Fractured Love

by Ella James

  Behind Jake’s house, in a space a little larger than a football field, are two ponds, with a thick, grass median between them. If I recall, each pond is stocked with different types of fish.

  On the left side of the ponds is a giant field, and if you keep on going, a trailhead that leads up to a sizable waterfall. I only know about it because Jake’s parents and mine are friends, so we grew up around here.

  It seems, from where I’m standing on the deck, as if the party is mostly confined to the pool deck and the ponds directly behind it. In the median between ponds, the boys have pitched a few tents.

  Because that’s not transparent…

  Thirty minutes later, my clan has wandered out beyond the pool, where there’s a rowdy game of water volleyball, and toward the pond to the right, where I see splashing in the water near the mucky shore.

  Makayla and Tia stop to get some water bottles from a nearby cooler, but my eyes are glued to the figures in the water.

  It’s two guy-and-girl couples, seemingly fighting; the girls are on the guys’ shoulders.

  I blink, and puzzle pieces fit together in my mind. The guy on the left, with the blonde atop him—that’s Landon!

  I can barely breathe as I watch the fight. Someone produces those thick, Styrofoam noodle-looking things that people use to float in pools, and the girls start whacking each other with them. Laughter and cheers ring through the night. One guy holds a giant lawn spotlight on the battle. Someone else starts pelting the couples with fruit that I think came from hunch punch.

  The air smells like hot grass, pond water, and liquor.

  Finally, not nearly soon enough, Landon’s girl gets knocked into the water. I watch him scoop her up and carry her a few steps to the shore. He sets her gently in the sand, then rubs a hand back through his own wet hair, and pulls his soaking shirt off. All around, girls whistle. Landon’s eyes go wide, as if he didn’t realize that would happen. He runs his hand back through his hair again, looking nervous, before he grins and gives a thumbs-up.

  Perfect.

  Makayla’s eyes are on my face as Landon walks around the shoreline, up toward the tents.

  “What is this, Ancient Rome?” I mutter.

  Makayla nudges my arm. I elbow her in reply. Inside, I’m seething, and I hate myself for it.

  “He’s so drunk.”

  I blink, then turn to face her. “What?”

  “He seemed like…really drunk.” She gives me wide eyes, as if to say, C’mon, you know I’m right.

  “Was he?”

  “He was staggering,” Makayla says.

  “I think he just walks that way.”

  She shakes her head.

  “I agree,” Tia says. “I saw him with the beer funnel.”

  I frown, shaking my head. That doesn’t seem like Landon.

  After a few more minutes standing with my friends, the pull is just too great: I head into the grassy median that runs between the two ponds, scanning the crowd around the tents for someone tall and shirtless. I crest the slight hill in time to see Landon emerge from one of the tents. He’s still shirtless, wearing just his flip-flops and his dripping khakis.

  I pause underneath a small willow and watch him as he glances around, then walks behind the tent and sits down by the less-trafficked pond on the left. Then he tries to stand back up. I realize that my friends are right—he’s drunk—by how much time it takes him to get to his feet.

  He looks around again before he starts around the far side of the left pond, down a trail that runs between the pond’s beach and the dark woods.

  I watch for a few moments before following.

  It’s dark outside, but not completely dark. There’s moonlight streaming through the shifting clouds, down onto the pond—and Landon’s bare back.

  I don’t need to see the trail. I know it well. As I follow, I hang back to keep some space between us…and I watch him.

  The pond isn’t that big. We clear it before long, and Landon follows the foot-worn path into the field. It’s really more like a large grove in the middle of the forest. Two giant rocks rest at odd spots in the tall grass. I look up; the clouds have parted, showing me a blanket of stars.

  Landon reaches the first boulder and slows. Then he proceeds to the second one. I watch him sit right at its base, resting his back against the stone and stretching out his legs into the tall grass. He leans his head back slightly, and I start to close the space between us.

