Best Kind of Broken

22 Levi

Note to self: Do not look in Pixie’s eyes. From now on, stare at her mouth or her nose or… just anywhere else. But not her eyes. Her eyes see inside me and know the things I’m too afraid to say out loud.

On my way to Ellen’s office I pass Haley, who quickly looks away.

She feels bad about saying the name Charity yesterday, and how stupid is that? People shouldn’t be so afraid of Pixie and me that they can’t even speak Charity’s name around us. That’s bullshit. Pixie and I are fine.

I rub the back of my neck because that’s a lie straight from hell.

I turn a corner and pace down the back hallway.

Most people who lose someone close to them support each other through the tragedy.

Not Pix and I.

After Charity died, Pixie and I just stopped talking.

In fact, the first time I saw Pixie after Charity’s funeral was just a few weeks ago, when she started working at the inn. And her presence took me by complete surprise.

I walked out of my bedroom and there she was, in her yellow dress, looking lost and found at the same time.

Little Pixie, whom I had spent my whole life loving and one night destroying, was standing outside my bedroom with pink toenails, a blue suitcase, and a look on her face that made me feel like I was home.

And God, I wanted to be home.

But guilt’s a hungry bastard, so any thoughts I had about hugging her and begging her to forgive me for hurting Charity—for hurting her—were swallowed alive by the shame in my soul.

We stood in the hall, staring at each other in confusion for a minute before a very strained conversation took place.

“Uh… what are you…?” I had no words.

She licked her lips. “I just started working here. In the kitchen. For my aunt. School’s out, and I couldn’t stand the idea of staying with my mom.”

“Oh.” I nodded, staring at her mouth. “Ellen must have forgotten to mention that to me.”

She shifted her weight. “What, uh… what are you doing here?”

“I work here.”

“Oh.”

I paused. “And I live here.”

Her eyes widened briefly, then turned expressionless. “Really.” She inhaled. “Ellen didn’t tell me that.”

Awkward silence.

I cleared my throat. “So if you’re working in the kitchen, what brings you up here, to the east wing?”

She bit her lip. “Uh, my room’s up here?”

“Your room?”

“Yeah, I uh… I live here now. Too.” She pointed to the bedroom door next to mine, and I nodded, thrilled and terrified. Mostly terrified.

“So I guess we’ll be sharing a bathroom.”

Her eyes moved between me and the bathroom, then slid to our bedroom doors. “I guess so.”

We locked gazes, and suddenly that stupid pigeon of sexual tension was in the air, swooping all around us.

Once again, I cleared my throat. “I’ll be seeing you, then.” Then I left down the stairs, trying to outrun the heat from her body and her pretty green eyes.

That was the first conversation we’d had since the night of the accident, and in all the conversations since then, we’ve never once mentioned Charity’s name.

We exist as though Charity is still alive. I treat Pixie like she’s my annoying little sister, and she treats me the same way. It works. It helps. And it’s familiar.

Except we’re not like siblings. At all.

I reach Ellen’s office and rap my knuckles against her door.

“Come in,” she says from within.

I let myself in and leave the door open. “Do you have my list for today?”

She looks up from her computer screen and hands me a piece of paper, looking exhausted and stressed out.

“What’s up?” I take the list from her hand.

She sighs and rubs her temples. “Yesterday was a disaster. I can’t have the fire alarm go off every time it rains. Guests will just freak out.”

I shrug. “So install an updated system.”

“Right. I know.” She looks back at the computer. “I just don’t know where to start. I’ve been looking up alarm systems all morning and there are so many and I have a ton of other work to do and a bunch of new guests are arriving this afternoon, and I’m just so overwhelmed.”

“I’ll do it.” I smile, partly because I’m sincere in my offer and partly because Ellen reminds me of Pixie when she rambles like that. “I’ll do research and figure out what type of alarm system would suit the inn best.”

Her hazel eyes light up. “Really? Ah! Levi, that would be great.”

Haley knocks on the open office door and finds my eyes. “You have, uh… visitors.”

I frown. “Visitors?”

“Visitors.”

“O-kay.” I look back at Ellen. “I’ll start doing research this week—sound good?”

She smiles brightly. “Sounds excellent.”

Leaving her office, I follow Haley back to the lobby, where I find Zack staring at the Fourth of July flyer by the front door—and beside him is his goat, on a leash.

“Seriously?” I say as I near them. “You brought the goat inside?”

He turns. “He has a name, you know. Marvin.”

“You brought the goat inside.”

“Well, I can’t leave him in the car. He cries and screams and it’s very unsettling. It’s like toting around a hairy toddler.” Zack points to the flyer. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

“About the Fourth of July thing?”

“No. About the cornhole tournament at the Fourth of July thing. We are so doing this.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are.”

