What's Broken Between Us Read online

  The two of them exchange a half handshake, half hug before the boy climbs into the white car that is there for him, and suddenly all I can see is my brother. Not a prisoner. Not a sociopath. Not a murderer.

  I’m grinning so big my cheeks shake. Any second my eyes are going to spill huge tears of happiness. I had no idea it would be like this.

  “Don’t get out of the car, Amanda,” my mother says, but it’s too late. I open the door and watch as my brother’s eyes widen when he sees me. I think he’s going to cry, but he surprises me for the millionth time. When I reach him, he throws his arms around me and I bury my face in his shirt.

  He’s slow to pull away, and when I look up at him, I see that he’s staring straight ahead through the windshield at my mother. Her French-tipped nails disappear under her sunglasses as she tries to wipe her eyes. Jonathan walks calmly to the other side of the SUV and opens the door. He leans toward her, taking her sunglasses off and hanging them on the collar of his T-shirt. She cries and he watches. When he hugs her, he bends over her, so she doesn’t have to move or even take off her seat belt. With her purse still between them on her lap, she sobs on Jonathan’s shoulder. He puts a hand over the scarf around her head and whispers something in her ear that makes her cry harder. I think that she might be crying now because she’s happy. Maybe she doesn’t know what else to do.

  With my mother’s sunglasses still dangling from his shirt, Jonathan slides into the backseat, and we pull out of the prison parking lot. Jonathan lowers the window to wave once more at the boy who climbed into the white car.

  “Who was that?” my mother asks, turning her head a bit so she can see Jonathan. Judging by the tone of her voice, you’d never know that seconds ago she was a blubbering mess. “What did he do to get in there?”

  Not once have I heard my mother say the words jail or prison. It’s always that place or there.

  “Mike, drug dealer,” Jonathan says. “I mean, Mike, reformed drug dealer.”

  If my brother didn’t look like he needed ten cheeseburgers and ten hours of sleep, I might’ve teased him about making new friends. It used to be that Jonathan would get in trouble and we’d laugh about it. The desire to make him smile right now is so strong I don’t trust myself with words at all.

  My father takes this moment to acknowledge Jonathan. “So, how are you, son?”

  “As well as can be expected.” Jonathan stares out the window. “I’m here with you all, so I’m much, much better now.”

  “What’s wrong?” my mother asks, her voice panicked as if he didn’t just tell her he was doing better.

  Jonathan glances her way, then very quickly looks out the window again. But I saw his expression for that brief moment. It’s a face from before Grace died. It said, You’re joking, right?

  “You think prison had an effect on your . . . on Mike?” my dad says, peeking at Jonathan in the rearview mirror.

  My mother sighs, annoyed and showboating it, the way she does whenever my father says something she doesn’t approve of.

  “Sure,” Jonathan says, shrugging.

  As we approach the prison parking lot exit, my mother says, “Just ignore them. They’re a bunch of assholes with nothing else to do.” My mother doesn’t look like the type to curse; she comes off too proper, too uptight. But she does it a lot as long as she’s not in public. Wiggling her fingers, she reaches back toward Jonathan. He gets her signal and gives her back her sunglasses.

  “Celebrity has its price.” Jonathan’s voice is dry and humorless and aching. But he leans forward toward the center console, so he can get a full view of the protesters through the front windshield.

  They seem more aggressive now that we’re leaving the prison; like they’re very aware it’s possible that one of the exiting cars could contain Jonathan.

  I let my hand hover over the button in my door, fantasizing about what it would be like to lower my window and tell them they make everything worse. I feel Jonathan’s hand brush past my wrist, like he can’t decide between tapping my palm or grabbing my hand.

  “It’s fine,” he whispers to me.