  My footsteps with my boot aren’t exactly discreet, though. He looks up as I approach, the moonlight showing me his face. His brows draw together in confusion. Then his face relaxes. “Evie…”

  “Yeah.” It’s whispered, even though we’re all alone. I move still closer to him, crouching down in front of him as Landon blinks at me. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He shrugs, a sloppy motion. “Just wanted to see…the stars.”

  Even his tone is different. His eyes look half-shut, his shoulders slouching. He tips his head back, looking at the starry sky, and I step closer, sinking slowly to sit directly in front of him.

  I look at his beautiful bare body, warmed at just the sight of it. “Are you cold without your shirt on?”

  His gaze meets mine. “It’s in the seventies.”

  That’s true, I guess. I nod. Still, he rubs his hands along his triceps.

  I can’t resist; I say, “I saw you in the water.”

  His face tightens. “Yeah?”

  I nod. “And in the kitchen, too.”

  His face darkens when I say that.

  “What?” I say. “Who was that?”

  I open my mouth to explain the guy I’m referencing, but Landon sneers. “No one.” The words sound bitter.

  “Meaning, not no one.”

  “Just some little fuck I used to live with.”

  Whoa. I blink, and wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, just frowns at the grass in front of him, I say, “Like an old foster brother?”

  He looks up at me, then back down, extending his arm toward me. He turns it over, so his palm is up and his scar shines dully in the moonlight. “He was my ‘brother’ when this happened. Didn’t last long.”

  I swallow hard, then reach out to close my hands around his wrist. “What do you mean?”

  He shakes his head. “They didn’t get me after that.”

  “After what?” I whisper, scooting slightly closer to him.

  “I broke it, but they didn’t take me in. It didn’t look broken, I guess?” He shrugs, like we’re talking about weather. “It healed wrong, had to be re-broken with the surgery.” His eyelids are heavy, the words a little slurred. “I guess it made them…change their minds.” He flexes those fingers. His face is solemn, and his eyes look lost.

  “Did they get in trouble, for not taking you to the hospital soon enough?”

  He shrugs. “I never saw that kid again,” he says in a tone that’s almost wistful. “’Til right now. Tonight. That kid at the refrigerator?” he asks, looking at me like he’s just remembered that I’m here. “He was six. And I was seven. He didn’t remember me…just now. He asked how he knew me.”

  I stroke his arm with my fingers, and then I scoot so that I’m right beside him, our backs up against the rock. I intertwine my arm with his, and bring his hand up to my lips, so I can kiss the side of it.

  He swallows heavily, his shoulders rising, falling. “People forget, you know? When you’re just passing through…”

  “I bet they don’t all forget,” I whisper.

  “Trust me.” He gives me a sideways smile that’s devastating because it’s so sad. “I know the way this goes.”

  “I think the way it goes sounds like it sucks.” I lean against him, pressing his knuckles against the warmth of my cheek. His eyes hold mine for one long moment before he nuzzles my head with his chin.

  “Why are you here?” he murmurs.

  I lean closer to him. “I want to be where you are. Always.”

  “Why, though, Evie?”<
br />
  “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just feel like everything is…right when we’re together. Do you feel that too?”

  He looks at me. His eyes are steel gray, solemn and perceptive in the moonlight that streams through the clouds. “Yeah.”

  My fingers tighten around his. “What are we going to do?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. A gentle wind blows, tipping blades of grass around us. Landon’s eyes are molten now.

  “I think about not being near you like we are right now, and I…can’t take it.”

  Landon’s hand around mine squeezes.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say, surprised to find my throat is tight. Out here in this field, with trees around us and the cauldron of clouds and stars above us, I feel like we’re in another world.

  “Maybe you should stay away from me.” His voice is hoarse. His eyes are strange.

  “I don’t think so.” I swallow, looking back down at our joined hands. “I don’t think I can. It seems impossible.”

  His fingers stroke between mine, and I feel it in my lower belly. “Why is it impossible?”

