Breakdown (Crash into Me) Read online

  “In here,” I called back.

  Leaving her suitcase by the stairs, Mom dropped her tote bag of a purse at the entryway of the kitchen and slipped off her shoes—one of many pairs she had that were business but still dressy. Why anyone needed so many pairs of shoes, I hardly understood, and asking only ever seemed to bring up arguments so I kept silent and began flattening the batter onto the waxing paper.

  “Baking?” She sighed. “Again?”

  “How was St. Louis?”

  Frowning, she sat at the kitchen table in the very same seat William had chosen before. I tried not to think about that, about him and perverted names for bakeries, but I did. “Rainy and boring as always.”

  “And your flight?”

  From the corner of my eye, she took off her green business jacket. “Even worse. God, what I wouldn’t give to be your age again, to not have any responsibilities—”

  Ignoring her, I dug the cutter into the dough. If I did it hard enough would I put a nick in the countertop? It was doubtful, but I tried again.

  “To stay out dancing with my friends at all hours and still have the energy to go to work the next day—”

  “Mom—”

  “Maybe it would be easier if you got involved in more activities at school. What about student government? Or the republican society?”

  I considered reminding her that I wasn’t a republican, nor did I have any interest in politics, but decided against it, arranging the shapes on the baking tray.

  “I’m just saying, it isn’t healthy to spend all your free time in the kitchen. You aren’t some barefoot housewife. These are the best years of your life, and you’re wasting them away like you’re a leper or something.”

  “I work, I go to school. It’s not like I’m a hermit Mom.”

  “I know that, but—” Pausing, she sighed impatiently, and while I didn’t stop to look, I felt her eyes staring, judging because I wasn’t more like her. “—whatever happened to that membership to the tanning salon I got for you? I thought we agreed you were going to try and spend a little more time there? Maybe take a spin class?”

  I put the tray in the oven and blinked hard. If I dropped to the floor and played dead would she just sniff at me and walk away?

  “Tanning? This is California, Mom. With all of the sun cancer is free here.”

  She continued as though I hadn’t even spoken, listing off the same old suggestions I had been hearing since grade school “You could at least spend more time outside then. You’re so pale. Maybe you could take up jogging? The university has a running club or something, don’t they?”

  Sighing, I worked to cut out more shapes, working to rearrange them alternatively. Motorcycles and hardtops followed convertibles and trucks accordingly. Every time I cut out a little police car, I smiled.

  “Charlotte? Charlotte?”

  “Huh?”

  Looking up, I saw her nodding at the microwave, its timer going off frantically. I got up and quickly turned it off, slightly startled to see Mom had let her hair down. Though clearly her mane had clearly seen the straightener and some product, I thought in these rare moments we almost looked like each other; brown eyes too big for our oval faces and convex noses piecing everything together nicely.

  “What’s with you?” she asked. “Are you even listening?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” I lied. “I’m listening.”

  Skeptical, I felt her eyes roll while I took the tray out of the oven, putting another one in its place.

  “Well, I hope you pay better attention in class than you do to your mother.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Mom.” I felt myself smile as I looked over my icing inventory. “I’m learning new stuff all the time.”

  I spent the rest of the evening studying for calculus, a chore that even Mom couldn’t nag me about. Quickly, I got bored with it, leaving my pens and highlighters in the textbooks and flipping on the TV instead. And when the Car Crazy marathon grew almost as boring as studying, I emerged from my room and went searching for some food, knowing full well I couldn’t sleep on an empty stomach.

  Extra quiet, I made my way down the stairs, stopping just before the sitting room doors came into view. Had William thought about me while he was working, if he was actually working? What kind of garage was even open on a Saturday night? Then again, maybe he had another part-time job. I could easily picture him as a bartender or bouncer, or maybe even a tattoo artist or a band roadie. What if he wasn’t any of those things though? What if he was a male escort or a drug dealer, a magician or a wedding photographer?

  Unsure of which was worse, I shuddered at the terrible alternatives and decided to forgive myself for being ridiculous. Sure enough my phone was blinking on my way through the kitchen, and while we didn’t have much to eat, I decided a snack search had never been so successful.

  Do-gooder: Are you still with me, Jumper?

  I looked back at the two other unanswered text messages I had from him. The messages were the same, and I read them over and over, trying to sooth my excitement over the fact that he had been thinking of me.

