What more could I possible do? I have added, subtracted and now I am leaving it like this. Thoughts?
BROKEN
Chapter 1
Meet Tate Fox
“You are a fierce and independent woman. You have the ability to carve your own path. You are special,” a soothing, yet robotic voice repeated.
“Total crap,” I said and ejected the tape from my car radio. The person reciting the mantra was obnoxiously calm and I smiled as I realized how much it reminded me of Irene. Irene, my boyfriend’s mother, was a perfect, perky, real estate agent. She bought me the cassette tape at a yard sale, and although I give her credit for finding a cassette anywhere, I didn’t need a zombie telling me how special I was. I knew that Irene’s real motivation was to get me independent enough to break up with Mike, her son.
Sorry, lady. Not gonna happen.
When I first found out that Mike had been offered a scholarship in California, I wanted to be happy for him, I really did. And although I smiled and pretended to celebrate with his family, inside I was broken hearted. The simple fact was that Mike took care of me. I was completely and unabashedly dependent on him. He was doing a bang up job too; well at least he was until he decided to take that stupid scholarship at Berkley. Now I’m stuck spending my junior year without him, without anyone really.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I clenched my jaw and looked at the clock, knowing that I was already late for first period. I lifted my butt off the seat in order to wiggle the world’s oldest and most useless phone out of my pocket. My Honda swerved to the right and I straightened it quickly, glancing in my rear view mirror.
“You’re going to get me killed,” I said into the phone and waited.
“Why is class dangerous?” Mike asked.
“Shut up.”
“I can’t believe you’re late again,” he said with a laugh.
“Do you call just to irritate me?”
“No, I knew you’d be late and I wanted to say good morning.”
I couldn’t stop the huge grin from spreading across my face. I could picture Mike laying across his dorm room bed, shirtless and glistening in sweat as he talked on the phone. Okay, he probably wasn’t actually sweaty, but he always was when I imagined him.
“Are you at least parking?” he asked amused.
“I’m walking up the steps right now,” I lied. The Corvallis High School parking lot was still a few blocks away.
“Really? Then how come I can still hear your engine over the phone?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, yeah. So what have got planned for me this weekend?”
“Besides gratuitously making out on my couch?”
He laughed. “You sure talk a good game from 10 hours away.”
It was true that I tried to work him into a frenzy every time we talked, but it was all in the hope that he would act on it in person. But alas, my boyfriend had the willpower of a saint.
“Alright,” he said. “I gotta get to class. Go serve your detention, and I’ll call you when you get home.”
“Don’t hang up, I’m almost there.”
“I thought you were walking up the steps?” He chuckled.
“I am.”
I tore into the parking lot and swerved into the closest available spot. I yanked up my emergency brake and the car shuttered to a stop.
“You’re such a liar,” he said as a compliment.
“Well, there were perfectly good colleges here in Oregon,” I replied. “If you would have stayed you could have brought me to school everyday.”
Silence.
“Again, Emy?” Mike said with irritation. “We’ve been through this, what, a million times?”
As usual, he was right, I did forever guilt trip him about leaving.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep bringing it up.”
“Over and over.”
“I miss you. I want you here.”
Mike exhaled and I leaned my head against my driver’s side window. It seemed that lately, all of our conversations ended with me wanting to cry.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I’ll be back for the weekend and look, you’ve made it these first four months. Only four more to go, okay?”
“Great. Four more months of listening to your mother’s self help tapes,” I said. Mike laughed and I traced hearts into the fog that my breath created on the window. Outside, the front of the dreary, gray building was deserted and I glanced between it and my fingers.
“I love you, Emy,” he sang, trying to cheer me up.
“I know. I love you, too.”
After we hung up, I shut off my phone and tucked it into my backpack. I opened my door with effort and climbed out, slamming it closed behind me. As I approached the school, I tried to imagine Mike again, with his soft blonde curls and his completely and unnecessarily hot muscles. But the pictures I wanted were no longer there. Instead I saw the image that had been haunting for three years, the one that never really left.
Mike’s face, contorted and pale, as he told me that my brother was dead.
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