  “I don’t know why.” I feel a piercing sensation in the center of my chest, as if my heart is getting penetrated with a real, live cupid’s arrow. I look up at him, at his eyes—now soft in the cloudy light—and his familiar, trusted face. “You’re just…my favorite person,” I whisper.

  He smiles again, just slightly, and it’s a smile that makes me want to cry. “I don’t know why that is. Why is anybody anybody’s favorite person? Sometimes I feel like it’s a miracle that we can find those people.”

  I close my eyes and try to focus on the feeling of my hand wrapped up in his. Because, even right now, in the soft grass, on this moon-drenched night, I have the strange sensation that it’s all about to end. I’m going to lose him. I can feel it coming.

  “I don’t think it matters why, do you?” I draw his hand nearer to me, up against my lower belly. “I just want to be near you. I’ve never wanted anything this much, Landon. Never.”

  And I know somehow, I’ll never want anything like this again.

  “You shouldn’t say that,” he says softly.

  “Why?” I’m surprised to see I’m peering at him through the gleam of tears. “Is it just one-sided? Just me?”

  His mouth tightens. “You know it’s not.”

  He lets go of my hand and wraps his arm around me—tight.

  “I want you all the time, Evie. It’s like…a thirst. I saw Gabe, but I had seen you in there, too. All I fucking wanted was to tell you. I can’t even talk to you without losing a hold on myself. So,” he says—inhaling, then exhaling. “I tried to dull it, but it didn’t—getting drunk. Now it’s so much worse. Now all I can think about is how much I want to touch you… Evie, go now. I’ll walk back behind you.”

  “No.”

  I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want Landon’s mouth on mine. I want to feel him, hear him…touch him.

  “I want your hands on me,” he rasps, “my hands on you. I want to do things I shouldn’t want to do, keep you out here in this field for hours, just the two of us, so I can— Ev, I’m telling you, you have to go.”

  My body is aflame. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” I hear myself tell him.

  Landon groans, and that is all the warning that I have before his mouth covers my own, his hands stroking behind my neck and clenching in my hair. He holds me to him as he kisses me. My body thrums, as if begging his mouth to visit every part of me.

  I know—as he holds me in his hard, strong arms, as our frantic mouths wage tender war—why they call it falling.

  I feel as if I’m in a free-fall, grasping at him reflexively. Needing to hold onto him.

  We take gasping breaks between our frenzy. Words pour out.

  “Oh, Landon.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  We kiss so long and hard, I wind up on his lap, and I can feel the fire between our bodies even in my lungs. I can’t remember how to breathe without gasping his name.

  “Evie,” he whispers between the onslaught. “Evie…” And I love the way he says it. Like a prayer.

  I’m on top of him, and his lips are on my throat; his hands are on my shoulders, and they’re sliding down. My hands are rubbing his muscular belly, and he’s jolting, groaning, stretching out beneath me.

  “Oh God, Evie…”

  I kiss his neck, and Landon jerks away. “Evie—you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…I’ll— Evie…” he swallows. “I can’t help it,” he says hoarsely. “Being near you, it will make me—”

  “What?” I whisper.

  His eyes shut. “You overwhelm me, Evie.”

  “I want to overwhelm you.”

  So he shows me—with my hands and with the best part of him.

  It doesn’t end that night. Because we just keep falling—on through weeks.

  In his better moments, Landon tries his best to keep me from forbidden fruit, but it’s as if the more he tries, the more I want it. Need it.

  He stays far away from me for nearly a whole day after the night at Jake’s house, and after that, I see him every night in his bedroom. Our bodies come together—and our hearts do, too.

  I kiss him until he can’t endure it anymore, and he drives me over the same ledge, and then we’re tired enough to sleep.

  As fall turns into winter, we meet on the basement stairs at odd hours, at all hours. Nothing can dampen our flames. It’s like a forest fire that grows and grows, consuming everything.

