Page 16 of Broken Things

And how it vanished.

A few months before Summer died, Brynn and I went to Lovelorn without her. It must have been right after the spring dance, because neither of us was talking to Summer, and I remember how badly my throat hurt whenever I tried to swallow, as if days of crying had left it bruised. I’d missed four ballet classes in a row—my teacher, Madame Laroche, had even called the house to see if I was sick.

I was. Just not in the way she thought. I’d always thought heartbreak was beautiful, like the adagio inSwan Lake: a kind ofgraceful withering. But this just felt as if I’d been gutted and bled, my insides lifted clean away.

We’d never been to Lovelorn just Brynn and me. I didn’t feel like going. But Brynn thought it would be a good idea.

“She can’t take everything,” she said, seizing my hand and practically hauling me off the bus. I knew she wasn’t just angry at me. Something else had happened, something between Brynn and Summer, but I didn’t know why or exactly what: only that people had begun to whisper about Brynn liking girls, and several girls had refused to change next to her before gym class. People were saying that Brynn was obsessed with Summer, and that Summer had caught Brynn staring into her window at night. The worst part was that Summer wasn’t denying it. “She can’t just take everything you want.”

It was a raw, cold day, more like March than April. We stomped across the fields in silence, both of us miserable and half-frozen, jackets flapping open, breath steaming in the air. Brynn was first through the door and I’ll never forget the way she cried out—half gasping, as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

The wallpaper was gone. The rug, the cot, the blanket, the lantern—gone. The shed had the same whitewashed walls as always, the same rough-hewn plank floors, the same random assortment of dusty farming equipment piled in the corners and tacked to the walls.

It was as if Lovelorn had never existed.

Of course, I know now that it never had.

Still, a small, buried part of me believes. It was there. Wesawit.

“Check it out.” Abby reaches for the lock, showing me that it’s actually been snapped, then rehung and stuck together with a disgusting combination of a hair tie and chewing gum. From a distance of even a few feet, you’d never be able to tell it was broken. “Looks like someone beat us to it.” Her voice is still cheerful, but I can tell from the way she palms her hands on her skirt that she’s nervous.

“Probably some sicko taking pictures for his blog,” I say. I’ve made it this far. No way I’m turning around now.

Tell me.The prayer comes now even without my willing it to.Tell me what really happened, Summer.

The door shudders on its hinges when I shove it open. I take a deep breath, like I’m about to submerge, and practically throw myself over the threshold.

I scream when I trip over a body.

Almost immediately, the body, bundled underneath a pile of old clothing, starts to wriggle and move. Now Abby begins shouting “It’s alive,” like it’s some old-school horror film, and then a head emerges from beneath the hood of a sweatshirt.

“Brynn?”I can barely choke out her name.

“What the hell?” She’s on her feet in an instant, shaking off the old clothing like a snake molting its skin. But one sock still clings to her sweatshirt, just by her left shoulder. “Are youfollowingme?”

“Following you?” I stare at her. She’s wearing the same outfitshe was wearing yesterday, when she bolted out of my car. A faded hoodie over a T-shirt, jeans with a big hole, right in the crotch, patched with something that looks like a dinner napkin. “Of course not.”

“Then why are you here?” When Brynn’s really mad, her lips get totally white and very thin, as if they’ve been zipped together. She jerks her head in Abby’s direction. “And who’s she?”

Abby raises a hand. “Name’s Abby,” she says. “Resident sidekick.” When Brynn and I just keep glaring at each other, she says, “Old friends, I presume?”

“Can I talk to you outside?” Brynn says to me, practically growling. “Alone?”

She grabs my elbow and pilots me outside, kicking the door closed forcefully, sealing Abby inside. I start to protest, but she cuts me off.

“So what is this, your sick idea of a good time?” she says. “Relive the glory days?”

“Excuse me.” I pull away from her. “I’m not the onesleepingin the old clubhouse.”

“It’s a shed,” she spits back. “It isn’t a clubhouse. It isn’t anything.” She turns away. “Besides, I didn’t have a choice.” When she turns back to me, her eyes are practically black. “My mom was in an accident last night. My sister took her to the hospital. They forgot to leave a key for me.”

Immediately, my anger lifts. “Oh my God.” I reach out to touch her arm and then think better of it. “Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” she says angrily, as if she’s annoyed at me for asking. “Now it’s your turn. What the hell are you doing here?”

I count to three this time. “Someone else knew about Lovelorn. Someone else was writing about it. And I want to know who.”

She stares at me, openmouthed. It occurs to me for the first time how pretty Brynn is, how pretty she’s always been. Even with her hair wild and dirty and tangled down her back, and the crisscross marks from where her cheek has been pressed into something made of corduroy, she’s beautiful. Maybe I didn’t notice it before because of Summer—when she was around, it was impossible to see anyone else. Like the sun, just drowning all the stars in light, evaporating them.

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