Page 49 of Broken Pieces
By the time the final bell rings, I’m exhausted. There were lectures I didn’t hear, questions I didn’t answer, and eyes I refused to meet. My pen barely touched the page. I stared out thewindow while the clock dragged its feet, each second stretching just long enough to remind me I don’t belong here.
On the walk home, Cassie talks the whole way, filling the space with gossip, teacher complaints, some story about a guy who tried to cheat off her math test and called her “hostile” when she told him to fuck off.
I laugh when I’m supposed to. Nod when it fits. But my mind’s somewhere else.
She doesn’t notice.
Or maybe she does, but lets it slide. That’s always been our deal.
When we reach the corner where Cassie and I split, I don’t move. I watch her cross the road, her braid swinging as she throws me a wave.
When she disappears down the street I turn around and go in the opposite direction.
I’m not ready to go home just yet.
I drift past store windows filled with clothes that will never be mine.
Crop tops, ripped jeans, leather jackets standing stiff on faceless mannequins.
The park feels easier.
I drop onto a metal bench, my eyes moving towards the duck skimming across the pond. Kids laugh hard enough to echo, handfuls of bread, parents snapping photos like they can trap joy in a frame.
I stay there, the minutes slipping by with the ripples on the pond and the squeals of kids that eventually fade as their parents drag them home.
The park empties until it’s just me. I stay long enough for the sky to shift, for the world to sink into shadow.
Streetlights buzz to life, throwing pale halos across the pavement as I walk home.
The second I push through the door, it slams into me. Noise everywhere. Someone’s losing their shit over socks. Another kid bawls because they got slammed into the wall. A toddler shrieks like the world’s ending while the TV hammers football commentary loud enough to rattle the windows.
Dolores doesn’t move.
She’s sunk into the couch, two wine coolers down, eyes glued to the game. She yells at the screen, slurring curses like the players might actually hear her through the glass.
It’s the same circus every night.
I dump my bag on the bed and head for the window. Dinner doesn’t even cross my mind.
Dolores would lose her shit if she caught me climbing out, threaten the social workers, call me a runaway again. She pulled that stunt when I was fourteen, when all I’d done was sit in the backyard staring at the stars. I hadn’t even left.
Didn’t matter.
She twisted it, turned me into the problem because that’s what she does best.
The rooftop pulls at me louder than anything else. It’s more mine now than Zane’s, since he can’t be bothered to show up anymore.
I cut through the alley.
The moon spills silver across the pavement, lighting everything up in a way that’s too bright, too exposing. My steps fall into rhythm, quick, carrying me straight to the ladder.
I climb without hesitation.
Except tonight it isn’t empty.
Zane. Hood pulled low, cigarette burning between his fingers, his body slouched against the tin as if the whole roof belongs to him.
He turns his head, and our eyes collide.