  I lie to everyone except Makayla; even to my best friend, I give little.

  Everything for Landon.

  I learn him better than I know my own poor, thirsty heart. We lie in his bed in the deepest part of night, our gazes flitting toward the floorboards over our heads and our hands busy, our hearts pumping, our words turning the old basement into a place of heady magic.

  It happens on the airplane sheets I picked for him. It happens in my parents’ house. It happens on the days we’re both at home with flu, and on the weekend that my Mom and Dad go out of town for their anniversary—instead of going to our friends’ houses, we both stay home.

  I feel as if I’ve been half-dead for sixteen years, and now my heart beats. Overnight, and weeks, then months, I come to understand why people fight in wars. Why people leave their families and get on ships and sail to far sides of the world. I understand why crimes of passion happen, and why sometimes, there are tales of married couples who die hours apart.

  Loving Landon is like breathing. My lungs expand, and my head spins.

  Eleven

  Landon

  “What kind of doctor?” I ask, the question muffled against her hair.

  “I’m not sure yet. Maybe one that deals with brains.” As she speaks, her hair tickles my chin.

  “Brains, hm?” I lean back a little, not loosening my grip on her, but just enough so I can look into her eyes.

  “What’s so appealing about brains?” I ask her.

  Evie snorts. I feel her little breath against my throat, where her lips rest.

  It’s the middle of the night one snowy evening just after our Thanksgiving break. We’re in my bed, on our sides, facing each other.

  “They seem like the most important part, you know,” she tells me. “Cardiology is considered so glamorous, at least it is from what I gather, but the heart is just a big ol’ boring muscle.”

  That makes me chuckle. “I’d say you’re under-rating it a bit.”

  She tilts her head back, so she can see me better. “Meh. Brains are everything. They make you who you are. To me the brain is like the computer, and the rest of the body is basically a stupid, plastic case.”

  “Evie…” I go to thump her nose, then decide to stroke it instead. “You’re just plain wrong. The plastic is the skin, and even then, the skin is more dynamic than a plastic case. You’re going to
be one very snobby brain surgeon.”

  She grins, making me laugh.

  “I think you know you are,” I tell her, mock accusingly.

  Her hand strokes my cheek. “What about you, Mr. Smarty Pants? What type of doctor do you want to be?”

  I’ve told her in the past that I, too, want to be a doctor. Evie knows me so well now, I don’t think it surprised her. She never once asked if it had anything to do with living here in this house, or with her parents. It has everything to do with me, and nothing to do with the Rutherfords.

  I chuckle. “What if I say heart surgeon?”

  She kisses my chin. “I don’t think you will. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you said surgeon. I’ve seen you at the dinner table.”

  I roll my eyes. Evie loves to talk about my precision with a steak knife, which I think is slightly silly.

  I shrug. “Oncology, maybe. I’ve always thought of doing something with kids.”

  “Kids?” She looks aghast.

  “I know, so crazy. Why would anyone want to save children? Evil little bastards.”

  “It’s just...so sad.”

  I shrug the shoulder I’m not lying on. “Sometimes shit is sad.”

  “Not oncology. Landon, I’d need to prescribe you antidepressants.”

  “I don’t think it takes a neurosurgeon to do that.” I nip at her throat, bring one hand up to stroke her through her soft camisole. “In any event,” I say as I trace the smooth line of her collarbone, “you seem a little not yourself tonight. A bit…heartless, one might say. Maybe I should examine you right now…just to be sure everything seems normal…”

  Evie

  We drive to and from school together, holding hands, exchanging kisses, sometimes leaving the house early for some made-up something—which turns out to be a stop in one of those gas station car washes, where we get dirty instead of clean.

  At school, we have to play it cooler, which bothers us both. Makayla knows the truth, and Tia has suspicions, but she’d never ask. We try to act like good friends and nothing more, and hope the truth of the good friends part will shine through.