Best Kind of Broken

12 Levi

My feet beat against the stone steps in a constant rhythm as I ascend the steep incline yet again. The sky is heavy with clouds and the air is thick as I suck it into my lungs with each labored breath.

Pixie has a boyfriend and I have no problem with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate the guy. But I have no problem with Pixie dating someone. It’s good for her. Healthy. At least she’s getting on with her life, which is more than I can say for myself.

At the top of the steps, I bend over to catch my breath and take a deep swig of water.

And the condom thing, well, that’s just good planning. I’m not at all unsettled by the thought of Pixie having sex with Matt the Boyfriend—or any other guy, for that matter.

My knuckles go white around the bottle.

Not unsettled at all.

Loosening my grip, I take a few deep breaths and look out over the area. The lavender field leads down into an old amphitheater of sorts, complete with old stone benches curved into bowl-shaped stadium seating and crumbling staircases running up and down each side.

At one time, this place was probably used for small concerts or shows, but now it’s mostly just rubble overgrown with dandelions and rogue sprouts of lavender. Guests sometimes come out here to take pictures or sit and read. It has that kind of feel to it. Quiet. Peaceful. I feel neither as I catch my breath.

With my muscles worked to their morning limit and sweat dripping down my face, I step away from the forgotten theater and climb up to the field.

The storm smell on the wind rolls over me, reminding me of a day last summer when I thought I had everything. A family. A future. Maybe even love. Funny how quickly you can lose the things you thought were certain.

Back inside, I take a shower and do my best to deplete the warm water. The first time I used all the hot water was an accident. It was two days after Pixie had moved in—two very uncomfortable days of tension and sadness—and I had exhausted the early morning repainting the inn’s front porch. My hands and arms were covered in white paint, so I spent an excessive amount of time trying to scrub my skin clean as I showered.

I didn’t realize I’d used all the hot water until twenty minutes after my shower when I heard Pixie squeal in the bathroom, then stomp into the hallway. She knocked on my door and proceeded to lecture me on the polite usage of a shared bathroom.

At first, I felt really bad about hogging the water, but then I realized her scolding was the longest conversation we’d had in months, and it took away some of the darkness inside me. Plus, I liked the way her cheeks crested with pink as she pointed at me and how her eyes narrowed when she thought I wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying. From that day on, I went out of my way to ensure Pixie didn’t get hot showers. Not very mature, but it was either that or drown in silence.

I finish with my post-jog shower and step out of the bathroom to an empty hallway. No Pixie tapping her foot outside the door with a scowl. No pink-crested cheeks. Disappointment starts to slide over my skin.

“Forty-two minutes!” Pixie yells from her cracked-open bedroom door.

Sometimes she times me. It’s adorable.

“You’re an asshole, Levi,” she adds.

I grin as I walk to my room, all disappointment gone.

That night, I enter the bathroom a second before Pixie does, both of us with our toothbrushes at the ready. For a moment I just stare at her.

She looks the way I remember—blonde hair pulled back in a messy knot with curls escaping, paint smudged on her skin and bare feet—and I’m instantly transported back to a time when my house was filled with girly laughter.

It’s hard to believe I ever found that laughter obnoxious.

She gives me a weird look, probably because I’m staring at her like an idiot, so I stretch my lips into a thin smile. Her weird look flashes into something else—hope, maybe? Sadness?—but quickly disappears as she gives me a strained smile in return. And now we’re just standing here, fake-smiling at each other like morons.

I surrender my eyes first and step deeper into the bathroom so there’s room for both of us at the counter. We start brushing our teeth, our eyes fixed anywhere but on each other.

Brush, brush, brush.

There’s something intimate about brushing your teeth beside someone else. Perhaps it’s because people who brush their teeth together are usually people who just woke up together, or people who are just about to go to bed together.

Our eyes meet in the mirror and quickly dart away.

She’s wearing a dark T-shirt at least two sizes too large for her and a pair of ratty sweatpants. How is she still so pretty even when she’s dressed like a homeless person?

Brush, brush, brush.

Her free hand is pressed flat on the counter between us. Speckles of black and white paint stick to her fingers and the side of her wrist. I wonder if the pads of her fingers are just as messy.

She was always great with a paintbrush. But when she’d get really into it, she’d ditch the brushes and just paint with her hands like a kindergartener.

In high school, she was all wild blonde curls and messy fingers, smearing paint on canvases like a crazy person. But then she’d step back from a masterpiece, and it always blew my mind how such a mess of colors and hands could create something so beautiful.

Brush, brush, br—

Pixie’s toothbrush comes to a halt as she catches me staring at her hand.

“Whah?” she says over her toothbrush.

I stop brushing as well. “Yahr ah meh.”

She looks confused. “Whah?”

I spit into the sink and rinse my mouth. “You’re a mess.”

The corners of her mouth slowly tip up, and I swear to God, even covered in toothpaste and drool, her smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

She says, “Ooh oot tah whyk meh mehey.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

She spits into the sink and cleans her face as well. “I said”—she turns big green eyes to me and puts a hand on her hip—“you used to like me messy.”

I scan her face, momentarily sucked into that warm happiness that is uniquely Pixie. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

The bathroom shrinks in on us until the walls and the shower curtain and the toothpaste in the sink are all gone, and it’s just me and her and all the unspoken things between us.

Her smile falters as she looks up at me with little-girl hope and grown-up fear.

God.

All I want to do is hold her.

Her eyes begin to shimmer and that familiar panic creeps back in.

I whip my eyes away and rinse off my toothbrush before hastily leaving the bathroom. I need to keep my distance from Pixie. For her sake. For mine.

Once inside my bedroom, I fix my eyes on the gaping hole in the wall and stare at it until it’s all I see. I broke the wall. That damage belongs to me.

The panic begins to recede.