Broken (The Outsiders Series) Read online

  Broken

  By: Jamie Loeak

  Text Copyright © 2013 Jamie Loeak

  All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  First Digital Edition: 2013

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Loeak, Jamie, 1987-

  Broken; a novel / by Jamie Loeak – 1 ed.

  Editing services provided by Mara Biggs and Stacy Loeak.

  Cover Designer: Kelsey Kukal-Keeton

  K Keeton Designs

  https://www.facebook.com/KKEETONDESIGNS?fref=ts

  http://www.kkeetondesigns.com/

  Cover Models:

  Kerrigan Arnold and Willie Totten

  Summary:

  Carter Daniels is a typical runaway.

  Unsure of who he is or where he’s going, Carter is only sure of one thing: his past is going to stay in the past. But when he gets pulled into the popular crowd at Mason County High School, he’s forced to choose: tell the truth about who he is or lie.

  Lie.

  And it seems to be working. His parents wanted to get him that crappy apartment because they’re never home. He crashed his car so he doesn’t have one. His weekends are filled because he has to spend time with his parents.

  But when Carter is forced to open up to an outsider because of an English assignment, everything changes. There is something he sees in her, an undeniable connection. There is a need to discover what lies behind those sad eyes. But will Carter be able to lower his defenses in order to get past hers? Will he let her in, or will he choose to stay broken?

  For

  Kerrigan and Willie

  Thank you for creating the names that inspired two beautiful characters.

  And for those that have the strength to keep fighting.

  May you remain unbroken.

  1

  “I’ll be back soon,” I say as I walk out the front door. The screen slams behind me, and I can already hear Jack arguing with my mom. As I walk away, their voices don’t get any quieter. The cops will get called again. And the same things will go down. My mom won’t tell the truth. She won’t say that he hit her. She’ll make up some crap lie about falling or tripping. Then Jack will laugh, put his arm around her shoulders and agree. The cops won’t be able to do a thing about him because my mom is too scared to do crap. And I’ll be standing there watching it all.

  This time, I’m walking away. I knew the argument was about to start. It started the same way it always does. Jack’s drinking. His jealousy. The man at the grocery store probably just smiled at my mom. But in Jack’s mind, he hit on her or worse. And when my mom tried to deny it, Jack just got angry. His face turned reddish and his voice grumbled in his chest. He started pointing fingers and she backed away. That was it for me then. I couldn’t take it any longer. I was either going to walk away or deck the bastard for touching my mom. And I’d already given my mom the ultimatum once before. Me or Jack. She chose Jack that time, and she chose him all over again.

  I suck in a deep breath and take the sharp right that leads out of my apartment. And without looking back, I rush to grab a cab. I need to get away from my mom. I can’t just sit around watching Jack abuse her. I can’t take much more. If I stay, I’ll do something I’ll regret, something that will push my mom away even more. I have to go, because she doesn’t want to be saved, and I can’t sit here and watch her take Jack’s abuse. I’ll kill him. And I can’t do that to myself. I can’t hurt myself to save my mom. Not this time, not now.

  When the cab pulls up to the curb, I get in. The driver sits there for a second, drumming her hands on the wheel and smacking on her gum while she waits for me. When I don’t give her an address or place, she turns around to look at me. She’s young, with dark eyes and bleached hair. It looks stupid that light, but it also looks worse because you can tell she tried to take the colors out of it or something. And now she’s left with a faded rainbow on the ends of her almost-white hair.

  “Kid, where is it you wanna go?” she asks as she waves her fake nails in my face. She looks drugged out with her dark makeup and see-through skin. And she won’t stop chewing on that piece of bubble gum. It’s kind of annoying me right now.

  “Out of the city somewhere,” I say as I look at the rips in my favorite jeans. I don’t really know where I want to go, but I know it’s not here. And this is the first time I’ve been brave enough to leave. So I’d better go.

  “Well where is that?” she asks again. This time, her voice is strained as she tries to hide the fact that she’s annoyed with me.

  I look up and notice a picture of the mountains on her dashboard. “Tennessee,” I answer easily.

  “You got that kinda cash?” she asks as she lifts an eyebrow.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out the wad that I always carry with me. She spots the roll of twenties and nods before turning back around. She blows a bubble with her gum, puts the car in drive, and pulls back out onto the busy street. I lean back and relax. This is gonna be a long trip, and I don’t want to say goodbye to my old home. So I look ahead and watch the long, grey road in front of us.

  Eventually, my eyes drift down to the rearview mirror. My brown eyes look darker than usual. Almost black or something. And my dark hair’s pretty messy right now. It’s short and I don’t have to do anything to it usually. But today it looks like I just rolled out of bed and walked outside. Whatever.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. I’m pretty thin and tall. I have some muscles though. The kids in the neighborhood worked out with me a lot. We didn’t really know when someone was going to try to jump us so we had to be prepared at all times.

  I close my eyes and lean back to take a short nap. I need to try to forget about all of that. My apartment and that whole life is behind me. I just need to keep looking in front of me. Because that’s the only way I’ll get anywhere.

