Page 8 of Edge of Unbroken

“Haven’t checked.”

My eyebrows knit together. “Your battery won’t hold a charge, and you have electrical glitches, but you haven’t checked the charge?”

“Nope,” he says again, equally as matter-of-factly.

“Okay, well, that might be a good place to start.” I’m trying to figure out if he’s pulling my leg. My grandfather isn’t exceptionally expressive, and people who don’t know him well would probably say he’s unemotional, maybe even cold. But he’s one of the warmest, most caring people I know, and he loves a good prank because people just never see it coming.

He nods. “You’re probably right, Ran.” He walks a few yards to his workshop—a defunct tractor parked outside—to retrieve a meter, which he promptly shoves into my hand.

“Uh, Athair, you just have a bad ground to the engine block,” I say after I read the voltage. This isn’t anything he couldn’t have figured out by himself; it’s Auto Mechanics 101. This has got to be a setup.

“Oh, really?” he asks, taking a look at the wiring underneath the hood of his truck.

“Uh-huh.” I squint my eyes, trying to read him. To say I’m deeply suspicious is an understatement.

“Huh, I didn’t even think to check the block ground,” he grumbles. “Thank you, Ran.” He emerges from under the hood and pats my left shoulder gently. “Can you handle this for me? I’m going to corral the bulls with Thomas and when you’re done you can join us in the back pen.”

He trudges away from me, leaving me no time to argue.

I stand for a moment, unmoving at the prospect of having to be on my feet, in the cold, engaging in physical activity. I’ve already moved more today than I have in weeks, and I can feel the strain of it in every cell of my body. All I want is to crawl back into bed. But I exhale deeply and get to work on the truck, letting my mind go blank as I fix the faulty wiring on the engine block.

It takes me hardly any time to fix the issue. I shove the heavy hood shut, then make my way to the driver’s side to fire up the engine. I frown when I notice the engine’s rough idle. There’s obviously something else going on, so, I get busy trying to figure out exactly what the problem is. A rough idle could be caused by anything from a dirty fuel injector to a bad spark plug.

The longer I work, the more convinced I am my grandfather conjured up the issue with the truck to get me out of the house, to get me out of my head, and my lips tug into a smile when I check off one possible cause after the other because, well, it worked. It feels weird; I can’t remember the last time I smiled, and I swear my facial muscles have atrophied in the last few months.

I’m at it for a long time, relishing the silence, the fresh air, the peace, and that strange feeling of accomplishment that settles in my chest when I finally figure out the problem and begin to fix it. I don’t get around to helping my grandfather brand the bulls, and only go back to the house when the sun has already set and everyone’s getting ready to eat dinner.

“So, what was wrong with the truck?” Thomas, one of my grandparents’ wranglers, asks when I limp into the living room, my knee sore and angry from the strain I put on it these past few hours.

I sit down on the couch, positively drained of all energy. Today was a lot. “Bad engine ground and a faulty spark plug.” I pull my right leg up to elevate it.

“Were you able to get it taken care of?” my grandfather asks from his leather armchair, his own feet propped up on an ottoman.

“Yeah,” I say, squinting at him. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

He raises his eyebrows at me questioningly.

“You purposely messed up the truck and asked me to work on it,” I say.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ran,” he says simply, then gets up from his chair.

I watch him walk into the kitchen where he pulls my grandmother into his arms before giving her a soft kiss on her head, a distinct smile on his face.

Friday, December 17th

Cat

“Of course,” I mutter to myself when the final bell rings after school today and I step outside only to be met by rain pouring down so hard I can barely see ten feet ahead of me. “The one day when Vada and Tori are both out sick. Just great.”

I pull my jacket up and over my head to shield myself from the downpour.

Today was the last day of the fall semester, the last day before Christmas break, and to my utter dismay, Vada texted me early this morning to let me know she was sick in bed. So I walked to school by myself only to find that Tori, too, was out ill. Luckily it was a half day, and we were dismissed just after one. The prospect of no school for a couple of weeks, and my upcoming one-week trip to North Carolina to spend Christmas with my dad and siblings, gives my mood a definite boost amidst the constant ache of missing Ronan.

I’ve been trying to make the absolute most of school in an effort to distract myself, but I haven’t been all that successful. My mind always wanders, and every day the pain that comes with Ronan’s absence grows. It doesn’t help that the rumors about how Ronan got hurt and the reason for his disappearance have taken on a life of their own.

Only Zack, Summer, Tori, Vada, and I know the real story of how Ronan got hurt and why he left New York. Not even Cheyenne—Summer’s best friend—or Drew, who actually hasn’t hung out with us all that much lately, are aware of specifics. And we want to keep it that way. As annoying and hurtful as some of these rumors are, we’re not about to divulge Ronan’s painful history to people who will just see such information as a juicy opportunity to spread more misinformation or to make themselves appear in the know in an effort to grab more attention and popularity.

So, we try to ignore it when we’re confronted with the latest gossip, though Tori and Vada have no problems shutting down rumors that I’m somehow to blame for Ronan’s departure. Not that it stops the nasty side glances or whispers when I walk by a cluster of girls who, I’m pretty certain, either have or at least wanted to hook up with Ronan. I just remind myself of Tori and Vada’s words: all this is just jealousy that I managed to tie down the exceptionally handsome but previously unobtainable varsity hockey center forward.

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