Not Quickly Broken Read online

  “Oh, okay. Thanks,” I said, turning to go.

  “Do you want me to tell her you came by?” Mrs. White called after me.

  “No,” I answered. “It’s not a big deal.”

  And it wasn’t. It wasn’t a big deal. Not at all. She was out with her boyfriend. How was that possibly a big deal?

  I didn’t see Charlotte again until the following Wednesday evening at youth group (where I managed to avoid her for the entire evening). She found me, however, after our play practice was over.

  “Still doing okay with your math?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Mom said you came by the other night,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “No problem,” I replied. “I got it figured out.”

  “Good,” she nodded.

  I nodded back, and – for the first time in my life – I really looked at Charlotte.

  Charlotte’s hair was blond. Not bleached blonde or platinum or anything like that, but a pretty kind of blonde – sort of a honey color – and it hung down below her shoulders.

  Her eyes were gold and (although I’d read about characters in books who had gold eyes) I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody with them before. She had little gold hoop earrings to match. Even her skin was kind of golden.

  And Charlotte was tall . . . especially for a girl. She had to be close to six foot. I would probably barely have to lean down at all if I wanted to–

  I gave my head a shake.

  “What?” Charlotte asked.

  “Did you get your hair cut or something?”

  “No.”

  I looked at her again.

  “Something’s different.”

  “I straightened it, maybe?” she suggested.

  “It’s usually curly?”

  “Yes it’s usually curly, you idiot!” she held out her hands in exasperation, her gold eyes flashing at me. “You’ve known me for fifteen years! How can you not know that my hair is curly?”

  “I . . . I guess I just never noticed before.”

  She rolled those eyes.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said, shaking her head and giving me a little smile that let me know she wasn’t really mad. “Goodnight, Jordan.”

  “Goodnight.”

  She turned to walk away and I watched after her as she went.

  There were a lot of things about Charlotte that I had never noticed before.

  By Friday night I wasn’t even trying to pretend that I didn’t hope to hear her knock lightly on my front door, but she didn’t. She pounded on it.

  I opened it and didn’t say anything, I just held it open for her and she ducked under my arm, heading directly over to what I had already begun to think of as her regular seat on the couch. I sat down on the other end.

  The cookies were already out on the table and I picked up the package, offering her some.

  “No, thanks,” she said, shaking her head. Then, “Is it really safe to leave them lying out in the open like that?”

  “Mom’s working tonight,” I explained and she gave me a little nod.

  Charlotte looked at my math that was once again spread out across the coffee table.

  “I don’t suppose you need any help, do you?”

  “If you wanted to check it over, that would be great,” I said, “I’m not sure if I’m doing them right or not.”

  She glanced at me. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  “I think they’re probably right,” I admitted with a smile.

  She regarded me for a moment and then sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For bothering you.”

  “You’re not bothering me,” I assured her.

  She looked at me uncertainly, and then sighed again, resting her head against the back of the couch.

  I looked at her quietly for a moment. Her naturally curly hair was back. Her eyes were still gold.

  “Why do you keep going out with him?” I finally asked.

  She didn’t answer me.

  “I mean,” I went on, “it seems to me that you could find somebody who treats you better.”

  “He’s not that bad,” she said.

  “That’s your standard?” I asked, incredulous. “‘Not that bad’?”

  “Well, that’s not what I mean,” she said. “I mean that it’s not his fault that we fight all the time.”

  “I don’t think it really matters whose fault it is,” I told her. “I think you can do better.”

  She looked me square in the eye.

  “Like who?” she asked.

  I stared at her for a moment, thinking that I’d really like to answer that, but before I could say anything, the front door burst open and Tanner barged in. He looked briefly surprised to see Charlotte sitting on the couch, but got over it quick when he spotted the cookies.

  “Hey,” he said to both of us. Charlotte said ‘Hi’ back, but I just glared at him. He leaned down and grabbed up the package of cookies. “I thought Mom quit buying these.”

  He picked up the remote and sat down in Mom’s recliner, flicking on the television.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him.

  “I promised Mom I’d haul that old sink off to the dump tomorrow,” he explained. “I thought I’d load it up tonight while you’re here to help me.” (He knew that I was going to be busy the next day refereeing little kids’ soccer games all day for the Parks and Rec department.)

  I thought about suggesting to him that maybe it would have been a nice idea if he’d called me first and asked me if I had any other plans, but instead I asked, “And so why are you turning on the television?”

  “Nebraska and Iowa are playing and I came over during halftime,” he explained as if I were an idiot. “We’ll do it as soon as it’s over.” He shoved two more cookies in his mouth.

  It would be SO easy to hate him right now . . .

