I said, cocking my head to the side and raising my eyebrows. “There, that’s three – a new record. Now, if you don’t want to come down to the beach, then don’t. I was just trying to be nice,” I said, turning to walk away. I had no patience for him when he was like that.

  “Of course you were,” he called after me. “You’re just the nicest person I know.”

  I felt my nostrils flare as I walked away from him, his comment driving into my very core. He didn’t buy it, and after the way I’d acted toward him for most our adult lives, he didn’t believe I was nice. Well, good. I was sick of being nice anyway. Hauling off and hitting Ashleigh had been stupid, and I had a sore hand to prove it, but it had been totally worth it. It had felt good to not just stand by and let her get away with the crap she usually got away with. Maybe I needed a new outlook on life. Maybe I needed to stop being so nice.

  Rachel got away with being a bitch. Chase could be an asshole to whoever he chose. Ashleigh got to hit on my boyfriend, and before last night I’d never said a word to her about it. I’d just laughed. Ha, ha. Well, I wasn’t laughing now.

  Nice. The word sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me. I was over being nice. What did I gain from it? Not much. I got walked on a lot of the time. Much more was expected of me. Half the time, I justified that being nice was better in the long run, but it usually made me feel like crap in the short term. Blah. Being nice sucked. I wanted to be bad for once in my life. I just wasn’t sure how to even go about doing that.

  I dropped into the chair next to Keely and stared out at the ocean, contemplating something that would be bad enough that it would break my stigma of ‘nice girl’. No one knew me in the small beach town that would be my home for the next two months. I could be whoever I wanted. Maybe I would be bad.

  “Hey,” Keely said, cheerfully, taking out her earbuds and sticking them in her beach bag. “Took you long enough. You got suckered into talking to Mom, didn’t you?”

  I shot her a glare, one I usually reserved for Chase.

  “Whoa,” she said, taken aback by the aggressive expression on my face. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said, sighing and leaning my head back against the chair. “I’m not.”

  I really wasn’t. It was like all the good energy I’d gained from my morning make-up session with Ben had dissipated. Now I was just angry – again.

  Chapter Nine

  For the next week I considered myself somewhat of a recluse. It wasn’t like I holed up inside the house or anything. I definitely experienced all that the beach had to offer, but it was more like I’d retreated inside myself. I had my iPod on most of the time, thumbing through my entire collection of songs to find ones that fit my melancholy mood. It made for good therapy and made it easy to not have to engage in an actual conversation with anyone.

  Ben called me every night, and by the following weekend, he was getting on my nerves again. It was like every emotion I’d been feeling when I’d thought I lost him was slowly slipping away. All the irritating things he did were now at the forefront and were staring me in the face, mocking me, asking me why I’d been so eager to take him back.

  He kept telling me how much he missed me, how it wasn’t as fun without me around and insisted on rehashing every party he went to, so I wouldn’t miss out on anything. It got to be that every word he said grated on my nerves. He commented once on how quiet I was being, but instead of telling him the truth, I’d just told him it was because I missed him.

  I was a big, fat liar and a complete chicken-shit.

  I talked to Rachel a few times, but she was just as moody as I was. She said she was missing Michael and was sad that she wouldn’t see him for weeks. They talked regularly
, but it wasn’t the same. I half-jokingly offered up Ben as a substitute, which had only earned me a half-hearted ‘ha, ha’ in return.

  I looked for something I could do to break out of my funk, but nothing really worked. Then I realized that, ironically, just being in a bad mood had turned the heads of the people I knew best, and that sort of made me smile.

  My mother was the first to bring it up, asking me why I was angry, sullen, and moody all of a sudden. She asked me that direct question after I slunk down to the breakfast table on our fifth day at the beach and I didn’t offer my usual cheery ‘good morning’. In fact, I’d been pretty silent ever since that first day, but she hadn’t said anything, probably chalking my mood up to me missing Ben. But when my bad mood went on for five days, she got suspicious. Sullen was not something I was known for, so when I refused to smile or engage in conversation with her and Keely, I was pulled aside and asked what was wrong.