  I shake my head, it’s not, but he’s turned around, watching as the protesters fade behind us. Jonathan choosing to stare at the protesters reminds me of when he used to sit too close to the television, even though he’d get yelled at for it. The second our mother left the room, he’d scoot his gaming chair right up to the TV and press his feet into the bottom drawer of the TV stand. His eyes would be wide and bleary and watering. But he didn’t care. He didn’t want to do what was good for him, no matter how simple it was.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Jonathan used to regularly wake me up on Saturday mornings, usually at three or four a.m., when he’d be getting home from a party. Typically he’d be with Sutton and Grace, and I’d hear the closing of doors, footsteps on the hardwood, beeping from the microwave, or the sound of laughter, and I’d wake up.

  This Saturday morning I wake up at five a.m.

  I’m uncharacteristically starving—or maybe I’m always this hungry at five a.m., but am usually too asleep to notice. The English muffins sitting in our cupboard aren’t going to cut it, and it seems unnatural to be awake this early without any caffeine. I pull a sweatshirt over my tank top and redo my ponytail, figuring that’s good enough, as it’s probably too early to be running into someone I know.

  I clomp down the stairs in my slippers, regretting so much that I didn’t put my car in the garage last night and now have to deal with the early-morning chill factor. I’m wrestling my coat out of the closet when I spot Jonathan sitting by the window in the living room.

  “You’re awake,” I say. A surprise, considering the first thing he did yesterday upon returning home, after eating a cheeseburger like it was his last meal, was head up to his room and lock the door. My initial thought was that he must still have some whiskey hidden in there somewhere. I went upstairs at eleven and I could hear the television on in his room. And when I ran into him in the hallway as he was making his way to the bathroom, his eyes were red and he walked like he was trudging through sand.

  Jonathan jerks his head at my voice, as if even though I sounded like an angry elephant coming down the stairs, he was too entranced gazing outside through the lace curtains to notice.

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “I was just going to Starbucks,” I tell him. “For coffee.” My stomach gurgles. “And a sandwich.”

  “Coffee would be amazing,” Jonathan says, staring into the mug he’s holding. It probably contains coffee, but because our parents make their own coffee only when guests are here, I’m betting the coffee grounds are very old. Plus, Jonathan is like me. He says coffee, but what he means is “caffeinated flavored beverage masking the taste of coffee.”

  “Want me to bring you back something?”

  “Please.” He brings the cup to his lips, but he can’t seem to make himself drink. I don’t blame him.

  “What are you in the mood for?”

  “Just get me whatever you get.” Jonathan’s current smile is a depressed version of his regular smile.

  “Hey,” I say. “Do you want to come with me?” I don’t add that it’s so early we probably won’t see any people we know.

  “Are you sure?”

  He’s out of his room. He’s awake. His eyes are clear.

  I reach into the closet for his jacket and toss it at him. It lands barely a few feet from me, right where the edge of hardwood in the foyer meets the creamy carpet of the living room.

  “I see nothing has changed with you,” he says.

  I chuckle as he comes forward to retrieve his coat. Everything has changed with me. Everything. But maybe not this, not us.

  Starbucks isn’t crowded, but there are five more people here than I’d expected so early on a Saturday morning. Mostly older people who were probably in bed by six. There’s a woman bouncing with a newborn swaddled against her body. Every time she stops bouncing, the baby turn
s red and lets out a scream. She’s having her coffee standing up. Before, Jonathan would have said something to make her laugh. Not just because she was a pretty girl, either. But because she could so obviously use a fleeting moment that allowed her to forget she was on her tenth day of no sleep. He was always good at distracting people.

  Now he keeps his head down. His coat is so big it practically swallows him. He could slouch and his head would disappear like a turtle. I order us peppermint mochas and breakfast sandwiches to go, and we take a seat at a table in the corner while we wait.

  “Peppermint mocha?” Jonathan says. “I thought those were only available around the holidays.”

  “A common misconception.”

  He cringes. I’m about to ask him what’s wrong, but he speaks again quickly.

  “I can’t believe I left you alone with them on Christmas,” he says, looking down. “I’m so sorry.” He continues before I can tell him it’s okay. “How bad was it?”