  “So, uh, why don’t you got any bags with you, kid?” the woman asks a while later. “You don’t look like you staying long, so why you going so far for?”

  “I have some family that I’m going to stay with for the weekend,” I say with a shrug. “It was time to get out.” I look up after answering her question. But the truth is that I don’t know how long I’ll stay in Tennessee.

  The woman nods once and looks at me through the rearview mirror. Her mouth is set in a thin line. Her dark eyes are serious and knowing. “I know what you going through, kid. But if they start looking for you, I ain’t sticking up for you.”

  “I know.” I want to tell her that I never expected her to, but then I realize that I would have wanted her to stay quiet. So, instead, I keep my mouth shut and turn to look out the window. The silence doesn’t last long.

  “You know, kid, you got it made right here. You got chances to get out. A girl like me didn’t have no chances. I got shoved into the rooms of all kinds o’ men. My daddy wasn’t good to me. It took me a lot o’ learning to know that I needed to be good to me, even if he wasn’t. And I just now got this job. It wasn’t two months ago, kid. And now I got to tell you that you gotta be good to yourself. Don’t be like me.”

  I sit up and lean forward. My elbows rest on my knees as the weight on my shoulders relaxes slightly. I guess her words make me feel better, make me feel like I’ll actually be able to escape from this mess. “I won’t let that happen,” I say. “I’ve watched it happen for too long.”

  “Mm, your mama in trouble and she won’t listen to you, kid?” She glances back at me through the rearview mirror. And I can see that she’s sad about all of it. But at the same time, she’s interested in hearing a story.

  I shrug. No one wants to admit something like that, even to a stranger.

  She continues anyway. “You doing a good thing, kid. You gotta leave people that don’t love you, you know? Sometimes you just can’t let ‘em stick around forever.” The woman blows another bubble with her gum. The movement of her tongue pushing through the pink stuff mesmerizes me for a second, but I’m jerked out of her spell when she runs over a hole in the road. She winks at me when she realizes, and I look down. I’m not interested in a woman that makes her own kind of love because she can’t find anything real. Besides, she isn’t attractive. She wears too much eye makeup and her fake nails curl at the ends. She would probably be something fun to remember but a guy’s first time shouldn’t be like that.

  “You got a girl, baby?” She offers the obvious hint when I won’t look back up at her.

  I shake my head. “I’m not interested in a detour,” I answer.

  The woman shrugs, not caring. “Eh, I just figured that a kid like yourself would take what he could get. Not something you get asked often, I bet.”

  This time I look up. “No. But I never took cab rides like this, either.”

  The woman surprises me by laughing. “You know, kid, you seem all right. I don’t know why your mama don’t love you.” That’s the second time she’s said that. And the thought is beginning to grate my nerves. My mom might be bad at making decisions. But I never thought that she didn’t love me. But that could be why she chose Jack.

  I look up at the driver. “Let’s just stop here,” I say.
>
  ---

  The woods look different here. They’re thicker and rougher, like they’re more wild or something. The trees are tall and they touch each other at the top so that the sunlight barely touches the floor. Right now, there are only a few rays down here, making it look later than it really is. My guess is early afternoon or something. And after the night I had, I’d like to see the sun. The sun will be the only thing to calm me down.

  I look up to watch a few birds fly by. They’re probably going south for the winter. It makes me think that I should’ve done the same thing. But now I’m stranded up here. And I don’t even know what town I’m in. We just stopped and I told her that I’d stay in this part of town. I figured that no one would guess I was here. But at least someone knows.

  “You sure you don’t wanna come with me, kid? We could finish the trip,” the woman said last night.

  I just shook my head and walked away. There wasn’t anything else for me to do. And now I’m here in the woods, hiding in the outskirts of this town.

  Leaning back against a tree, I shove my hands in the pockets of my zip-up hoodie. It’s my favorite one. Grey with headphones in the strings. I like it because I can listen to music. But I left that at home with my guitar, all my clothes, and my other stuff. So I should probably go shopping or something. But first, I’ll stay here, hidden and alone, with no one to bother me. It’s all I’ve wanted.

  Suddenly, I stand up. The bark’s been digging in my back, but physical pain is nothing to me. Nothing hurts me anymore. Shaking off my hoodie, I start walking again. I don’t really know where I’m going. All I know is that the road is somewhere behind me, and I’m sure I can figure out how to get back. So nothing else matters. Not now anyway.

  Up ahead I see that more sunlight is breaking through. I push forward, wanting to touch it. When I get to it, I hold my tanned hand out, feeling the warmth. Particles of dust and other things shimmer in the light. It makes me think of magic for a moment. Then, I pull my hand away and shake my head. There is no magic for me in the world. That was taken away when my mom met Jack. And now I’m taking part of it back from him.