  I glared at him some more and then glanced back at Charlotte, wanting to apologize for Tanner interrupting us. But I wasn’t exactly sure what – if anything – he had interrupted.

  “I’d better go,” she said, standing up.

  Yep. Very easy to hate him.

  I got my jacket and we headed outside.

  “Just to clarify,” she said as the door closed behind us, “tonight’s cookie loss is not my fault, right?”

  “Right,” I laughed. “They never stood a chance.”

  She laughed too as we reached the sidewalk.

  “I’m sorry you have to keep walking me home,” she said. “I should have driven over here.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, thanks,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” I nodded. I hesitated, but just for a second, and then I said, “I like walking you home.”

  She turned her head to look at me. “You do?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, daring to go a step further. “I like spending time with you.”

  There was the slightest pause.

  “I like spending time with you, too,” she finally said, giving me a little smile.

  I also liked the way this conversation was going.

  “It’s nice to have a friend to talk to,” she went on.

  A friend.

  A friend?

  I didn’t like that quite as much.

  We walked on quietly for a moment and I decided to try a different approach.

  “Thought anymore about who you would fix me up with?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I decided that no one’s good enough for you,” she teased. “You’re too perfect.”

  “I’m not perfect.”

  “You’re pretty close,” she said, still smiling.

  I know she was just kidding, but actually something had been bothering me ever since she’d told me I was virtuous.

  “Remember how you asked me what the worst thing was that I’ve ever done?” I asked her.

  She nodded at me.

  I stopped and looked at her.

 
“Do you still want to know?” I asked. She stopped too and nodded again, and from the light of a nearby streetlamp I could see a look of surprise on her face.

  The yard we were walking past had a stone wall at the end of the lawn, bordering the sidewalk. I pushed myself up onto it and then Charlotte did the same.

  After she’d hoisted herself up onto the wall, she turned to face me, staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to tell her.

  “A few years ago,” I finally began, “after Tanner got his first job teaching, he rented a house over on Westmore Avenue.”

  I looked at Charlotte again and she nodded at me.

  “And the first thing he did after he got moved in,” I continued, “was to buy a puppy.”

  I stared across the street into the night, remembering.

  “She was really cute,” I went on. “A chocolate lab. He named her Chocolate Éclair and called her Claire for short.”

  Charlotte let out a small, appreciative laugh.

  “She was about this big when he got her,” I said, holding my hands about ten inches apart. “I remember he spent all this time and money training her. He’d get up at like five-thirty in the morning just so he could work with her and then he’d spend all evening with her when he got home from work and I remember she was so smart. She did everything he ever told her to do.

  “I’ve never seen a dog that was trained like that,” I said, shaking my head. “He was really proud of her.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlotte nod at me again, encouraging me to go on. I took a deep breath.

  “So anyway,” I finally said, “One night when she was probably about a year old, I was over there, visiting.”

  I paused for a moment.

  “And she got out in the street,” I finally said. “Got hit by a car.”

  Charlotte didn’t say anything.

  “I’d never seen Tanner like that before,” I told her quietly. I remembered Tanner running into the street and crouching over Claire, wrapping his arms around her broken body. I’d never seen Tanner cry before. It was absolutely the most heart-wrenching thing I had ever seen in my life.

  “It was awful,” I finally finished.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said in a soft voice.

  I nodded, and then glanced back at her. I looked at her for a moment before jabbing my thumb into my chest.

  “I left the gate open,” I said.

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d laughed out loud at me.

  That’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

  But she didn’t. Instead she tipped her head and looked at me sympathetically.

  “Jordan,” she said gently, leaning closer and putting a hand on my arm. “You were just a kid. You can’t blame yourself for something like that. It was just a mistake . . . you didn’t mean to do it.”

  “I know,” I admitted, “but he never knew how she got out of the yard and I never told him it was my fault. That’s the worst part . . . that I never told him the truth.”

  She was quiet for a moment and then she said, “So why don’t you tell him now?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?” she asked. “If that’s the worst part, then why don’t you tell him?”

  I shook my head again.

  “You’d feel better if you told him,” she said. I didn’t answer her, but just shook my head one more time.

  We sat there quietly like that for a minute.

  After a long moment she took her hand off of my arm and I missed it immediately. Then, in a quiet voice, she asked, “Do you wanna know the worst thing I ever did?”

  I looked at her, surprised, and I nodded.

  She looked at me for another long moment, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to tell me. When she finally did, it was in a voice that was barely a whisper.

  “It was my fault that Greg died,” she said.

  “What?” I cried in disbelief.

  Some guy had walked into the high school with a gun, gone into Mr. White’s classroom, and then randomly shot Greg and their dad. Charlotte had only been seven years old.