  “Oh, our parents.” I give him my best reassuring smile. He squints slightly, like he knows this isn’t my usual look. The truth is we barely acknowledged Christmas last year. There were no sweaters. No eggnog. Definitely no holiday party. My parents, who usually live for country-club-sponsored events, avoided the club for fear that they might be forced to discuss what they usually refer to in front of their friends as their “legal woes.” I was glad I didn’t have to endure the usual brand of torture—being paraded around like some sort of mascot to parties where everyone was trying to out-holiday everyone else and family togetherness came with a scoreboard. We didn’t even bother with a tree last year. Just lights strung up on the outside of the house, so to anyone passing by, it’d look like nothing was wrong. We exchanged gifts over hot chocolate on Christmas morning, but the only thing familiar about Christmas was the presents, all wrapped in the same silver paper the volunteers at the mall use.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” he says.

  His eyes are so sad. And no matter how foreign the rest of him is now, despair has always looked especially alien on him.

  “We were too busy for Christmas,” I say. “I was worried about the SATs. Dad took on all of Dr. Halberstein’s old clients. Mumsy was—” This is what Jonathan and I call our mother behind her back. To be honest, I doubt she’d mind if we called her that to her face, until she realized we didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  “Mumsy,” Jonathan finishes the sentence the only way it really can be finished. Mumsy was Mumsy. She was in jail, too. It was happening to her. It was too much. There was no time for Christmas.

  “All the things we hate didn’t happen this year.” I’m trying to get him to see the silver lining.

  He searches my face, like he knows I’m not telling him the whole story.

  “You’re off the hook,” I say.

  He ignores this, looking away.

  “So how’s school?” Jonathan says after too many beats of silence.

  For some reason, I think this might be his way of bringing up Grace.

  “Sorry,” he continues. “I didn’t mean to sound like Standard Dad.” Standard Dad is what I call our dad. He isn’t really a “standard dad” with Jonathan—he’s looser, and he doesn’t sound like he’s reading from a manual (which I claim is called The Manual for Standard Dads). Jonathan would sometimes tell me to give him a break. But then our dad would say something to me like, “Atta girl” or “Keep your eye on the prize,” and Jonathan and I would look at each other, my point sinking in, his argument irrelevant.

  “Have you talked to anyone from school?” I ask. My voice is shriller than normal. “Or . . . anyone else?”

  “Nope,” he says slowly. Jonathan severed ties with all his old friends after the accident. I’m sure it was pretty effortless—I don’t think any of them tried reaching out to him, and if they did, his Lifeline interview probably chased them away for good. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair, like he knows this is my way of asking about Sutton.

  “I’m not taking calls right now,” he says. “Or making them. I’m not participating in telecommunications whatsoever at this moment in my life.”

  “That’s . . .” I have no idea how to finish. “Convenient.”

  A barista with dark hair piled on top of her head comes over to our table, holding both our coffees. Our breakfast sandwiches are pinched between her elbow and her side. “Amanda, right?”

  “Uh . . . yeah.” One hundred percent of the time, in my experience, the baristas at Starbucks shout out your name. They aren’t in the business of delivering your food right to you.

  “Here you go,” she says. She sets the food down in front of us, while snapping her gum—surely breaking what I assume is another rule in coffee service. Her dazzling, albeit tired, green eyes are fixed on Jonathan. This isn’t something new—girls staring at him. It’s just different now.

  “I recognize you,” she says.

  Jonathan and I exchange a glance. I scoop up the breakfast sandwiches, ready to storm out the door before this girl can begin her tirade about justice.

  “I recognize your eyes,” she says. “They’re so beautiful.”

  Jonathan looks at me again, confusion softening his expression. Our whole family has brown hair, but Jonathan inherited my mother’s blue eyes. My eyes were blue when I was born, then turned brown when I was four months old. There are exactly eight pictures in existence, taken before they changed, in which my brother and I actually look like we belong to the same family.

  “Thank you,” he says very quietly.

  “They make an impression,” she continues. “You . . .” The girl puts her hands in her apron pockets, looking down at them as though this will make her smile invisible. “You made an impression.”