Ellen walks past the lobby in her high heels, stops in her tracks, and turns back around to face Zack.

She points at Marvin. “Is that a goat?”

Zack nods once. “Yes, ma’am.”

“In my lobby?”

“Yes, ma’am. But he’s a friendly goat.”

Ellen plasters on a polite smile. “I don’t care if he’s a tap-dancing goat. I want him out of here.”

“Ooh. Harsh,” he says. “But fair. Come on, boy.” He pulls Marvin away from the activities board, where he was chewing on a flyer for bingo night.

Ellen turns to leave, her heels clicking on the wood floor as she sings out, “Thank you, Zack. Always a pleasure to see you.”

“You too, Ms. Marshall,” Zack calls out, lowering his voice as he watches her walk away with his lips parted. “Trust me, the pleasure is all mine…”

“Dude.” I stare at him. “Stop it.”

He yanks his eyes away from Ellen and mocks an innocent grin. “What?”

I shake my head. “Come on.”

Zack and Marvin and I walk out the back doors and stand beside the lavender field as the morning sun slips behind a few leftover storm clouds. The smell of rain still clings to the humid air, but otherwise the storm has cleared out.

I cross my arms. “So why are you here?”

“Very blunt. I like it.” Zack pulls Marvin away from the potted flowers Ellen has flanking the back door. “You’re being a stubborn jackass.”

I raise a brow. “Me? Or the goat?”

“Both of you, really.” Zack tries to unwind himself from the leash as Marvin starts walking around him in circles. “But mostly you.” I watch Marvin yank on the leash and nearly trip Zack.

“I doubt that,” I say.

Zack unwinds from the twisted leash and exhales as he looks at me. “Coach said you haven’t even responded to Dean Maxwell’s request.”

I run a hand over my head and mutter, “Not this again.”

“It’s one fucking essay, dude. You can do that. Hell, you can pay someone to do that.”

“It’s more than an essay,” I say. “It’s me. I lost focus. And I don’t know if I even want to go back.”

He steps over the leash as Marvin moves in circles again. “So what, then? You’re just going to fix toilets for the rest of your life?”

I shrug, a thin burst of stress layering my skin. “Maybe.”

That’s my biggest fear. There’s nothing shameful about being a handyman. In a way, it’s actually pretty rewarding work. But it’s not what I want for my life, and with every day that passes I feel any future in something other than handiwork slipping farther and farther away.

He curses and pulls Marvin away from the nearby lavender flowers. “You’re unbelievable. And selfish.”

“Me? Or the goat?”

Zack looks up. “YOU, dude.”

“I’m selfish?”

“Yes,” he says, completely serious. “Me and the guys chose to be on this team because Levi Fucking Andrews was going to be our quarterback. This isn’t just about you anymore. Don’t screw us over, man. Get your goddamn head figured out and come back and play.”

Well… shit.

The kitchen’s back door opens and Pixie comes out carrying a bag of trash. She throws it away, completely oblivious to us, until Zack opens his giant mouth.

“Sarah!” he shouts out merrily.

Her face breaks into a wide grin. “Hey, Zack.” Her smile slips a bit as her eyes catch on mine, then quickly move back to Zack. “How’ve you be—is that a goat?”

Marvin bleats out a noise that sounds eerily similar to the cry of a small child.

“This is Marvin,” he says. “He eats everything and yells like a distressed baby to get attention. I’m goat-sitting him this summer.”

“Why?” She steps to the side as Marvin tries to lick her apron. “Did you lose a bet?”

He grins. “Better. I gained a phone number.”

She shakes her head. “You will do anything for a hot girl.”

“Present company included.” He winks.

“In that case…” She gestures to me. “Think you can get this schmuck to stop using all the hot water so I don’t have to take a cold shower every morning?”

I glare at her, but she simply cocks an eyebrow in return.

“Levi is depriving you of hot showers?” Zack turns to me and slowly says, “Interesting.”

I look at Pixie. “Maybe you could set an alarm and hog the hot water yourself.”

She says, “Maybe you could shower at night and save us both the trouble.”

“Maybe you could quit nagging me.”

“Maybe you could rock a half-beard for the rest of the summer.”

“Wow.” Zack appears thoroughly amused as he looks back and forth between us. He nods. “This feels good. This feels right.”

Marvin goat-yells again.

“Whatever,” Pixie says. “I have a job to get back to. It was good seeing you, Zack.” She gives him a little wave before heading back inside.

“Later.” Zack looks after her until she disappears, then turns back to me and smiles.

I stare at him. “What?”

He laughs. “I don’t know what your endgame is here, but you really need to get your shit together.”

I sigh and step out of the way as Marvin tries to bite my foot. “I know, I know. Everyone wants me to write the damn essay.”