  “How in the world could you possibly figure that was your fault?”

  She bit her lip and looked away.

  “You can’t ever tell anyone,” she finally whispered, glancing back at me.

  “I won’t.”

  “You have to promise,” she insisted.

  “I promise,” I said, nodding.

  It was a long while before she spoke again.

  “I had this little plastic lizard,” she finally began in a small voice. “I got it when we went to one of those pizza places with all the arcade games? I bought it with a bunch of those tickets, you know?”

  She still wasn’t looking at me, but I nodded again.

  “So, one day I decided to give it to Dad as a present or something, I don’t remember exactly. I just know that I wrapped it up and everything and gave it to him and he made a really big deal about it, you know, acting like he loved it and everything.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “But then,” she said, quickly glancing at me, “I decided I wanted it back. He gave it back to me, but he went on and on about how much he missed it and how he was going to have to cry himself to sleep every night and stuff.”

  She looked at me again.

  “He was just teasing,” she explained, “but I felt bad about taking it from him, so I gave it back to him, but then I missed it again . . .”

  There was another long pause.

  “So anyway,” she finally went on, “Daddy and I decided that we were going to share it.” She stared across the street like I had done earlier. “We decided that he’d have it one day and I’d have it the next and we’d just keep taking turns, trading back and forth.

  She glanced at me again and I nodded to encourage her to keep going.

  “Every day that it was his turn to have it,” she continued, “he’d make a big production out of taking it to work with him and everything. He’d have it ride on his dashboard and set it on his desk at work and stuff like that.”

  She seemed to almost smile as she remembered.

  “But one day he left for work really early,” Charlotte said, her face turning somber again, “before I’d even gotten up, and it was supposed to be his day to have it. When I got up and found out he hadn’t taken it with him I started crying . . . just pitching an absolute fit.”

  She hesitated.

  “Mom couldn’t get me to calm down about it,” she finally said, “so Greg told me that he’d take it to school and give it to Dad. He was just trying to get me to shut up because I was being such a brat.

  “And that’s why Greg got killed,” she finally finished quietly, “because he went into Dad’s room to take him that stupid lizard.”

  “You don’t know that’s why he was in your dad’s room,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” she argued. “They got killed in the afternoon. Greg had already had Dad for class that morning. David told us that Greg said he was going to see Dad because he forgot to give him something. The only reason Greg was in his room that afternoon was because he was taking Dad that lizard so he wouldn’t have to listen to me whine and cry about it if Dad came home without it.”

  “You don’t know that’s what he was taking to your dad,” I insisted. “It could have been a homework assignment or anything. For all you know he gave that lizard to your dad as soon as he got to class that morning and it didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  She shook her head.

  “They gave us a box with the clothes my dad was wearing when they found him,” she said. “And they gave us two boxes with Greg’s stuff in it – his back pack and the clothes he was wearing and stuff.”

  She looked at me angrily, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “You wanna take a guess whose box the lizard was in?”

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “Charlotte,” I said quietly, now putting my hand on her ba
ck, “you were seven years old. You were a little kid. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

  “It’s not any different than you blaming yourself for Tanner’s dog,” she pointed out, “plus this was a person, not a dog.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “The only reason that Greg died,” she said adamantly, “is because I was a selfish, little brat.”

  “That’s not true,” I said gently, shaking my head and rubbing her back. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She didn’t answer me, but after a minute she took a deep breath.

  “I can’t believe I told you that,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I’ve never told anybody that before in my life.”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Please don’t ever tell anybody,” she said. “I don’t want my mom to know.”

  “Doesn’t she already know?”

  “No,” Charlotte said, shaking her head. “I got the lizard out of the box before she ever saw it . . . she doesn’t know that it was my fault.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said again, but I could tell I was never going to convince her.

  “Promise me you won’t tell?” she asked, wiping her eyes. She looked at me and waited for an answer.

  “I promise,” I nodded. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  I walked Charlotte the rest of the way to her house and we were pretty quiet until we got to her porch.

  “Thanks again for walking me home,” she said quietly.

  “Sure,” I nodded, “but Charlotte?”

  “What?”

  “I want you to think about what I said. It’s not your fault about Greg.”

  “Shhh!” she said frantically, glancing toward her house. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything!”

  “I’m not,” I said in a quieter voice, “but I don’t think it’s good for you to go around thinking that what happened was your fault. It’s not.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “And I also don’t think it’s good,” I went on, “for you to keep going out with somebody that you fight with all the time.”

  She still didn’t say anything.

  “Like I said, I think you can do better.”

  “Like who?” she asked, looking me straight in the eye just like she had before.