Breakable (Contours of the Heart 2)

‘You have your house key?’

I nodded.

‘I’ll have a car here at three thirty. I’ll be home early. Five thirty, latest.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Lock the door when you get home.’ And check the windows.

I nodded again and shut the passenger door. He looked at me through the glass, and again, the crazy wish that he wouldn’t leave me here sprang up and grabbed me by the throat. He raised a hand and drove away.

So I’d never reminded him about hockey practice. I just stopped going.

When my coach finally called me, I told him I was quitting. He suggested that keeping previous routines in place would be good for me. Told me I could return at my pace, build back up. Said the team was ready to support me – that some of the guys had discussed having decals of Mom’s initials added to our helmets or sewn on to the sleeves of our jerseys. I sat stonily on the other end of the line, waiting for him to realize that I wouldn’t argue, but I also wouldn’t go.

I don’t know if Dad continued to pay or if they stopped billing him, and I didn’t care.

There was this girl I’d liked, before. (Everything now was either before or after.) Before-girl’s name was Yesenia. I hadn’t seen her since the last day of seventh grade, but we’d texted a couple of times over the summer and had been friends online, trading cryptic social-media comments, which is sort of like flirting in semaphore. Cool shot. Haha awesome. Pretty eyes. This last was from her, one comment of a dozen on a pic Mom had taken of me on Grandpa’s beach, standing in the surf at sunset.

Hers was the only comment that mattered. It was also the boldest thing either of us had ever said to each other.

I’d grown over the summer. A good thing, because Yesenia and I had been the same height in seventh grade, and there’s this thing about girls and height – they want to wear heels and not be taller than the guy. I’d added three inches and had hopes for more. Dad was over six feet. Neither of my grandfathers was.

The only daughter of an ambassador from El Salvador, Yesenia was beautiful and dark, with short, silky black hair and huge brown eyes that watched me from across classrooms and lunch tables. She lived in a brownstone off Dupont Circle. I’d talked Mom into letting me ride the Metro to her place alone two weeks before, but hadn’t yet built up the nerve to ask Yesenia if I could come over.

That second week of school, I managed to catch her without her mob of friends – a rare occurrence with thirteen-year-old girls. ‘Hey, do you wanna go see a movie Saturday?’ I blurted the invitation and she blinked up at me, hopefully noticing those three inches. She was the tallest girl in our grade. Some guys had to look up to her. ‘With me?’ I qualified when she didn’t answer right away.

‘Um …’ She fidgeted with the books in her arms as my heart thudded out dammit, dammit, dammit, until she said, ‘I’m not really allowed to go out with boys yet.’

Huh. My turn to fidget in response.

‘But maybe … you could come over and watch a movie at my house?’ She was hesitant – like she thought that maybe I’d turn her down.

I felt like I’d been dunked head first in cold water, yanked back out and then kissed, but I just nodded, determined to play nonchalant. So I’d asked a girl out. No big deal. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll text you.’

Her friends showed up at the end of the hall, summoning her and eyeing me curiously. ‘Hi, Landon,’ one of them said.

I returned the greeting with a smile and turned, hands in pockets, mouthing yes, yes, YES under my breath, as though I’d just fired a puck into the goal right past the goalie’s padded knee. Saturday was only five days away.

Twenty-four hours later, my life had shifted into after.

LUCAS

‘You. Are. An. Asshole! ’

My lips pressed into a thin line, and I struggled to contain the retort flashing across my brain: Wow. There’s one I’ve never heard.

I continued filling out the parking ticket I was thankfully nearly finished recording.

I feel sorry for people whose meters run out before they get back to the car. I feel sorry for people parked in admittedly ambiguously labelled lots. I do not feel sorry for a student who parks directly under a FACULTY PARKING ONLY sign.

When she realized that her appearance and predictable insult hadn’t motivated me to quit writing or even glance up, she tried a different tactic. ‘C’mon, pleeease? I was only in there for like ten minutes! I swear!’

Uh-huh.

I tore the ticket off and extended it towards her. She crossed her arms and glared at me. Shrugging, I pulled out an envelope, placed the ticket inside, and stuck the envelope under her windshield wiper.

As I turned to get back into the cart I drive lot-to-lot around campus, she yelled, ‘Son of a monkey-assed whore!’

That, on the other hand, is new. Well played, Ms Baby Blue Mini Cooper.

Man, I wasn’t sure they paid me enough to compensate for this type of abuse. I sure as hell wasn’t doing it for the prestige. For this, I tucked my hair under a polyester-coated, navy hat that made the top of my head feel like it was on fire when I stood out in the sun too long on hot days, which described seventy per cent of the year. I replaced my lip ring, its piercing thankfully several-years healed, with a clear retainer for the duration of my shifts. I wore a uniform that was the direct opposite of anything else in my wardrobe.

Granted, these three things kept every student I’ve ever ticketed – even, in a couple of cases, people I sat right next to in class – from recognizing me while I was in the process of ruining their days.

‘Excuse me! Yoo-hoo!’

This is the sort of summons usually delivered by someone’s grandma – but no, it was my thermodynamics professor from last spring. Hell. I pocketed the ticket pad, praying he wasn’t Mr Brand-New Mercedes, who I’d just ticketed for parking across two spaces at the back of the lot. I wouldn’t have thought Dr Aziz capable of being such an asshat – but people were weird behind the wheel of a car. Their personalities could morph from stable, sane citizens to road-raged dipshits.

‘Yes, sir?’ I answered, bracing.

‘I need a jump!’ He panted like he’d sprinted across a football field.

‘Oh. Sure. Hop in. Where’s your car?’ I ignored the girl in the Mini Cooper, giving me the finger as she squealed by us.

Though he didn’t comment, Dr Aziz wasn’t as inured to the gesture that was all too routine for me. Brows elevated, he climbed into the passenger seat and held on with both hands after fumbling for the nonexistent seatbelt. ‘Two rows over.’ He pointed. ‘The green Taurus.’