Page 2 of Broken

Several hours go by and Katherine's light never comes on, she always comes home. Where is she?

Headlights flash in their driveway and I get up to look out the window, trying to not be noticeable. “Arrested?” Mrs. Winston screeches, slamming her car door shut. “This is unacceptable.” I can hear them up here, I have the window cracked open in case she comes home quietly at night.

Arrested? For what? Why would Katherine have been arrested? I watch as they go inside, and her light comes on. My eyes shoot straight to her room as she takes her clothes off, quickly. There's a bandage on her chest, what happened to her? I wish I could just go over there to her, to see why she looks so sad.

Rumors fly at school. Katherine and Nicole were arrested over the weekend. Nicole for underage drinking and Katherine for speeding. Like, beyond speeding. There's also a rumor that Katherine and Knox broke up. Which could be good for me. Giving me the opening I need. The chance to finally talk to her, like really talk to her, because up until now, it’s just been words exchanging like trading punches. Vicious and full of venom.

As the days go by, I watch her as the color begins to fade from her. Each day she wears something darker. Until one day, she's wearing nothing but black. Her dark hair no longer has curls and she no longer has light makeup on. She’s rocking full gothic girl vibes with cute little space buns and heavy eye make-up. She recently got a lip piercing, which only adds to her beauty. The caterpillar didn’t turn into a butterfly like I thought she would. Instead she became a moth, sick looking and misunderstood.

At night she sits up in her room, drawing in notebooks, and I watch her cry herself to sleep. Something happened that night she was arrested, and no one is talking about it. Why is no one talking about it? They’ve all seem to forget what happened, her parents have gotten worse too, which is odd. She’s always been a daddy’s girl, and even he’s giving her the cold shoulder.

I go downstairs, making my way to the garden, or the greenhouse my mother had built. It’s the one place I enjoy being in, there’s so much beauty in one spot. There is an array of pink flowers, I want to pick some for her and give them to her, but she doesn't wear pink anymore. I'll see if there's any black flowers that we can grow.

I pick a simple pink rose from my mother's garden and climb up the lattice on the side of the Winston's house. The little roof allows room for me to walk to Katherine's window. I peek in and make sure she's not there, and check the window to see if it's unlocked. When the pane lifts, I slide it open and step into her pink filled room, the one she used to match not too long ago. I’m careful not to touch anything as I lay the pink rose on her bed. I admire her room, never really having spent much time in here since I was George’s friend, I wasn’t allowed in here. The room smells like her. Yes, I know that’s creepy to know what someone smells like, but I know almost everything about her. Even the way she smells.

A couple more weeks go by and I watch as her clothes start having messages of some kind, almost like she’s trying to tell the world something. Like asking for help, without actually asking kind of thing. She wore a shirt yesterday that said:

IFYKYK

Which is a common saying. But today her shirt says:

FAFO

Which, I don't know what it means. We have second period together as office aides and usually we're too busy to talk, but today, there's nothing to do. So we're sitting here, and I lean over, “What does your shirt mean?” I ask. I can believe I actually managed to talk to her without stuttering.

“Fuck around and find out.” She states quietly, I lean back away from her, thinking she’s basically telling me to fuck off. Then she leans over towards me and whispers, “but this will be the only one I tell you.” She turns back to her paper full of her little drawings. I’d say doodles, but in reality, they aren’t doodles. I doodle, she draws. And it’s fucking amazing. She's drawn a tree with a bird of some kind flying across a night sky, the moon only half lit. There are other things drawn on there but the bell rings and I’m not able to see anymore as she packs up and leaves.

I've started wearing pink, the color she always wore to grab attention. My entire closet is filled with pink clothes. Mostly shirts and socks, but still all light pink, matching what she had on before. It's my new favorite color.

Fucking finals are around the corner, which means graduation isn't far behind it, and I've decided that I'm done waiting. I thought eventually she would give in to me attempting to talk to her, and talk to me, but she hasn’t. I need to get her attention somehow, so here I stand at my tree, waiting. Waiting to see what she does tonight. What happens next will determine what I do. Will she sneak out or will she stay in her room? If she stays in her room, then I'll go back inside and watch her from up there, like the fucking creeper I’ve become. However, if she leaves, maybe just maybe I’ll be able to talk to her for once, without being an asshole. I stopped bullying her a while ago, even though it was all childish pranks, it was still too much. Obviously, I’ve pushed her right out of my path with being a dickhead.

