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

by Monica Alexander

  Chapter Eleven

  Zack

  “Are you going to move back?” Jen asked when she called me one night in October.

  I was sitting in my mother’s rocking chair on the back porch, smoking a cigarette and watching the light fade. Jen and I had been talking nightly and the subject of me moving back to civilization had been a hot topic as of late. She knew I was getting antsy with my only sense of stimulation coming from bartending at Phil’s a few nights a week for meager tips, but Leo had gone home and I wasn’t ready to leave, so bartending at least got me out of the house.

  It wasn’t like I needed the money. My mom had left everything she had to me, and since she hadn’t spent much of the money that had accrued from the sizeable alimony checks she’d received from my father each month for nine years, my bank account now had a lot of zeros. After putting away enough money for Lily to go to college and grad school at an Ivy League university, I still had enough to live comfortably each month.

  Although I knew she missed me, Jen’s insistence that I move back to Durham was completely altruistic. She was afraid I was lonely on the island by myself and knew how much I missed Lily, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave – because in my mind, leaving the island meant leaving my mother behind. But I had gone to see Jen and Lily twice since I’d seen them at the park, and saying goodbye got harder each time. I was leaning toward making the jump and moving back.

  A part of me felt the solitude had been what I’d needed, at least for a little while, but now I was starting to crave a little more human interaction. I hadn’t told Jen, that with all my downtime, I’d started writing music again. I’d been doing it for a few weeks now and had about six new songs completed. It wasn’t like I had anyone to play them for, but writing music was what I’d always done, even after I’d left Liar’s Edge. It was what kept me sane.

  “I think I am going to move back,” I finally said, and for the first time in a while, I meant it.

  It was simple. Moving to Durham meant seeing Lily whenever I wanted. She’d gotten so big over the summer, and her vocabulary was growing all the time. I didn’t want to miss out on things. I wanted to see her grow up. But it also meant seeing Jen more, and I liked the idea of that.

  “Will you move back in with Derrick?” she asked, and I knew it was her way of asking if I was going back to my old lifestyle.

  Truthfully, it sort of stung. I hadn’t done the stuff Jen was alluding to in a long time – the drugs, the girls, the reckless lifestyle. I’d given it all up the night I’d almost died, the night Lily was born. And aside from Emily, I hadn’t been with anyone since that night, but of course, Emily was different. She wasn’t just some girl I’d hooked up with, no matter how hard I’d tried to force her into that role. She’d gotten under my skin, and that was something I’d never had control over.

  “No,” I said firmly. “Come on, Jen. You know me better than that.”

  “I thought I did,” she said. “I never thought you’d fall back into your old ways, but you did. Zack, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you in as bad of shape as you were in a few weeks ago. It scared me. It reminded me too much of the guy you used to be, and I wasn’t about to go down that road again.”

  She was right. I’d lost control, just like I had two years earlier. But I’d learned my lesson – again. Her brother hadn’t, not even the first time, the time we both almost died. He’d never really stopped partying, but I was different. I’d stopped before when it counted, and I’d do it again. The difference between Derrick and me was that I had more to lose. I had Lily, and she was enough to keep me from falling off the edge.

  “You don’t have to worry, Jen. I haven’t had a drink in three weeks, and I don’t plan on having one. I’m not Derrick. You know he’s like a brother to me, but his life and his choices are his own. I need you to give me a little credit.”

  “Okay,” Jen sighed, and I knew she was fighting with whether or not she believed me.

  I’d screwed up big time. I’d proven I couldn’t handle life when it fell apart, and I knew she feared I’d slip up again. Only time would solidify in her mind that I was the guy she’d trusted and counted on for so long. I’d lost her trust once before, but I’d slowly built it back up. I’d do it again.

  “I actually think I might move in with Leo,” I said, changing the subject. I no longer wanted to dwell on how disappointed in me she was. I didn’t want to think about it. “Or maybe I’ll get my own place.”

