Marty doesn’t look over at me, works his jaw and stares straight ahead. “I don’t know. It just broke.”
Smiling, I say, “Glass doesn’t just break—”
“Well, it did. Damn, Avery. Back off. Shit breaks sometimes.” Marty keeps walking, taking his long strides, but I stop. He’s never spoken to me like that before. Marty is always all gossip and smiles. He never raises his voice. If he swears, it’s for drama. He’s never sounded like that before. I find myself standing still and my feet won’t move.
After a few paces Marty stops. Looking at the dead grass beneath his shoes, he says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” His voice trails off. Lifting his gaze slowly, Marty looks at me. There’s something there, something that doesn’t make sense. He’s looking at me with this raw expression on his face, like I was the one who shoved the broken beaker into his hand and made him bleed.
“It’s been a rough couple of days.” He smiles at me and whatever I thought I saw is gone, concealed behind the mask of smiles and laughter. “I’ll take care of this on my own. If you could go back and grab my books, that’d be great. I’ll get them from you at breakfast, okay?” Although his tone makes it sound like he’s asking me, I know he isn’t. For some reason Marty doesn’t want me around right now.
Confused, I nod. I wonder what I did that bothered him like this. I can’t think of anything, but I don’t press him. “Sure. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll finish up the work and turn it in, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Marty nods curtly. He turns and walks away without looking back.
CHAPTER 6
The night seems to take forever. It seems like the sun will never rise. I get up before dawn. I can’t sleep anyway. I pull on jeans and a sweatshirt.
As I yank my hair back into a sloppy ponytail, Amber stirs. She groans, “Where are you going, freak? It’s not even 6:00am.”
“Go back to bed, Skankzilla.” I glance at her. Amber isn’t really awake. I doubt she’ll even remember talking to me. I yank on my sneakers as she rolls back over and disappears under her covers. I wish I could sleep like that, but I can’t. I hardly sleep at all anymore. There are too many thoughts racing through my head, too many memories that flash just as I close my eyes. My body aches, tired from lack of sleep—tired from life.
Grabbing my wallet, I shove it in my back pocket, take my book bag, and fish my keys out of my purse. I walk down the hall alone. No one is awake. The kids that stay up forever are passed out somewhere. The only sound I hear is the hum of the florescent lights overhead. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I run down the flights of stairs, and push open the door.
Frigid air blasts me in the face. It feels like I walked into a freezer. I welcome the onslaught of sensations, the way the air pricks my skin, stinging it. It reminds me that I’m alive and I need that right now, I need that today.
After getting my car started, I drive to the beach. I’m not searching for the lost necklace today. That’s not what this is about. I need to hear the waves and feel the sand. I need the peace that eludes me and I know that I can find it there, despite everything that’s happened to me.
The roads are fairly empty once I hit Ocean Parkway. No one goes to the beach this early, not when it’s freezing outside. I shiver in my car, as I drive along, watching sea and sand fly by my window. It isn’t until I pull into Field 5 and step out of my car that I feel like I can relax a little. It’s too cold. I know I can’t stay long, but I can’t shake the crushing grief. It snuck up on me in the middle of the night and wouldn’t let go. For some reason, sitting and watching the waves makes me feel better. This is my security blanket, the one thing that makes me feel better even on the worst days.
I walk onto the sand and head toward the water. Glancing up and down the beach, I see no one. Seagulls screech overhead and fly away when they see I have no food. I sit on the dry sand and stare out at the waves. The sea is smooth today, like a sheet of black glass. It laps at the shore, almost hugging it as if they were friends. Solace finds me and an unexplainable inner-warmth swirls within my stomach.
Everything will be okay.
I stare, unblinking at the sea, allowing the wind to chill my skin until it’s numb. I wrap my arms around my knees and pull them to my chest, locking my fingers. I breathe, and blink. Sometimes it’s the little things that help me get through the big things. Taking one moment at a time, one breath at a time. It seems manageable, even when my life is not.
The sun is creeping over the horizon, lazily spilling orange and pink streaks across the sky. It isn’t until the sun is halfway up that I see someone dressed in a heavy coat down the beach. They’re standing so far away that I can’t see their face. The man is speck on the horizon, a black dot in a warm coat.
My throat tightens. I react to him. I know it’s him. I sense it. The wind ruffles his dark hair. The man turns his head as if he can feel my gaze. My heart beats harder. I wish it would still. I wish Sean didn’t make me respond this way.
I ignore him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s some other guy. I can hope. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth as I lock my jaw. I try to relax and ignore the man, but I can’t. I stare at the slow waves and the next time I look down the beach, the man is gone. The tension lining my spine softens and I breathe in deeply.
