Best Kind of Broken

18 Levi

I keep my distance from Pixie for the whole next week, not sure I’m ready to see how much she hates me. I’ve kept myself busy gutting the unoccupied east wing bedrooms. It’s amazing how much work you can accomplish when you’re plagued with guilt.

I still can’t believe I called her a whore. Pixie, of all people. She’s had sex only one time, for Christ’s sake. A jealous tremor runs through my veins as I remember the night I found out she’d lost her virginity.

Two years ago, I picked up Charity and Pixie from a party where they had gotten irresponsibly wasted, and the moment we got back to our house, Pixie crawled onto the couch and moaned, “That party sucked.”

Charity laughed. “Only because you lost it to Benji Barker and it was a total fail.”

In that moment, I felt like someone punched me in the gut. I had no air, no sight.

“Total fail.” Pixie hid her face in one of the couch pillows.

Charity clucked her tongue. “That’s why you don’t lose your virginity to another virgin, Pix. Neither one of you knew what you were doing. Bad call.”

Still no air.

“Shut up, best friend.” Pixie threw a pillow at Charity. “Maybe I wouldn’t have made such a bad call if you’d stayed by my side instead of ditching me to go screw Daren Ackwood.”

I whipped my eyes to Charity. “WHAT?”

My head was going to explode.

Charity turned to me with feigned innocence. “What? Daren and I have been dating for a while now and we have sex. A lot of sex. Get over it.”

“Whore,” Pixie mumbled, once again facedown in a pillow.

“Shut up,” Charity said to the couch. “At least Daren makes me orgasm, which is more than I can say for you and novice Benji.”

I tugged at my hair. “Oh my God. My ears are bleeding. My ears are bleeding.”

Charity was sleeping with Daren Ackwood? And Pixie wasn’t a virgin anymore?

My chest hurt. My stomach hurt. Where the fuck was all the air?

“God, I know,” Pixie whined. “Benji Barker? Ugh.”

Something tight and hot inside me snapped, and I spun to face Charity. “What the hell were you thinking, leaving Pixie alone tonight?”

“What?” Charity looked confused.

I yelled, “What kind of friend are you, ditching Pixie for some asshole?”

A hurt expression crossed Charity’s face. “I didn’t know—”

“Don’t be mad, Leaves.” Pixie pulled her green eyes up from the pillow and looked like she was going to cry. “Please don’t be mad.”

For the first time ever, I looked at Pixie like something that belonged to me. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and have those green eyes all to myself. Always. I didn’t want to share them with Benji, or any other prick.

“Mad?” I screamed. “I’m furious! You’re hammered, Pix. That guy had no right to touch you when you weren’t sober enough to make an intelligent decision! I’ll kill him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him to pieces and—”

Pixie started crying. “I’m so sorry,” she bumbled at no one. “I’m so sorry! It seemed like a good idea because neither one of us had ever been with anyone and he’s not scary and I was that happy kind of buzzed and so was he and then it was all messy and awkward and it didn’t feel good at all and then it was over and even more awkward and now my head hurts and Leaves is mad at me!” She started sobbing into the pillow and howled, “Leaves is so mad at me.”

“Hey.” Charity knelt beside her and rubbed her back, saying a slew of reassuring girl things while I paced the room. Pixie eventually calmed down, and when she passed out, Charity stood up from the couch and glared at me.

“What?” I stood there, stunned and angry and… sad. I was actually sad.

She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t remember you freaking out like that when you found out I’d first had sex.”

“That’s because thinking about my sister having sex is gross. Thinking about Pixie having sex is…”

Charity waited with a cocked eyebrow.

“I didn’t freak out,” I said.

“You totally freaked out!” She threw her arms in the air. “God, Levi. Maybe you should just pee all over her so every guy she meets knows whose territory she is!”

That was the first time I realized how possessive I was of Pixie. And then the other day, when I saw Daren kiss her, all my buried desires came roaring back to life.

God, I still can’t believe I was such an asshole to her.

With a clenched jaw, I lift another roll of old carpet out from the east wing and haul it downstairs and out the back door. I toss it into a large pile beside the Dumpster, where it joins three other carpet rolls, an array of shredded baseboards, and peelings of old hideous wallpaper.

I hear the screen on the back door creak open and slam closed before the crunch of heavy feet on gravel meets my ears.

Turning around, I see Angelo smacking a box of cigarettes against his open palm.

“Levi.” He nods, pulling a cigarette from the box and resting it between his lips. “Want one?” The unlit cigarette in his mouth bobs with his words as he holds the box out to me.

I wipe a hand across my sweaty brow and shake my head.

He shrugs and retrieves a lighter from his pocket before flaming the tip of his cigarette. He takes a deep drag and watches as I hack up carpet rolls and baseboards so they’ll fit in the Dumpster.

“You’ve been working hard these past few days.” He tucks the pack in his pocket.

“Yeah, well.” I heave a roll into the trash. “Ellen needs the east wing ready by fall.”

He nods. “And work keeps the demons out, am I right?”

I cut up a baseboard, not really sure what he’s talking about. “I guess.”

He looks out at the field. “Relentless little bastards, them demons. You can push ’em away for years, but they eventually find you.” He takes another expert drag. “And then you gotta face ’em.”

I say nothing as I chuck pieces of wood and wallpaper into the Dumpster. He’s probably referring to a murderous bookie he owes money to or a rival mob boss who wants him to sleep with the fishes or something.

A faint rumble of thunder vibrates the earth, and I look up to see dark clouds in the distance. Monsoon season has been threatening to start for weeks now. I wonder when it will finally pour down its first summer storm.

Angelo stares at the impending clouds and sucks a few more drags of smoke through his lungs before stomping out the cigarette.

He tips his chin at me and says, “The sooner the better,” before heading back inside.

For a moment, I think he means the coming storm. But then I realize he was talking about facing demons, and I wonder if his sage mobster advice was directed at me.

After breaking up the remainder of the remodeling discards, I toss them in the trash and dust my hands off. Walking to the kitchen’s back door, I open the screen just as Pixie opens the inner door, and we lock gazes under another faint rumble of thunder.

I drop my eyes and move to the side. She does the same, both of us moving to the same side so we’re still in each other’s way. We don’t make eye contact as we jerk from side to side, trying to pass each other without touching. Awkward.

Finally, I stop and step back, letting her exit the kitchen with the bag of trash in her hand. As she walks toward the Dumpster, I quickly slip inside and head away from the kitchen as the smell of rain and wind laced with lavender chases after me through the open screen door.