  Moving in with Leo put me closer to Jen and Lily. He lived around the corner from them in Chapel Hill, in a three-bedroom townhouse, and had more space than he needed. I knew he’d let me move in, no questions asked.

  Jen didn’t say anything for a few seconds before she said quietly, “You can always move in with us,” and I knew it was her way of repaying me for what I’d done for her almost two years earlier. Either that or she just wanted to keep an eye on me.

  ***

  Almost two years earlier

  A knock on the door surprised me, and I got up to open it, feeling the blustery, cold December air blow into the house around me.

  “Jen?” I asked, surprised to see her and even more surprised at how far her belly was sticking out. She was really pregnant.

  It had been months since I’d seen her, and the difference was incredible. I also couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks tear-streaked. She fell into my arms before I could ask her what was wrong.

  “He blaoubfmet,” she sobbed, her words getting lost in my shirt, as I pulled her into the house.

  “What?” I asked, as I steered her over to the couch so she could sit.

  She wasn’t wearing a coat, and her clothes carried the frigid cold with them. I sat her down, draped an afghan my mother had made around her shoulders and handed her a roll of paper towels. We didn’t have tissues, and the tears were running down her face in that moment. She was sobbing hysterically.

  It was strange. I’d only ever seen her like this one other time, and it was when she found out her childhood dog, Grizzly, had to be put down because he’d gotten a brain tumor. Jen was normally so strong, so fierce. She wasn’t a crier.

  Once her tears subsided, she looked up at me with the saddest look I’ve possibly ever seen, as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose on the crumpled up paper towel she’d been fisting in her hand.

  “Where’s my brother?” she asked, sounding congested as she looked around the living room, as if expecting Derrick to appear.

  “He’s out with Whitney.”

  “Who?” she asked, looking confused and a little annoyed.

  “Girl of the week,” I said, needing to explain no more. Derrick changed girls more than he changed his underwear, and Jen knew it. She also blasted him for it whenever she got the chance.

  Of course I wasn’t exactly in a position to talk, since the only reason I was alone at that moment was because . . . Layla? Yeah, Layla. That was her name. She’d had a test in the morning and had to go home to study. I’d met her after our show the night before, and she and her friend, whose name I’d forgotten because she’d left shortly after two in the morning, had come over to hang out. Layla, however, had stayed all night and throughout the day. She and Jen had actually just missed each other by about ten minutes, which was probably a good thing. Jen despised her brother’s ‘man-whore ways’ as she called them, and I didn’t feel like having her judge me the same way. She was my ex after all. I didn’t need her to be aware of my recreational habits.

  Jen slumped back against the couch. “I’ll just wait for him in his room if that’s okay,” she said, sounding despondent.

  “No, you won’t,” I said, knowing that as much as I didn’t want to hear all about her guy problems, because she’d definitely said ‘he’ when she was trying to explain what brought her to our house at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, I knew I couldn’t let her sit alone in Derrick’s room and cry. Besides, he probably wasn’t coming home that night a
nyway. I owed it to her to be a friend with the history we had. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

  We both looked over at the coffee table, distracted as my phone vibrated with a text. It was from Candace, and I wasn’t sure who Candace was, but she was asking me if I was alone. Very tempting.

  “Do you need to get that?” Jen asked, inadvertently stroking her round stomach.

  I shook my head as my eyes drifted to her hand. I still couldn’t believe she was going to be a mother. True, she’d always wanted kids, but I hadn’t expected her to have them so soon. Of course, I was pretty sure she hadn’t planned to get pregnant right before starting grad school, so I had to assume the news had taken her by surprise, as well.

  “I know,” she said, sighing. “I’m fat and disgusting. You can say it.”

  I looked up at her in alarm. “I wasn’t thinking that, Jen,” I said, shaking my head. “Regardless of what you think, I’m not a complete dick.”