“No, I mean with Sarah,” he says. “But yeah. The essay thing too.” He lets out a whistle. “Damn, dude. You have a lot of shit to get together.”

Marvin looks up and yells again.

“Tell me about it.”

After I finish working for the day, I head back inside and to the stairs. As I round the banister, I come face-to-face with Ellen and a stack of mail.

“There you are.” She smiles and presses the envelopes against my chest. “More mail.”

“Gee. Thanks.” I take the letters from her hands.

“Anytime.” She moves past me.

I walk upstairs, enter my room, and throw the letters onto my desk. One of the envelopes skids across the surface and hits my laptop, bringing the screen to life. My e-mail window glares back at me with a new message. Stepping closer, I see that it’s from my mom, and my chest immediately tightens.

I haven’t spoken to either of my parents in months.

After Charity died, Mom and Dad went a little crazy. Instead of coping with their daughter’s death, they took their sorrows out on each other. They fought constantly. They grieved endlessly. But not together. They didn’t know how to console each other, so instead they slipped deeper and deeper into their own personal pits of grief.

They separated three months after the accident, and both of them left town.

My dad took a job in Nevada, where he promptly buried himself in his work and took up smoking. He didn’t even bother to say good-bye before he left. I think the thought of making his move “official” with a send-off and a good-bye hug was just too much for him to bear.

But he called me once, after he moved. We spent the entire phone call rehashing a recent NFL game and kept away from any real-life topics. I haven’t spoken with him since.

My mom moved to New Hampshire, where she was far away from Charity’s memory and my facial features. After the funeral, she could barely look at me, the living son who so resembled her deceased daughter. And when she did chance a glance at me, her eyes would flash with pain before quickly darting elsewhere. Maybe she thought putting twenty-five hundred miles between my face and her eyes would make things hurt less.

“I’ll call you and you can come visit,” she said to me the day she left Copper Springs. I lifted her heavy suitcase into the white minivan she used to drive Charity to piano lessons in and leaned down so she could hug me good-bye. She smelled like lemons. She always smelled like lemons.

She squeezed me tighter than necessary and mumbled a bunch of things about taking care of myself, but she didn’t make eye contact. Not even when tears dripped down her soft cheeks.

She drove away, and I watched the white minivan disappear down the street like it was any other Tuesday. Headed to school, to piano lessons, to football practice.

Headed to New Hampshire.

That was last winter. I’ve talked to my mom twice since then, and both conversations were strained and short, like we no longer know how to interact with each other.

So her e-mailing me is a surprise. Not a pleasant surprise, exactly. Just an interesting one.

With a quiet inhale, I sit down at my desk and open her e-mail. It’s addressed to me, but she copied my father as well.

Fantastic.

From: Linda Andrews

To: Levi Andrews; Mark Andrews

Subject: College

Levi,

I know things haven’t been perfect for our family lately, and I know your father and I aren’t helping any by keeping our distance from each other. But the two of us have been talking, and we’re both concerned about you.

As you know, Dean Maxwell is good friends with your father, and he informed us that you haven’t made any attempt to be reinstated at school. What is going on, Levi? Why are you not enrolled?

Your father and I realize that you’re an adult now and can make your own decisions, but we want you to be happy. We want great things for you. We want you to play football and finish college, and go on to the live the life that you’ve worked so hard to earn. And we want to help you in any way we can. Let’s come together as a family to get this resolved.

We hope you’re doing well. And we love you so much. And miss you.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Several emotions pass through me as I reread the e-mail. Anger. Bitterness. Annoyance. The stubborn part of me wants to ignore it altogether and not respond. But the prideful part of me won’t allow it. So I write them back.

From: Levi Andrews

To: Linda Andrews; Mark Andrews

Subject: RE: College

Mom and Dad,

It’s nice to hear the two of you are on speaking terms, like grown adults who are still married should be, but I’m a little confused at why you’re both so “concerned” for me.

I would think that the time for two parents to be worried about their child would be the first few months after that child lost his baby sister. But you guys didn’t seem at all interested in my state of mind or well-being after Charity died. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

I realize you blame me for her death, and honestly I don’t fault you for that. But I was a wreck after the accident. I really needed you guys, and you just took off and went about “finding” yourselves and “starting fresh.” I didn’t have that luxury. I had to stay.

I was racked with guilt and so messed up. I slowly failed all my classes at school and eventually got kicked off the football team at ASU. So yeah, my probationary status at school is a bummer, but it’s far less severe than my physiological status during your flee-the-city phases.

So thanks for your concern, but you’ll understand if I don’t really feel like coming together as a “family” on this one. Clearly, I’ve handled far worse on my own. There’s no need to start helping me now.

Love,

Levi

P.S. In case you were wondering, Pixie’s doing just great too.

I click Send without a second thought and close my laptop.