  My response? “Nothing.”

  To which my mother crossed her arms, gave me a knowing look and said, “Emily, don’t give me that. Something’s wrong. I can tell.”

  Well, duh.

  “Is it something with Ben? Did you get in a fight? Is it Rachel?” she probed.

  I sighed, long and deep, and looked out the kitchen window at the people jogging and walking their dogs on the beach.

  “No Mom. It’s not anything with Ben,” I lied. “We’re fine. Rachel’s fine too.”

  “Then what is it?” she asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  I shrugged it off. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  She gave me a stern, motherly look. “It’s not nothing. Are you on drugs?”

  I almost laughed out loud at that question, but I knew it would only make her more suspicious. She’d probably think I really was on drugs if I laughed at her. I just rolled my eyes instead. It was ridiculous that just because I was in a bad mood, she automatically assumed that I was ingesting illegal substances, but Chase walked around the house stoned most of the time, and she never even realized it.

  “Mother, I am definitely not on drugs,” I said firmly, crossing my arms over my chest to match her stance. “I can’t even believe you would accuse me of that.”

  “Okay, honey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume. I’m just concerned about you. You seem upset about something. You’re not pregnant are you?”

  I let my head fall to the table, banging it lightly against the wood for a few beats. “No, I’m not pregnant,” I said, lifting my head slowly. “I’m fine.”

  “No, honey, you’re not.” Then she paused, presumably waiting for me to respond. When she realized I wasn’t going give her that courtesy, she continued. “But I understand if you don’t want to tell me. Just know that I’m here if you want to talk, okay?”

  “I know,” I said, thinking that even if I did tell her she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. What was I supposed to say? ‘So, Mom, in general, I’m pretty miserable about everything right now, so I’m thinking of shaking things up a bit – maybe dropping out of Gamma Pi, breaking up with my boyfriend, who you adore, and moving to New York after graduation. Oh, and by the way I didn’t tell you about the fight I got into over Ben and our subsequent twelve hour break-up, followed by a tearful conversation in which he begged me to take him back, only to realize days later that I might have made the wrong choice. What do you think?’

  No, that wouldn’t work. She’d just try to talk to me about how amazing Ben was and how I should marry him, and how she would just hate it if two of her kids lived so far away. She would be supportive, but in the wrong way. Then she’d probably tell me I was twenty-one and way past the age at which I could get away with being a sullen teenager. She’d tell me to grow up. I didn’t want to hear any of that, though. I already knew I was being immature and petulant. I didn’t need her to remind me.

  Of course as an actual teenager, I’d never gone through a rebellious phase. I’d been too focused and determined on my goals to waste my time rebelling against my parents. In hindsight, maybe if I’d acted out when I was sixteen, like most normal kids, it would have been more accepted. Now I was sure it just seemed grossly overdue and a little late in the game to be effective.

  “Okay,” my mom said, looking directly at me as I continued to look away.

  A tall, lanky guy with a golden retriever out of the beach caught my eye, and I focused on him until he disappeared from my view. It was only then that I turned back to face my mother.

  “Can I go?” I asked, staring into her overly concerned face. She was making me feel guilty for being upset, and I hated that.

  She nodded.

  With that I got up, turned on my heel and walked away. A part of me felt bad for treating my mother like I was, but I had too much anger boiling inside of me to let my actions toward her affect me. I pushed aside my guilt and walked back upstairs.

  Chase was allowed to sulk all the time. Keely was known for being the family brat. But, me, as the ‘nice one’, I was expected to be sunshine and flowers day in and day out. It wasn’t fair. Even my own mother couldn’t accept the fact that I wasn’t smiling.

  That thought just made me angrier as I shoved the essentials into my beach bag and headed back downstairs, letting the screen door slam behind me as I left the house. Randy barked at me as I went, no doubt wondering why I hadn’t stopped to give him some love, but I just didn’t have much patience in that moment, even for him.