  She shrugged but didn’t respond right away. “No, I’m fat and swollen, and Jay no longer finds me fuckable, so there you have it.”

  “What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  “He left me,” she said, as a fresh sob emerged, and I found myself pulling her into my arms again, which felt completely foreign.

  I wondered if she felt the same way because she pulled back quickly.

  “He left?” I asked, as reality hit me square in the stomach. Jen was six months pregnant, and her fiancé had broken up with her? That was bullshit. Derrick was going to kick Jay’s ass.

  She nodded, the tears running down her cheeks. “He said he wasn’t ready to be a father, and he needed some time, and he doesn’t think we should live together anymore.” My eyes got wide with indignation. Maybe I would kick Jay’s ass before Derrick could even get to him. “He said he’ll give me money for when the baby comes, but he doesn’t want to be a part of her life. Zack, I don’t have anywhere to live!” she gasped, and her head fell into her hands.

  Ever practical, Jen was focused on her immediate needs, and I immediately started thinking about where we would put all the crap that we kept in our spare room. Without even thinking about what it would mean and without consulting Derrick, I made the decision that Jen would move in with us. Regardless of my feelings toward her and our history, it was the only option I’d be able to live with. I wasn’t about to send a pregnant woman out on her own, and who knew when Derrick had last changed his sheets. She wasn’t going to stay in his room until she figured out another solution.

  “You can stay with us,” I said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

  I was amazed that I didn’t feel anything toward her. For months after we’d broken up, I’d still get that urge to kiss her when I’d see her out at Leo’s bar or walking on campus. We’d even had that ridiculously hot night together back in May when she’d walked into my room drunk and wearing nothing but her graduation cap, having consumed way too much champagne at dinner with her parents. Jay had been out of town, and she’d come looking for some fun. I’d been more than happy to oblige.

  But it was right after that night that I realized my lingering feelings for the girl I’d dated for three years had gone away. We didn’t see each other that much, but when we did, she was just Derrick’s sister. A friend. I no longer saw her as the first, and only, girl I’d ever loved, and it was a nice change.

  Jen looked up at me in surprise before she threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Zack! You’re the best. I promise it’ll only be for a night or two. I’ll look for my own place tomorrow. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can.”

  I shook my head. I was well-aware of Jen’s financial situation. She was using student loans to pay for grad school and didn’t make a lot of money at her job as an assistant at an accounting firm. According to Derrick, she hadn’t been paying rent at Jay’s place. He was a trust fund baby, and his parents were covering his bills while he was in law school. Jen had scored a sweet deal when they’d moved in together almost a year before, and I didn’t think she’d taken the time to add up just how much money she’d need to survive by herself, let alone when the baby came.

  “Forget it,” I said, and Jen looked up at me in surprise, her mouth a tiny ‘o’. “I’ll move all of our stuff from the spare room into the garage. We’ll make that your room.”

  I smiled to let her know I wasn’t kidding, and she cocked her head to the side. “Seriously?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You’re not exactly in a position where you should live alone anyway. It’ll be better for you to have people around.”

  “What about when the baby comes?” she asked, covering her bases and thinking ahead. Jen was a planner.

  “She’ll live here too,” I said, wondering how on earth Derrick and I would be able to maintain our lifestyles with a baby living under our roof, but in that moment, it was the least of my concerns.

  I knew Derrick would want his sister and his niece living with him, especially since their parents had move to California the year before. As wacked out as Derrick could be, he was weird about family, but in a good way. He adored his older sister and would do anything for her.

  “Zack, are you serious?” I knew she was skeptical of this suggestion, but I didn’t care.

  I nodded. “We’re here for you, okay?”

  Jen sniffed and wiped her nose. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Emily

  Lifting my beer mug from the table, my eyes glanced to the inside of my right wrist, to my flower tattoo. I’d had it for nearly a month, but I still loved to stare at it. The flower was so pretty, but I also loved the words I’d decided to ink around it at the last minute. Whenever I looked at then, I found new resolve.