  I reach back out and touch the sun’s rays. My skin seems brighter and healthier out here. Back home we didn’t have anything like this. The closest way to touch nature was the park or your backyard. The sun’s rays didn’t look like this. They were untouchable, invisible like my mom’s strength when it came to Jack. When it came to me, she was all kinds of strong. And I hated that about her. I hated to see the darkest parts of her. It reminded me of Jack, even though he had never touched me.

  And if he had, I would’ve ended him. I would have killed him. And I would have done it for my mom. But she would never see that it was for her. She would have seen evil and greed. She would have seen a monster or worse. But I would have seen freedom. I see it now, out here. And when I step out into a small field of dead grass, I feel it too.

  I walk over the crunch of the ground until I reach a small pond. Moss and lilies surround it, and I can almost imagine how much life is here when the summer months come. I walk around the pond, looking for other signs of life too. Small hoof prints are pressed into the soft ground near the water’s edge and a fish splashes in the shallow part of the water. I wonder how deep it is here. But I don’t get to find out.

  A sound off to my left alerts me and I sprint for the break in the trees. I learned to be a fast runner when I was little. Jack used to chase me around the house, scaring me with threats. When I got older I realized that they were just empty threats, but part of me still thinks that he would’ve done it if he could’ve gotten away with it. He just knew that I’d grow up to be bigger than he is. And I did; I’m about four inches taller than that bastard. But I won’t do it now because my mom would never forgive me. And then I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.

  I shake my head to stop from going around in circles. I got away so I wouldn’t think about them anymore. But they’re all I seem to think about now. I did a better job back home because I had school and stuff. Now, with nothing to occupy my thoughts, they keep circling back to the only things I know: Mom and Jack. And now I’m thinking about them again. Perfect. Just perfect.

  So, instead of thinking, I push my head around one of the trees I’m hiding behind. I watch, stunned, as a girl pushes her way through the brown and tan grass. She walks quickly, with her eyes on the ground. She has dark hair and creamy skin. Her body is thin, and I study her legs as she pushes forward. She wears dark jeans that hug her slight curves. I can’t help but push my eyes upward. She wears a navy jacket, one of the ones that swishes when she moves. From here, I can’t tell much else, so I just lean back and watch what she does. If she walks toward me, I want to be able to run.

  She doesn’t, though. Instead, she moves to sit on a log that’s nearest me. She sits down, her back facing me, and pulls her knees up to her chest. Her shirt and jacket pull up and I can see a thin line of her creamy skin. I bite my lower lip, wanting her for some reason. Maybe it’s the way she walks. Or the way she looks at the ground. But the feeling doesn’t stay long because the girl rests her head on her knees and cries silently. She stays like this for some time. The only thing that tells me that she’s alive is the slight movement of her back when she breathes.

  Together, we stay there in that field – me watching and her crying. We stay like that until the sun begins to fall behind the thick, grey clouds. I watch her walk away from me, and before she pushes through the trees, I catch a glimpse of a school crest. I think it’s time for me to enroll here. I guess I’m staying for a while.

  2

  “Excuse me ma’am,” I say as I push into the front doors of Mason County High School. “Do new students register here?”

  The woman behind the counter looks up at me. She’s got dark curly hair that stops at her shoulders and a kind smile. “Yes, dear, but where are your parents? I need their signatures.”

  “They wanted me to come inside and do this on my own so that I could increase my independence or something like that,” I lie. I bite my lower lip afterwards, feeling bad. I’m not the lying type. I’ve been lied to too much to lie. But this is the only way I’m going to get anywhere in this small town – lies. And a lot of them.

  The woman smiles and looks into my eyes. She trusts me; I can see that by the way her blue eyes push into my dark ones. “How old are you? And what’s your name, darling?” She looks down at the computer on her small desk. Her hands are resting on the keyboard in front of her.

  “I’m Carter, ma’am. And I’m eighteen,” I say as I lean on the counter in front of me.

  “You a senior, Carter?” She’s still typing when she asks me but looks back up when I don’t answer right away.

  “No, ma’am, I’m a junior.” I rub the back of my head, embarrassed about this for the first time. No one cared at my other school but I knew everyone there.

  The woman bites her lower lip. She’s wearing this dark red lipstick that smears as she does this. “Carter, I’m going to have to look at your transcripts to see what grade you failed. Do your parents have those in the car?”

  I shake my head. “Ma’am, I’ve never failed a grade.” I sigh, steeling myself for telling her what happened. “My mom didn’t enroll me in time. She was too busy working, and she just forgot.” The truth is that she didn’t forget at all; she just didn’t see the point in sending me to kindergarten. When she tried to enroll me in first grade the next year, the women in the office laughed at her stupidity, and I was pushed into kindergarten.

  “Well, Carter, I’m sorry to hear what happened to you and your mom. I suppose it won’t hurt to ignore that part, then.” She looks up again and offers a knowing look.

  “My home life is better now that things have changed, ma’am. And coming here will help me too.” I smile at her to push my point further, and when she smiles back, I know I’ve done my job.

  “Well, Carter, all I need is your last name and signature. Since you’re eighteen, I don’t need your parent’s signature. Just a driver’s license to prove it. Sound good?”