But now I’m screwed, my mind is fucking lost to her. She's become my whole obsession, everything I think about revolves around her, and I'm tired of waiting for her to notice me. It's my turn to show her how I feel and to see what she feels and tastes like.

Chapter One

Katherine

It's Sunday. Family day. And by family day, I mean my family sitting around a table, silently eating as we all secretly judge each other, or at least, that's what I do. I push the green beans around on my plate, not really wanting to eat them or anything else my mother made tonight, or any night lately. She's been on a health kick and creating recipes from the other step-ford wives she hangs out with seems to be her new thing. Can this nightmare just be over, so I can go to Max's house. He's having a party tonight and I can't miss it. It'll be the talk of the school tomorrow, and there will be so many guys. I've casually had a few flings, but I try to never keep one to myself. Not because I can't, but because I don't want a boyfriend. Except one guy, who I seem to keep going back to.

We live in a suburb of a huge city, on a cul-de-sac, the epitome of nuclear lifestyle. I have a father who's a senior partner at a massive law firm. My father, Mr. George Winston, the heavy hitting lawyer. A stay at home mother, the perfect Mrs. Bethany Winston. And a twin brother, George Winston Jr. Everything about my life screamed boring normalcy, until recently. We are the Winston's after all, prim and proper with our noses to the sky. I carry one of the horrific typical girl names for the area, Katherine Marie Winston. I'm the eldest child in the Winston household, even if it's only by seven minutes.

Having such a pedigree looming over my head has made one thing abundantly clear. I was not made for this cookie cutter lifestyle, at one point I may have been. But now, sitting at the dinner table with my perfect family with their polish clothes and hair, I know I don't belong here anymore.

“We have the Yale tour this weekend.” My father chirps, so very proud of my stupid brother’s accomplishments. “Valedictorian, captain of the debate team, class president. We're so proud of you.”

The amount of times I've had to sit through the, ‘why can't you be more like your brother’ is unfathomable. I look at my twin brother and give him a curt, tight, hateful smile and of course he does the ‘I’m the good child' eye batting smile.

“Quit teasing your brother, Katherine.” My mother pokes a green bean, carefully putting it to her lips as she sits up so straight in her chair that she looks fake with her pinched lips and wrinkle free botoxed forehead. Like a Barbie you put at the table when you're lonely. Yes, fine. I played with Barbies when I was little, sue me.

I look down at my clothes, mostly so I don't have to look at her, and see my ripped jeans with fishnets under them. My tattered band shirt, that's been cut and tied to hug my body in ways ‘a Winston shouldn't wear’. Honestly, they gave up trying to tell me what to do about six months ago, after they got a call from the police department.

Yes, I got arrested. No, it wasn’t a big deal. At least not as big of a deal as my parents made it out to be. Strictly speaking, it was a tarnish on the Winston name and they couldn't stand for it. So they leave me be, telling their friends, “oh she's just going through her rebellious stage, we've all been there.” basically telling everyone that it's just a phase. All I did was drive my drunk friend home, granted, I wasn't exactly driving the speed limit. But we were having fun and she was underage and totally wasted, we were put into the back of the cop car, and sent off for our mugshots. Needless to say, the cops down the highway don't appreciate our kind, the rich kids, coming into their small town.

After the scandal of Katherine Winston getting arrested, died down, so did my parents' attention on me. Everything went back to, “What college is Jr going to.”

When I finish my food, well what I could manage to scarf down, I get up from the table. Leaving the plate because my mother would have a cow if I helped her, “Sweetheart, you'd just be in my way.” Or in layman's terms, I'm a control freak and you won't do it my way.

“Upstairs to study, you have finals this week.” My father says with his authoritative voice. Sometimes he forgets that we're his kids, instead treating us as if we're his employees. Kind of like he treats his assistant at work, less than him, but with higher standards than others. Or, I suppose that's how he treats me, now.

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