  All You Can Do Is Jump

  They were Zack’s lyrics, but in the aftermath of what I’d been through with him, they held a lot of meaning for me, as well. There was only one thing I could do to deal with how I still felt about him, and those words reminded me of it. I needed to jump. No matter how bad I felt, I couldn’t let the past hold me back, because after all that time, after nearly two months, I still thought about him every day, and I missed him like crazy. If I wasn’t careful, I would drown in the feelings I still held for him. Jumping was the only option.

  Before I realized it, the overwhelming urge to cry hit me, and I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t cried over Zack in almost a month. I looked up at Taryn and Rachel who were engaged in a conversation I couldn’t hear. They didn’t notice me slowly starting to lose it. Then I realized what the trigger was as the familiar lyrics started resonating in my brain, and that night on the beach came back to me at full speed. I knew I needed to get out of the bar.

  Use Somebody by Kings of Leon was playing on the jukebox. I rose from the table and pushed my way to the door. It was crowded for a Thursday night, and no one seemed to notice me elbowing my way outside, dangerously close to breaking down in the middle of a public place. I was having a hard time fighting back the flood of emotions that had hit me all at once.

  As soon as I got outside, I broke away around the side of the building and leaned against the wall, taking a moment to light a clove cigarette. As soon as the cigarette was at my lips, I inhaled deeply, the smell that reminded me only of Zack, and let the tears flow. I could still hear the faint chords of the song I’d run from playing over the din of people talking and laughing, and I shut my eyes in an effort to block it out altogether.

  Thank God Liar’s Edge had never made it big. It was one thing to get emotional over a song that Zack had played for me, but it wasn’t like it was his voice emanating from that juke box. Had it been, I would have been a puddle on the floor under the table. I hadn’t heard him sing in months, simply because his voice held more power over me than anything else. It was what I’d fallen in love with before I’d fallen in love with him.

  I took another long drag as the song thankfully came to a close and was replaced by a pop song I didn’t know. Holding the smoke in my lungs, I looked up at the
cloudy night sky wishing I hadn’t gone out, but Rachel and Taryn had insisted. They said I’d been holed up in my apartment for too long and they were taking me out for a girl’s night. I begrudgingly got dressed and left with them, all the while knowing it was a bad idea. Well, consider me psychic, because I was right.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the brick wall behind me. I took a few calming breaths and one last drag off of my cigarette before I flicked it away. I gritted my teeth and kicked the wall behind me with the heel of my motorcycle boot. Shaking my head in frustration, I slid down to the ground and lit another cigarette.

  I hadn’t actually intended to start smoking, but it had sort of just happened. Back in September, after I’d gotten my tattoo, Rachel and I had gone outside so she could smoke. Chase’s tattoo was going to take a lot longer, so we had time to kill. But she was out of cigarettes, so we walked to the nearby bodega where I spotted a pack of clove cigarettes. I bought a pack and sat on the bench outside the tattoo parlor with Rachel and inhaled the sweet scent of the burning cloves wafting from the cigarette while we waited for Chase, and for the first time in weeks, I actually felt close to Zack.

  The familiar smell I had inhaled so many times over the summer was literally between my fingers, and I knew I had to replicate it. It became like a drug, and I found myself doing it again and again whenever I missed Zack, which was pretty often. I loved how the smell would take me back to all the happy times we had, and it became like an addiction. I just wanted to feel like I was near him again.

  Unfortunately, I’d start to miss him most when I was out at night and drinking, and it looked a little strange when I sat there sniffing a cigarette in public, so I’d started actually smoking. After a month, I was decently addicted. I was also well aware that it was a horrible habit to have, and I told myself I could stop any time, but I never did. Just like the music that made me think of him, the familiar scent of the cloves took me right back to his spot, and I could almost feel his arms around me as we sat on the beach, backs against the rocks, looking up at the stars.