Page 61 of Broken Things

She turns back to me, almost impatient. “I’m not addicted to anything. Not pills. Not alcohol. I don’t even like thetasteof alcohol. The last time I had a beer it made me sick. I don’t know how people drink that stuff.”

I stare at her. “I don’t understand,” I say finally, and the crickets say it with me, sending up a fierce swell of protest.

She makes a little noise of impatience. “When I was in eighth grade, I got drunk with some kids from Middlebury and took some of my mom’s sleeping pills when I got home. I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she says quickly, before I can ask. “I was just tired. School was hell. I begged my mom to move away, but she wouldn’t. We couldn’t. She didn’t have a car that winter, and she needed to be able to get to work on foot. I started taking the bus into Middlebury after school just to have a break. I met some older kids, potheads, and they were the ones who got me drunk. Lost my virginity that way too.” She smiles, but it’s the worst smile I’ve ever seen: hollow, as if it’s been excavated from her face.

“Brynn.” I want to say more—I want to hug her—but I feel paralyzed.

“It’s okay.” She takes a step backward, as if anticipating I might try to hug her. “You wanted the truth, so I’m telling you the truth. I took pills and puked and my sister found out and freaked and got me into rehab. I was so mad at first. But then... I started liking it.”

I stay quiet now, hardly breathing.

“I was in for forty-five days. I finished eighth grade in rehab. Took a few tests, sent in my answers, got a see you later, okay to pass Go. The program recommended me for a special high school, an alternative program, you know. Freaks and geeks and burnouts and losers. But that was good. It meant I didn’t have to go to TLC. A special car came to pick me up at my house and everything.” She shrugs. “But I still had to beme. I still had to go home. My mom and sister can hardly look at me, you know,” she says in a rush. “They can hardly stand to be in the sameroomas me. It’s like everything that’s happened, every single thing that’s gone wrong, is my fault. They like it when I’m away. I think sometimes they wish I’d just go away permanently. Don’t say it isn’t true,” she adds flatly, before I can. “I’m giving you facts. My mom and I used to have this weekend tradition, whenever she wasn’t working. We’d sit on the couch and watch all the soaps she’d missed during the week. We’d try to guess what would happen before it did. But suddenly she got too busy. She had stuff to do around the house. She was too fat and shouldn’t be sitting around. Excuses. I’d hear the soaps going at night, you know, when she thought I was asleep.” She looks away, biting her lip.As if one pain can be traded for another. “I had a girlfriend freshman year at Walkabout—that was the name of the alternative school—and her mom was a doctor. I stole some samples from the medicine cabinet when I was over one time and flashed them around at school. Walkabout had a zero-tolerance policy. Back to rehab I went. And then, sophomore year, when I was out again, I started hanging around with Wade. He’d been bugging me since the murders, you know. Thought he could help. Thought we could clear my name together. I guess he’s always had a bit of a superhero complex.”

“Batman,” I say.

“Batman,” she says, nodding. “Wade has a part-time job working in a clinic for fuckups. Real fuckups. Not pretenders like me. Sixteen-year-old heroin addicts, that kind of thing. He helps me... fake it. So I can stay in the system. Bounce around.” Brynn stares at me, tense, chin up, as if daring me to ask how.

But I’m not sure I want to know. So I just say, “Why?”

She hugs herself, bringing her shoulders to her ears. “He knows I like it,” she says shortly. “He knows I feel safe there. Plus—”

“What?”

“I think he just needed a friend,” she says. “We’re family, sure, kind of, but... friends are different, aren’t they?”

Now the crickets and the tree frogs and all the tiny stirrings and windings of the invisible insects in the dark have gone still. Hushed and silent.

“That’s why he’s here,” I say. I’m fumbling, struggling to piecetogether the facts, but as soon as I see Brynn’s face, I know I’m right. “That’s why he’s helping. You made a deal with him.”

She shakes her head. “It started off that way. But now...” She trails off. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Under the vaulted canopy of trees, I have the feeling of being in a church. And I have the craziest idea that Summer was the sacrifice, that she had to die so that the four of us, these broken people, could find each other. A Bible quote comes back to me, from years and years ago, before my dad left, when we still went to church.I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

“Why did you lie about your mom?” I ask Brynn, and the trees let out a shushing sound.

Brynn looks down at the ground. “I didn’t tell my mom I was coming home. I wasn’t planning to come home, but... well, everything got messed up. But that first day, after you picked me up, I went by the house—” She abruptly stops, sucking in a breath, as if she’s been hit by an invisible force.

“What?” I touch her once on the elbow. Feel the ridge of her bone beneath my fingers.Mercy.“What is it?”

When she speaks again, her voice is very quiet. “It’s stupid,” she says. “My mom and sister were sitting on the couch. Feet up on the coffee table, matching slippers, bowl of popcorn. They were watchingDaystogether. That was always my mom’s favorite soap. ‘The most bang for your buck and tears for your time,’ she always said. They looked so happy.” Her voice breaks and I realize she’s trying not to cry.

I want to hug her and tell her it’s okay, she’s going to be okay, we all are, but I don’t know that. How can I know? How can I promise? Terrible things happen every day.

Then she clears her throat and I know she’s gotten control of herself again. “I couldn’t interrupt. I started walking. I didn’t know where I was going until I was in backcountry. Didn’t know what I would do. But then I remembered the shed and knew at least I’d have a place to crash until I figured it out. It was weird being there,” she says, in a different tone. “Spooky. Like... someone was watching. Likeshewas watching. In the middle of the night I woke up and... I swear I saw her face in the window. Just for a second. Those big eyes, her hair. Guilt, probably. Or I was dreaming.”

“I’m sorry, Brynn” is all I say.Sorryis one of the worst words of all: it hardly ever means what you want it to.

“That’s all right,” she says. Another thing people say and hardly ever mean.

“No, it’s not.” Suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the stupidity, thefutilityof it all. Brynn and I were Summer’s best friends. We fell in love with a story. We fell in love with an idea. And for that we’ve been punished again and again. Where’s our forgiveness? Where’s mercy for us? “You have to go home.”

“I don’thaveto do anything,” she says. Sharp again.

“You can’t be homeless forever.”

“Thanks for the advice.” She stares at me for a long second, her face striped in shadow, her eyes unreadable. Then she looks away,shaking her head. “Forget it,” she says. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you wouldn’t get it.”

“That’s not fair,” I say. “I do get it.” And then, as she starts to turn away, anger makes a leap in my chest. “You’re not the only one who’s been hurt.”

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