  Me: Hard to sleep with my phone going off.

  Do-gooder: Good. Come outside and see me then.

  Hesitating, though still excited, I stood on my tippy-toes and pulled back the curtains and blinds. About half way down the block I saw red taillights around the familiar shape of Bloody Mary. What was he doing here? And this late?

  I rushed back upstairs, uncaring whether or not Mom heard or if I woke her up. Just as rapidly, I threw on a light jacket over my tank top and traded my pajamas for a pair of jeans and clean sneakers. Briefly, I considered pulling up my hair and looking for something better to wear, but quickly decided against it. If there had been some last minute scheduling of a race and William was involving me in it, I wasn’t going to slow either of us up with my vanity.

  I met him out in the rain, smiling under my vinyl hood, but trying not to seem overeager. Through the rain, the smoke from the tailgate blended together with the fog the evening rains brought on, and for a moment I pretended to stare at it, standing at the end of the driveway in case he was watching for me. And, when the passenger side door opened, I knew he was.

  “Hey!” I tried shaking some of the rain from my jacket and slipped inside. Wearing a long-sleeve Henley with the sleeves rolled up, I noticed right away how the blue of his shirt made the stars on his arm pop. Instead of staring at them, I tried to focus instead at the gray beanie that made his messy hair look even messier.

  “Hey yourself, Jumper.” He smiled and looked me up and down. Frankly, I was surprised he hadn’t invited himself in and already made himself home. “How’s the car running?”

  I smiled and leaned my head against the sear. “More like walking—or fast crawling, but it’s better than nothing.”

  He nodded sympathetically.

  “What are you doing here?” I stared off at the windshield and silently prayed for the word race to come out of his mouth. “I thought you had to work tonight.”

  William stretched his arms out over the dash and sighed. “If it’s okay with you, I don’t want to talk about work.”

  If he didn’t want to talk about his night job then it definitely must not have involved cars. Still, I honored his request and didn’t ask him about it further.

  Though my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I blinked hard and focused in when I saw his right hand. A dirty, white rag had been wrapped around the base of his knuckles to the top of his wrist, and while it was dark and dingy, almost black after drying, the sight of blood was a distinct one I couldn’t ignore. Without even thinking about it, I reached for him the same way he had reached for me the night before. Like me, he gave the limb over willingly.

  “Christ, what happened to your hand?”

  “Work.” He shrugged. “That’s kind of why I wanted to see you.”

  Reaching for the overhead light, I could see it was bad without even really seeing it. William flinched when I tried to mo
ve the makeshift wrap, but when I looked up to apologize he was smiling at me just enough to let me know he had just been joking.

  “Because we almost match? You’ll need stitches for this. Do you have insurance? Are you a union member? I think there are some hospitals where you only have to give them your member number…”

  He chuckled and slid his hand out from mine. For a second I was offended, but when he rubbed his eyes and shut off the overhead light, I realized he was probably just tired. Maybe not as tired as me, but tired regardless.

  “I’m not worried about my hand, Jumper. I can take care of it at home just as easy, you know that.”

  “What—how did you do that?” I nodded to his hand and put on my seatbelt. Though the likelihood of us going anywhere was less and less, I wanted to let him know that I was ready. “You didn’t hurt yourself on purpose, did you? Because I’m pretty sure I trademarked that last night.”

  Chuckling, I couldn’t tell if he was entertained by my worry or my attempt at humor. Still, I laughed a little along with him. “No, Jumper, nothing like that. I was trying to, ah, get something open and I wasn’t paying attention, stabbed myself with a screwdriver.” He added the last part absent mindedly, as if his own flesh were irreverent. How he could feel that way about himself when he was clearly an important person frightened me. If William thought someone as wonderful as him didn’t matter, what possible chance could I have? I shook my head and glared at him.

  “What was so distracting that you felt the need to stab yourself?”

  William stopped laughing then, and looked at me with an intensity I had only seen him give the road. “You.”

  Taken aback, I looked away, unable to take his stare when it was so unrelenting. “What?”

