Page 44 of Broken Pieces
“Thank you, Zane,” he whispers, handing it back.
I set the glass back beside his bed.
“If anyone gives you shit, you come find me, Caleb,” I tell him. My voice is low, steady, carrying a weight I’m certain he’ll hear.
He nods, eyes wide, and something in my chest tightens.
“If you get worse, you come to me, not Dolores. I mean it.” I tell him.
If I have to take him to emergency, I’ll fucking do it. Whether Dolores likes it or not.
He nods again. His lids droop heavy, exhaustion pulling him back under. When he closes his eyes, I stand there longer than I should, listening to his breathing even out.
The thought chews at me. How easy it would be to expose her. To let the government see her for what she really is. To strip away the act she puts on every time a social worker stepsinto this house. She fools them all, wrapping her venom in a practiced smile, feeding them the lines they want to hear.
Meanwhile, the cupboards are locked, the kids hungry, the sickness ignored.
I turn and walk out, shutting the door softly behind me.
Back in my room, I drop down onto the mattress. I lie back, staring up at the ceiling and turn my thoughts toward the future that seems too distant to ever reach.
I think about the job at the workshop, about Rainer, the only person who has ever given me a real shot.
He doesn’t ask questions. Never looked at me like I am a problem waiting to happen. He lets me work, and in that, there is a kind of freedom I have never had before.
Maybe when I finally get out of here, when I’ve got a place that’s mine, I’ll ask him for more hours. No more school. No more fuckers waiting for me to snap. Just work, sweat, and something that finally gives me a sense of control for the first time in my life.
Planning futures that still feel too far away, promises I am not sure I can keep.
But that is all I fucking have.
Chapter Seven
Skylar
It’sbeenfourweeksof fucking silence. Twenty-Eight days since Zane kissed me— almost a full month.
Not that I’m counting.
Except I fucking am.
Every day. Every breath. It’s carved deep into me, ticking like a goddamn clock I can’t shut off.
Every fucking second, it loops in my head.
His mouth crashing into mine. It tore through the rules about never letting anyone too close.
And now… Now he’s keeping his distance. As if it meant nothing. As if I’m the idiot still carrying the scorch of it across my mouth.
I haven’t seen him around the house. He’s become a ghost, vanished into shadows that don’t leave footprints.
Truth is, I can’t even tell if he’s still there. For all I know, he’s already packed up and disappeared, left nothing behind but silence and the taste of that kiss still burning through me.
At school, he avoids me.
Eyes fixed on the wall, the floor, the fucking clouds—anywhere but me. Most days he doesn’t even show, and no one asks why.
Not the students. Not the teachers.