  Chase was standing off to the side of the house, where he knew our mother couldn’t see him, smoking a cigarette. I started to walk past and ignore him, but then decided against it, wheeling around so I was face-to-face with him.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  He looked just shy of annoyed that I’d stopped to chat. I watched as he took a drag off his cigarette and stared at me expectantly.

  “Why do you get away with all sorts of shit, and I’m lectured about not smiling for one goddamn day?”

  He didn’t say anything. He shrugged nonchalantly, which only served to annoy me further.

  “Seriously Chase, I’m sick of it. Why do I have to be the good one all the time?” I demanded.

  Pushing himself off the house and standing upright, he looked down at me from his full height, “You don’t,” he said, as if it were that simple.

  “Yes, I do. It’s the way it’s always been. It’s what they expect!” I gestured back toward the house.

  Chase laughed a sort of non-humorous laugh and looked over my shoulder at something. “Who expects that?”

  I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Mom and Dad, Ben, my friends, everyone!”

  “You’re ridiculous,” was all he said.

  I glared at him. “I’m not ridiculous!” I knew it wasn’t the best retort, but my brain was so muddled that I had trouble thinking about anything else in that moment. “It’s true. They all expect me to be so perfect. It sucks!”

  “Okay, so if you’re tired of being good, don’t do it anymore,” he said, looking at me like I was a moron for not figuring it out on my own. “You’re a fucking adult, Emily. If you don’t want to do something, don’t do it.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out.

  “What?” Chase questioned, stubbing his cigarette out against the house and tossing it in the sand. With one swift motion, it was buried where no one could see it. Then he popped a piece of gum in his mouth to hide to odor of his bad habit.

  “I can’t just be bad,” I told him. “I’ve never been bad in my life.”

  “You drink,” he reminded me.

  “Yeah, so what. That’s nothing. Do you know how many times I’ve been drunk in my life? I’ll tell you. Three! That’s it. Three freaking times, and it wasn’t even that fun. I’m not a good drunk – case and point, the other night!”

  Chase nodded, knowingly.

  “I’ve never smoked – a cigarette or otherwise,” I continued. “I have never done anything dangerous or reckless,
and I’m nice to everyone, including Ashleigh Ballast who seems intent on sleeping with my boyfriend!”

  I watched my brother raised his eyebrows at me in question.

  “Okay, well, I guess you can’t say that I’m nice to her anymore, but I put up with her shit for a long time. She deserved to get hit.” I was on a roll and was getting out of breath from ranting.

  “She’s a bitch,” was all Chase said, and I took it to mean he agreed with me.

  “Anyway, my point is that I am always on guard. I never have any real fun! I’m never reckless. I’m rigid,” I said, making a face as I echoed what he’d said about me. I waited for him to say ‘I told you so’, but he didn’t, so I continued my rant. “I liked being out of control the other night. It felt good. I want to do it again, but without the physical violence, obviously.”

  My brother held out his pack of cigarettes, offering one to me.

  I shook my head violently. “No, thank you,” I said, and then clamped by hand over my mouth. It was like I couldn’t be anything but polite.

  Chase just laughed at me. “You so need to loosen up.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said firmly, crossing my arms over my chest.

  My brother eyed me skeptically for a few seconds, probably waiting for me to break. Well, I wasn’t going to do that. My mind was made up. I was going to take matters into my own hands, and I was going to do exactly what he’d said. I was going to loosen up.

  And hopefully by doing that I’d be able to figure out what came next for me. All I knew was that I wanted something different. Hopefully I’d be able to find it.

  “Alright,” Chase continued when I didn’t back down, “there’s a bonfire tonight down by the jetty. I’m going with some people I met if you want to come.”

  “Will there be beer?” I asked him.

  He looked at me skeptically. “Uh, yeah. There will be beer.”

  “Good. I’m getting wasted tonight.”

  “Are you going to be able to handle yourself?” he asked, probably with good reason.

  “Yes,” I said definitively, knowing there wouldn’t be anyone at the party I’d want to lash out at. I’d be good. “I’ll be fine.”