Page 83 of Broken Pieces
It hits hard, heavy enough to bend my knees and settle in my chest.
“Zane?” Rainer’s voice cuts through the fog, distant, like he’s calling me from another world. “You good?”
No, not even fucking close.
I drag in a breath and grab a rag off the bench, smearing the grease deeper into my palms instead of wiping it away.
“I gotta deal with something,” I mutter. My voice sounds wrong. Hollow. “I’ll finish this when I get back.”
He stares at me a second too long, eyes narrowing like he knows I’m walking straight into trouble. Then he nods. “Be careful, kid.”
There’s nothing careful left in me.
I toss the rag onto the bench, and push through the door.
The door swings shut behind me, and the air hits— that spring kind of chill that hides under the sunlight and waits for night to fall. I shove my hands into my pockets and start walking. The sky’s soft, pale blue bleeding into dusk.
Cassie’s words keep looping in my head."She’s got nowhere."
Skylar. Fuck.
Today’s her birthday.
I remembered this morning. Eighteen now, probably rolling her eyes at anyone dumb enough to make it a big deal. I told myself not to reach out, not to make things weird.
Now she’s sitting outside a goddamn library with a bag and nowhere to go.
I pass the 7-Eleven on Fifth. The two closed down shopfronts and the cracked bus stop where I stayed the night.
Kids yell a few streets over. The pavement’s uneven. I pass the laundromat that always smells like damp clothes and burnt lint.
My hands stay deep in my pockets. My jaw won’t unclench.
I see her before she sees me.
Out front of the library, folded in on herself, a bag by her feet. Her head’s down, forehead to her knees.
From a distance, she looks small. Too small for someone who always bites first.
But it’s the quiet that gets me because Skylar isn’t quiet. She spits fire, starts fights she can’t finish, walks into a room like she owns the oxygen.
This version of her, hunched, shaking, pretending the world can’t see her,hurts to fucking look at.
I tell myself to walk away. This isn’t my fucking problem, it never was. But my feet don’t listen. My body never fucking listens when it comes to her.
I keep my head down and walk faster. Every step makes the anger worse. The burn that sits right behind my ribs and won’t fuck off.
I don’t even know Skylar, not really. Just the edges. The sharp parts. The pieces that don’t belong to anyone. And still, something in me won’t let it go.
This isn’t pity or duty, not because we came from the same foster home. This is something else. Something I don’t have a name for, and I don’t fucking want one.
I tell myself it’s nothing.
But my hands are already in fists, my jaw already locked, my heart already fucking there.
Lying to yourself gets easier the more you do it.
Feeling something when you’re not supposed to, that’s the part that kills you.
