A Shattered Heart (Fractured Lives 2)

Kat, your keys will be in your dead plant by your front door. I'll put them there after I lock up. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw you at Fred's. Call me. I want to catch up.

PS: I think you need a new lock.

~Brian

His number was scrawled at the bottom of the note. Not that I needed it. I'd had his cell phone number for years. I still remembered how excited he was when his parents gave him his own phone for his fifteenth birthday. Dan had razzed him about it, saying it wasn't that big a deal, though we all saw how much Dan had puffed up when he'd gotten his own phone exactly a year before for his own birthday.

Dan and Brian. Closer than any two brothers I'd ever seen. Exactly one year separated them in age. My own group had included Brian when we were younger, but once we hit school his difference in age began to make a difference. Because of my relationship with Dan, I saw Brian more than the others. As we became teenagers the gap in our ages became even more pronounced. Brian was left to his own devices in elementary school his last year, and he was just adjusting to middle school when we were all heading to high school. Dan was all about music and becoming a musician at the time, while Brian had taken the athletic route. Once he hit high school, football consumed his life. During his sophomore and junior years, Brian gravitated toward Zach, who was a football god in his eyes.

Brian had been there that night—after our graduation. He'd beamed at all of us with pride as we loaded up in Zach's SUV and left him behind once again, like we'd been doing for years. My thoughts had been so wrapped up in Dan that night I never even gave it a thought. I didn't see Brian again until the funeral.

June 2013

I tugged at the high collar of the black dress I was wearing. The material was hugging my neck too tightly—making it hard to swallow. A small voice in the back of my mind reminded me that not being able to swallow had nothing to do with the stiff fabric that encircled my neck but everything to do with the fist-sized lump lodged in my throat. A lump that refused to be dislodged no matter how many times I swallowed. It was filled with the endless river of tears I was trying to hold at bay as I sat sandwiched between Mom and Dad, who insisted on sitting too close to me. It was as if they felt their closeness would hold me together as I stared at the three caskets near the minister.

The parents decided to do a shared memorial service. Their final tribute to our friendship. I think they figured we could all get our grief over with in one fell swoop instead of dragging it through three separate services.

They were either naive or stupid.

Having a shared service was the ultimate blow to my heart. It was glaringly obvious as my parents led me to the front pew that I was the only one from our group there. Zach was in a coma with a broken back, and Mackenzie was recovering from her own injuries. The sour taste of bitterness filled my mouth. I was jealous they still had each other. They would be able to lean on each other through this, but I had been left alone.

The mahogany box in the middle held the only boy I had ever loved.

Tears streaked my face as Tracey's father got up to speak. His voice was thick with tears, and I could hear her mother sobbing next to Mom. Their pain saturated the room so thickly I was surprised the walls weren't streaked in it.

Sobbing filled the church. I began to doubt its capability of containing so much grief in one structure. Maybe it would implode, taking all of us with it. I wished it would. Anything would be better than seeing the three identical wooden boxes for even one second longer.

I could hear someone wailing in the next pew—Jessica's mom. It was a siren of pain filling the church, piercing every heart that beat within the walls. It was the cry of loss and suffering. Heavy and suffocating, it dragged me in. The lump in my throat became a brick, making it hard to even breathe. I gasped, trying to drag air into my lungs, which seemed to be closing in on themselves. Maybe I was dying. Is this what death felt like? Did Tracey know she was dying in those milliseconds before her head slammed into the window? Did Jessica feel her neck snap and know that the end was there? Did Dan …? I couldn't even think the thought. I did not want to remember what happened to my Dan, the other half of me. The person who knew me better than I knew myself. The person who could always make me laugh. He had lost that ability. Dan would never make me laugh again. The thought was a tsunami of pain crushing me—obliterating everything in its path.

Unable to handle the sounds of sobbing in the room a second longer, I surged to my feet and stumbled for the emergency exit positioned near where we were sitting. I wondered if its placement was deliberate. Did the engineer know that one day some broken girl would need it as an escape?

I shoved the door open as betraying sunlight bathed my face. It should have been dark and stormy out, not bright and sunny. God was an asshole. We deserved weather to match our grief. Didn't he owe us that after what he'd taken from us? I hated him for doing this to me. How dare he take everything I'd ever loved.

I dropped my hands to my knees, bending over and trying to catch my breath. The lump refused to budge as a torrent of

sobs tore through me. My sobs filled my ears—thundering. I didn't hear the door open or realize I wasn't alone until a pair of arms wrapped around me—holding me up, trying to ease my pain. I wept against the hard chest of the boy who was hurting as much as me. I was hardly able to stand, but Brian had the strength I didn't as he held us both up. His own tears fell hot and fast against my neck. I could feel him shaking with his own pain.

Our shared tears drowned me, holding me under. Pushing me to the bottom of a dark abyss. My heart refused to beat normally—it laid in tatters in my chest. I knew I would not survive. How could I? I was now missing a vital organ.

I had to leave. I needed to get away from there. I needed to find a place where I could breathe again. I wrenched myself from Brian's arms and turned on heel. I did the only thing I could do.

I ran.

I ran from the pain.

I ran from the memories.

I ran from the life that no longer existed for me.

I didn't stop running until an ocean separated me and that old life. Only when miles of ocean separated me was I able to breathe again.

All the memories of that day crashed down on me as I held Brian's note clutched in my hand. I tried to recall the events of the night before but they were a vague, murky mess. I still didn't understand what Brian was doing at Fred's last night. If Dan was around he would have thrown Brian out by his ear. The thought was a sharp stab at the small section of my heart where I encased all my painful memories.

Still clutching the note, I sank onto one of the bar stools at my counter. I rubbed my finger over the words written, each one made the knife dig in just a little further. Blood gushed from my heart, filling my lungs and drowning everything else.

Living was a bitch. Lives that mattered were lost, and the survivors were left with scars they couldn't hide, except my scars all existed beneath the surface. Invisible to the naked eye. I'd walked away from the accident seemingly unscathed, but if you looked inside you'd see something different. Physical therapy would not help my scars. Nothing would. Not my family, not Dr. Carlton, or visiting ghosts from the past. The pounding in my head made it clear that alcohol wouldn't do the job either.

I crumpled the note in my hand and tossed it into the trash can. It was a piece from the past that no longer belonged to me.