Broken

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

My alarm clock jerked me out of a thankfully dream-free slumber. Actually, as I pulled myself out of bed I realized I'd had a virtual torrent of dreams, but none of them had been possessed of the strange vividness that'd begun haunting my waking moments. I hadn't had one of the special dreams, ergo I hadn't had any dreams last night.

I really needed to get out of this town before whatever was in the water drove me completely crazy. Actually, I probably didn't have much time in which to affect my escape. When it came to craziness I was already halfway there. After all, I'd already been diagnosed with the kind of clinical condition nobody with less than eight years of school could even pronounce.

As amusing as my internal monologue was, I didn't let it slow my normal morning preparations. Almost before I knew it, I was downstairs and once again facing the dreaded decision of whether or not to eat breakfast. I already knew I wasn't hungry; the only real decision was how much of mom's wrath I was willing to face later on.

It wasn't until I had my hand on the doorknob that I remembered Brandon's promise to pick me up. I was so tired I actually considered for a second that he might have been serious. Sitting in his car, fighting not to look at his smiling gray eyes, it'd all seemed so reasonable. I'd lost my ride and he was grateful I'd saved him from having to interfere with Cassie, so he was going to become my personal chauffeur for the rest of the year.

Looking at my empty lane, the school bus only minutes away, it seemed more likely Brandon wouldn't even remember talking to me. Just like every hot boy with every loser since the dawn of time.

The thought hurt a little, but I'd had plenty of years to come to understand boys like that didn't go after girls like me. Instead of dwelling on it, greenhouse gases or anything else I couldn't change, I simply shrugged my backpack a little higher and started down the lane.

Some kind of bird was merrily announcing to the world that he was ridiculously happy the sun was just rising, and that it was already pushing eighty degrees with the promise of something much, much worse before lunch.

I hadn't been waiting for more than a minute when a pair of headlights rounded the bend in the road coming from town. I was so busy worrying how I'd deal with Cassie when I saw her, that it took me a minute to realize the car had slowed as it approached.

"Wow, I drive all this way, and then you deprive me of the pleasure of the last hundred feet."

The deep, smooth voice was unmistakable even if the light was still too poor to make out anything else. I slipped inside the Mustang with a grin playing at the edge of my lips despite my best efforts to remain cool and collected.

"Well, I didn't want to start your day off too well, or everything else would be anticlimactic."

"Really? You weren't just worried I wasn't going to show up? Because you understand how someone could've been thinking you'd walked down your lane so you could catch the bus if I'd forgotten about you?"

I'd been giving Brandon my crinkled-nose glare for a solid three seconds before his easy laugh made me realize what I was doing. I hadn't done that to anyone in months, it'd been my trademark expression for when a family member had made me mad.

"Ok, you're right. I didn't think you'd show."

"I should be very hurt by your lack of faith, but seeing as how you've been through so much lately, I'll forgive you."

My heart was suddenly trying to hammer its way out of my throat, which had somehow constricted so tightly I couldn't seem to get any air down to my starving lungs.