Page 17 of Broken Skulls

“I’m too infected with the bad shit to forget it.”

“Okay, so maybe you’re right. We can’t forget, but you sure as hell can purge yourself from some of it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve done it.” I stand up. “I’ll talk to you at supper.”

Her hand shoots off her leg, as if she’s going to reach out and stop me from leaving, but she lets it slowly fall back to her lap.

When I return later on, with her meal, I anxiously wait for her to speak to me first. She doesn’t disappoint.

“Iwashappy the day you stopped me from jumping off the edge of that cliff.”

I laugh at this, because it makes me happier than I’ll admit that she’s talking to me. Women don’t like to talk to me much. I mean, I’m handsome enough, I guess, but my looks don’t override my peculiarity.

“Strange way to show it.” I light up a cigarette, blowing smoke over my head.

“I was.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“No. I do. I don’t think you’re a liar.”

“Well, you’d be the first.”

I remain quiet, because I’m letting her lead the conversation.

“What do you think I am?” she finally asks.

I flick my lighter, staring into the flame. I debate with myself how far to push this conversation. “I think you’re a woman who’s been protecting what’s hers.”

And that is where our conversation ends.

I wait for about an hour before walking up the stairs, leaving her alone in the dark.

Before going to bed, I water my mom’s plants. “I think she’s the best broken thing I’ve ever collected,” I tell them. Or my mom.

Whoever is listening.

Chapter Ten

Lizzie

You would think being in the light yesterday would have acclimated me to the brightness of the sun, but no. I’m blinking away tears as I squint at the large object, a blue cow maybe, in front of me. JD pushes a pair of sunglasses over my eyes. Oh, it’s not a cow. It’s a car.

He hands me a baseball bat.

“Have at her,” he says before pulling his own shades from his head, placing them over his eyes.

I grimace at my reflection in their mirror… what a fright I am. My hair is wild and tangled around my face.

I stand in place as I watch him walk away from me. He lowers himself in an old lawn chair, then pulls a beer out of a little red cooler next to him, cracking it open. He leans back, sighing with contentment.

His gaze roams over the junkyard before resting on me. “What are you waiting for?” he asks. “Do you need some music orsomething to get you started? I just picked up a killer new death metal album. It came in the mail today.”

My brows pull together in confusion. “What do you want me to do?”

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