Page 97 of Beautifully Broken
“That doesn’t look like nothing, that looks like you cut yourself, more than once and not as an accident. Want to talk about it?”
“Have you ever had your head feel so heavy, so full of noise and static that you can’t think, can’t breathe?” Cali’s voice is low, almost a whisper, like she’s afraid the walls might be listening. “And then, just the smallest bit of pain cuts through it. Just enough to feel something real. Something that’smine. It’s like everything else fades out for a second, and I can finally breathe. So I keep doing it. Just enough to get that one breath.”
She doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are fixed on some invisible point far away, shame and something deeper, something broken, just under the surface.
My heart drops into my stomach. “What made you feel that way?” I ask, gently.
She doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps twisting the edge of the blanket in her hands, her knuckles white. A tear falls from her chin, silent, heavy.
“Cali, please. Talk to me. Let me help. Or help you find someone who can.”
Her laugh is hollow. Empty. “There’s no helping me, Nova. I’ve already tried. Everyone I’ve told, every single adult knows what’s happening. They just pretend not to see it.” Her voice shakes, and the tears come faster, but she keeps talking, like she’s trying to get it out before she breaks. “This town, it’s rotten. All these powerful men in suits and uniforms, acting like they own everything. Like they ownus. And they’re monsters. Real ones. They smile in public and destroy girls like me behind closed doors.”
She finally looks at me, eyes rimmed red, her voice flat now. “At least this pain? This pain I give myself. That’smine. It’s not some man’s hands. It’s not something stolen from me. I can control it. I can choose it.”
I feel sick. Frozen. My heart bleeding and torn from listening to her. This is the truth that I’ve been feeling here, the creepiness that radiates from my stepfather and his friends.
“I just need to make it until I’m eighteen,” she says, voice barely more than a whisper. “Three more years. Maybe they’ll get bored before then.”
Then, just like that, she wipes her face and forces a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Anyway. Let’s talk about Jax’s drama and what we’re going to do before you move. I need the distraction.”
I sit there in shock, fury curling low in my gut, but she won’t say more. Every time I try to ask about what she’s said, she closes herself off again like a door slamming shut. She’s done talking. But I’m not done hearing her.
Iwillfind out who’s hurting her. I don’t care how deep this town’s rot goes. Even after I move, this will be what I do to help her.
I glance at her, laughing over something she doesn’t really care about, and all I can think is, I wish I could take her with me when I leave.
Because I don’t think she’ll survive here much longer on her own.
Chapter 6
Nova
Graduate School -2012
Undergrad goes by in a blur, four years of cramming knowledge into my brain as fast and hard as I can. Jax, Van, and I all end up at the same university, surprisingly enough. We even end up in the same criminal justice program, though each of us take a different path within it. I double-major in criminal justice and biology with a concentration in forensics. It keeps me buried in labs, research papers, and study groups. Honestly, it also makes it incredibly easy to avoid Jax. We might be going to the same school, but our lives never overlap. Not anymore.
I don’t date. I don’t party. But I’m not completely joyless. Van and I stay close—our version of fun is more low-key: movie nights, takeout, weird popcorn flavors I discover during that girl’s trip to Wintervale Mom drags me on. It isn’t loud fun, but it’s comfortable. Safe. Real.
Cali and I keep in touch, though not as much as I would like. She stayed behind, went to a community college and now just volunteering until she is married off. I tried for the past two years to get her to visit, hell, even to consider moving here but it’s like she’s stuck. Trapped. Every time we talk, there’s something off in her voice. Distant. Hollow. The brightness she used to have is gone. Completely. Even in her photos, she’s smiling in designer dressesat charity events or political dinners with the senator she is dating. Her eyes look dead. Like she’s just disappearing.
Last time I visited her Van came along and it hit me hard. She drinks more now. And I’m almost certain she’s using prescription meds to keep life numbed out. I don’t even think she’s hiding it anymore. She’s fading, and no one seems to notice or care.
When I tried to talk to her mom about what was going on with Cali, she just brushed it off. That Cali was happy and I should stop trying to ruin her life.
I tried to ask my mom, hoping she would actually listen, instead she gave me some bullshit about how Cali’s life is “finally stable” and that “if she wasn’t happy, she wouldn’t be dating the senator or helping run his campaign.” As if that somehow means she’s okay.
But the senator she’s “dating”? He’s ancient. At least old enough to be her dad, probably her grandfather. I remember what she told me back in high school, about how those powerful men liked their women young. Girls who were easy to mold, easy to silence. Guess he couldn’t risk being seen with an actual teenager if he’s running for president. A barely legal girlfriend is easier to spin as “elegant” or “charming.” Safer for headlines. Less horrifying.
I can’t shake the feeling that these men, my stepfather and his friends included, have been grooming girls like her for years. Maybe even longer.
Cali and I have talked about it. I tried to bring it up gently, but she shut me down. She refuses to go into details or names of who has hurt her. I know things have been bad but she just buries it. Told me to stay out of her relationship. Said she was “fine.” But the way she said it? It was like she didn’t even believe it herself.
I finally started digging. There are articles calling her the new Cinderella story, “saved” from a modest background and transformed into this perfect lady. Always on the senator’s arm, always polished, always silent. I just don’t recognize her anymore. The images of her from social events on his arm show a perfect doll, glazed eyes, designer gowns, hair and makeup impeccable. I’m afraid I’m losing the Cali I know and love. I’m not sure I can save her alone. I don’t even know how to reach her. But I know this: I won’t stop trying.
***
Grad school has been a wild ride of studying, research, and my thesis. This semester has been a painful experience. Classes, studying, labs, and late nights writing. I’m not sure how I’ve survived, but it’s my last lab of the semester and then winter break. Van and I have barely seen each other these last twelve weeks. If I wasn’t in class or studying, he was in class or with Jax. We’re planning a winter getaway together, a chance to spend time with each other and relax. Hopefully, this vacation will give us a chance to get closer. There have been more looks and touches between us, each one making me want more.