I blink and decide to fall back in the sand. The urge to lay back and look at the sky overwhelms me. Things like the sky and the sea calm me. They remind me how small I am. Maybe that makes other people feel lost, but it makes me feel like maybe my problems aren’t so large, like maybe I can really survive this life and all the things that have happened to me. If a grain of sand can stand to be pounded by the sea, then I can take the beating I’ve been handed.
Sucking in a deep breath, I smile and fall back onto the sand. When I look up, I expect to see the colors of the sunrise painted across the sky, but I don’t. I see a man’s upside-down face, looking at me. I screech and push up on my elbows, crab-walking away from him a few paces, until my brain registers that he isn’t here to kill me—that I know him.
“What the hell, Ferro?” I grab my heart through my sweatshirt. I can’t breathe. I don’t look up at him. There’s something about his eyes that will make me believe whatever he has to say. I can’t be here, not with him. Not now.
Sean looks down at me. I can feel his gaze on my cheek. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was—”
“Well, what the hell were you doing, standing that close if you didn’t mean to startle me? I mean—fuck—could you be any creepier? Damn, Sean.” I stand up and brush the sand off my shirt and my jeans. I walk away from Sean before he answers. I don’t want to hear it.
Sean’s behind me, following me. “Avery, wait. I wanted to tell you—”
But I don’t stop. I’ll never stop—not for him—not ever again. Sean’s mouth is filled with lies. His voice makes deceit sound like music. If I stop, if I look at him, I’m screwed. I’ll cave in and hear Sean out and I don’t want to. There’s nothing he can say that will fix what he’s done. He flambéed any chance we had for anything. I walk faster, but my feet just sink into the sand. It fills my sneakers, but I don’t stop.
“Avery!” Sean calls behind me. “I need to give this to you. Wait a second.”
I hear him running up behind me. As I step onto the boardwalk and off the sand, Sean catches up with me. He manages to grab my elbow. I whirl around, heart pounding. Everything he does puts me on edge. Sean can’t speak without my pulse roaring in my ears. My brain registers the touch as pain. My arm sears like he’s burned me. I yank it back, hard, and then swing. I throw my shoulder into the punch, not holding back.
Shock flashes across Sean’s beautiful features swiftly. My fist is on a collision course with his face. At the last second, Sean steps to the side. My punch lands on his shoulder. He grabs my wrist and holds it tight. Sean looks down at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What are you doing?”
I try to pull away from him, but he doesn’t release me. Every inch of my body is shaking with rage. It courses through my veins and I feel like I’m going to explode. Still, I don’t look at his eyes. He’s a goddamn snake, a viper. He’ll steal my soul and devour me.
I scream in his face without looking higher than his chin. “What am I doing? What are you doing? This is my place, not yours! You have no f**king right to—”
“To what?” He yanks my wrist and pulls me closer, making my body smack into his. The scent of his cologne hits me hard. Vivid memories of his body intertwined with mine flash through my mind. “To what, Avery?” His voice makes me want to cry. The way he talks to me—it sounds like nothing’s happened—that he still regards me exactly the same way he did before, and it kills me. It kills me because that means that I meant nothing to him, not before and not now.
I twist my hand out of his grip and pull away. I feel reach toward my shoulder and evade his hand so he can’t touch me. “To nothing! Nothing… Just leave me alone.” My voice no longer shakes. My neck feels tight like it might turn to stone. I lock my jaw to keep from speaking. I hasten my pace and walk away from him. I hear Sean’s expensive shoes following me down the boardwalk. I don’t look back. I just walk faster.
“I have something for you.” Sean says it like he’s going to hand me the piggy kite, like nothing went badly between us. I don’t turn back. I don’t look over my shoulder when I no longer hear his footfalls inching closer and closer.
I’ll never go back to him. He can go to hell.
I manage to start my car and leave without speaking to him. Sean doesn’t follow me. I don’t see his car. He lets me leave. I don’t understand why he was here, why he followed me. I can barely think, so I don’t think at all. I don’t know why Sean was here, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing he does matters anymore.
CHAPTER 7
The rest of the week is more of the same—more sleepless nights, more tension that won’t ease out of my muscles, more distance from my friends. Mel watches me closely. It makes me feel brittle, like I’ll lose it if she says something to me, so I avoid her for a few days. Marty is even worse. Ever since he broke that test tube in lab, he’s become more distant. I wish I knew what I did that made him like this, but I won’t ask. I know he won’t tell me.
Miss Black called me midweek and told me that I would be an escort this weekend, to show up at her place on Friday night at 6:00pm and she’ll go over the details. It’s an hour before our meeting. I’m trying to pin up my hair into a loose up-do. I hope it looks sexy and not sloppy. There’s a fine line with hairstyles and I’m never really sure which side of the line I’m on.
I slip into my only dress and heels and head for my car. On the way outside, I see Marty walking toward me in the parking lot. His eyes sweep over me and he grins. “Hey, hooker. Got a hot date?”