Page 16 of Pretty Broken Wings

I close my eyes to pretend he’s not here. But that doesn’t work. Ithurts. It feels like I’m on fire.

“I love you, buddy. This’ll be our little secret, yeah? Don’t tell your mom.”

The bed squeaks. My cotton sheets are damp under my hands. And his breath… It smells bad. It smells like the underside of a muddy rock. One with rotten mushrooms.

Mom always says to brush your teeth in the mornings.

Rich never does.

His breath ghosts over me again. “This is what people who love each other do. Everyone does it, so they don’t tell their friends about it. It’s nothing special.”

It’s worse than muddy mushrooms. It’s like when I accidentally left spaghetti in my lunchbox for two days. Like when the sink clogged up, and mom had to get a stranger to come and fix it.

I never want to smell like that.

After it’s over and I cry the night away, I spend the rest of my allowance on a pack of mint gum.

My eyes prick with heat. Why the fuck can’t I just put this behind me? It didn’t mean anything then, and it’s over now. Done. Why the fuck does it haunt me every year?

It takes too long to get to Raven’s apartment, but when I do, my car isn’t there. I sigh in relief, then realize that maybe he parked in the back.

No. No, Gage isn’t going to ruin this for me.

I stumble to the back lot, but all the cars are in shadows, and I can’t tell for sure if they’re my car or not. Why isn’t there a fucking light back here? I stumble past each one, keeping enough of my head not to set the alarms off, feeling to see if they’re hot.

None are.

Relief rushes through me, and I fall back against the car and face her apartment.

What is she doing?

Not that I care. She doesn’t mean anything. She’s just a distraction. Just a fun little toy.

This doesn’t mean anything.

Nothing at all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

8 Years Old

The smell of melted cheese makes my mouth water. I suck in a breath, catching a whiff of savory pepperoni.So good.

“Move.” Axel pushes past me to get to the table, putting the steaming pizza down. It makes his glasses fog up.

“Happy birthday, boys.” Mom puts down a box of something else, and my eyes widen when I open the lid. Monkey bread. She got us monkey bread!

Today is Friday, which is usually our ‘secret meal’ night. It is the night when we use whatever is in the fridge to try to make a five-star meal. We have a whole ranking system, including ratings for taste, texture, and quantity. Some weeks are better than others, but it’s so much fun. Afterward, Mom makes us toast with cinnamon sugar for dessert.

Fridays are the best.

But today, we got to pick whatever we wanted to eat, and ofcourse, we chose pizza. Who wouldn’t pick pizza? It’s frozen pizza, but it’s the good stuff.

“So, tell me about school.” Mom sits at the table, smiling at us. Axel immediately starts rambling around mouthfuls of food, telling her about how his friends surprised him for his birthday by pieing him in the face.

I was right next to him when it happened and got bits of whipped cream on me. I’m happy for Ax, but my tummy also starts to twist despite the pizza being so, so good. It’s my birthday too, and I didn’t get pied. After lunch, one of Ax’s friends slid me a bag of chocolate candy and said happy birthday, which was nice, because they’re more his friends than mine. Not that I blame them. Axel is happy and funny and all around everything I should be, especially because we’re identical.

Mom is laughing at Ax’s story, which he’s now animating in exaggerated motions. She laughs so hard that tears run down her cheeks.