  I’ve still got the sandwiches in my hand, my coffee two inches off the table. She seems harmless, but I can’t trust her. Even while she’s wearing that smile my brother was always good for.

  “I’ve wanted to meet you.” She takes the empty seat next to my brother, sitting backward in the chair, crossing her arms over the top of the backrest. Jonathan leans away from her. He keeps glancing at me, like he’s waiting for my cue. But I’m waiting for his—too shocked to come up with one of my own.

  “You were really fucking honest,” she says. “Like, no bullshit, this is what you think—don’t blame the party, people are the problem. People are morons, people are idiots.”

  Jonathan clears his throat. “I said I was the problem.”

  “Exactly.” She sets her hand on the table, spreading her fingers so she almost touches the base of Jonathan’s coffee. “No one is ever fucking honest.”

  My brother relaxes in his chair; his coat puffs up in front as he leans back. “Thank you.” It comes out unsure and hesitant. Both things my brother has never been before.

  “I’m Wren,” she says, holding out her hand.

  “Jonathan. And this is my sister, Amanda.”

  Wren smiles at me but doesn’t bother shaking my hand.

  “I’m on my break—you want a smoke?” she says to him. “You seem like you could use one.”

  “I’m set, thanks,” he tells her.

  “Maybe you’ll look normal again once you get some nicotine in your system.” Something I’ve accidentally learned about flirting is that sometimes, when you say something mean about someone’s appearance, it’s actually an indication you’re really, really into them. I try to imagine how Jonathan must look now to someone who doesn’t know that his clothes don’t usually hang off his hips and his skin isn’t usually this pale. Wren bites her lip as she stares at him, and it’s so intimate that I feel intrusive watching.

  “Smoking is the one vice I do not have,” he tells her. This wasn’t true last year, but I guess it is now.

  “Okay, sure,” she says. “Why don’t you keep me company and I’ll see how well that story holds up?”

  Jonathan moves to stand. “We’ve got to get going. But maybe next time.”

  We walk out the doo
r before Wren can get clarification on “next time.”

  “So, she was sweet,” I say on our way home.

  I’m kidding, but Jonathan still says, “No, she wasn’t.”

  “That’s never been your type, anyway.”

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  It’s the closest we’ve come to talking about Sutton since the accident.

  Most of the time, I try not to think about what happened the night of the accident.

  It’s easier to think about what I wish would have happened. I barter moments. Recast everything.

  I move the graduation party from Sylvia Bickerstaff’s to Calvin McKay’s, because they say that his parties are stocked to last all night long.

  I change my response when Jonathan yelled, “Baby sister! I’m a graduate!” from across the room. Instead of rolling my eyes, blowing him a kiss, and giving him a smile before quickly leaving the room, I forget what I’m waiting for—who I’m waiting for—and go over to him. I play along. I humor him and pretend we didn’t have this same interaction a few hours before.

  I tease him right in front of Sutton about the fedora and matching blazer he’s wearing, even though they were her doing and she’s pinching her lips together as she glares at me.

  I stay close to him, complaining about how Dawn’s ignoring me to make out with Blake Highlander. That actually did happen, Dawn and Blake. It was the night she lost her virginity. I wouldn’t change that. It works that I’m alone. Jonathan wouldn’t have wanted to desert me at the party.

  I put Graham at the party, too. He looks the way he often did when we were sophomores, shoulders back, wearing a sideways smile, head constantly bobbing—trying too hard. He turns it on for Grace, for Jonathan, because deep down he’s just like everyone else; he cares about impressing them.

  My brother decides Graham is worth adopting for the night. Sutton nudges Grace, moving her eyebrows up and down, whispering, “He’s dreamy for a jock.” And Grace doesn’t want to leave Graham’s side. Graham feels the same way, because though he can’t make sense of it, he knows that he is somehow rescuing her. Grace disappears with him somewhere in Calvin’s house, so when Jonathan and Sutton turn drunk in the way that makes them handsy and sleepy, she’s somewhere else, perfectly entertained.