  “All day long I’ve been thinking about what you did yesterday, what you told me.” He closed his eyes and gripped the wheel. “What you didn’t…”

  “I’m sorry.” I told him honestly. “I wouldn’t have—if I had known you were going to feel so bad about me hurting myself, I wouldn’t have done it. But you don’t have to feel bad for me, William.” I swallowed hard and looked away as new pangs of guilt rose in my stomach. “I know you do, but you don’t have to. You aren’t responsible for me, you don’t owe me anything—”

  “But you owe me something, right?” The smile was back in his voice, instantly breaking the tension between us. While a respectable girl might have, maybe should have, been offended, the offhanded remark was more flirtatious than dangerous. I, therefore, did not think twice about the fact that we were outside, alone and in the dark.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t worry, Jumper, I’d never ask you to do anything if I didn’t think it wasn’t kosher.”

  Though it was dark, I looked away, unsure whether or not he could see me blush. “Says the Catholic.”

  “Seriously, did you mean what you said earlier about owing me a favor?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Good.” He smiled. “Then instead of thinking about talking to somebody, I want you to do it.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “They have hotlines you can call, shrinks who work for free, I know a priest who is a pretty good listener—”

  “Why does this matter to you so much?”

  “You mean why do you matter to me?”

  “Yeah.” I gulped. “I guess.”

  “I—” Smiling, he shook his head. “It’s complicated. But let’s just say I get a rush out of you, Jumper, and I don’t want you to go away anytime soon.”

  “Anytime soon?”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “Are you going to argue with me about that too?”

  Instead of saying anything, I rested my head against the cool glass. During the steadier streams of rain, the pitter-patter would echo in my eardrums, undermining the headache that threatened me from too much caffeine and a lack of sleep. I closed my eyes and inhaled the combined scents of William and the rain.

  “No, not tonight,” I said eventually. “But no guarantees about later.”

  When I opened my eyes again, he was smiling.

  Chapter Twelve

  The rest of the weekend was quiet—quiet everywhere, it seemed, except for in my head. I wasn’t going to pretend that William’s sense of responsibility towards me wasn’t comforting, didn’t make me feel better in a way I didn’t think I ever had. Similarly, the idea of him—or anyone else—feeling a sense of obligation towards me made me nauseous. I enjoyed spending time with William, but I didn’t want him to do it if he had no real desire to do so, if he secretly disliked me and felt only pity for me.

  Was that why he was so insistent on me talking to someone? Was he trying to pawn me off on another do-gooder just so he didn’t have to put up with me anymore? That alone was reason enough for me to not keep the promise I made, to put off looking for therapists that took my insurance. After all, what if I told William I found a counselor I could identify with, or a hotline that wouldn’t show up on the phone bill? Would he consider his job done and toss me aside for his next charity project?

  I shuddered at the thought and tried to put it out of my mind with more shows from the Speed channel.

  Then again, my desire to die had decreased in the last two weeks, an inclination that I couldn’t deny had been because of William and racing. Since he had been kind enough to introduce me into his world, offer me his friendship and protection, didn’t I at least owe it to him to keep my word the way I said I would? I had never thought about my sense of honor, nor had I ever been against lying when necessary, but there was something treacherous about not keeping my word to William, the only person who had ever seemed to express concern over whether I lived or died.

  Sighing, I said screw it, and made an appointment with health services.

  The beginning of the week came and went, and each day William asked me if I was still with him via text message. I always answered with the most smart-ass thing I could think of, but he never failed to answer me back with something witty or downright wonderful.

  By the end of the week, my heart fluttered regularly at the sound of my phone going off.

  It was Thursday night when we started talking about time travel, a conversation that had evolved beginning with 1980’s comedies and DeLoreans. I had originally settled into the living-room to study for my business law exam, but our conversation was far more interesting.

  Do-gooder: 1969. The best time for American muscle cars ever.

  Me: If you could time travel anywhere it would be the US? For cars?

  Do-gooder: Are you kidding, Jumper? The dodge charger? The Pontiac GTO?

  Me: You’re a waste of perfectly good time travel.

  I laughed out loud, causing Dad to notice me for the first time since I had entered the room. Like me, he wasn’t even trying to look over the paperwork in his lap, but swearing and yelling at the TV. A direct result, I knew, from watching the evening news.

  “Oh,” Dad coughed as if clearing his throat. “Hey, Kiddo. I ah, didn’t see you there.”

  For the first time in an hour I put my phone down and tapped at my textbook. “Yep, just studying.”

  He coughed again, shifting uncomfortably while shifting his papers. “You, ah, should have said something.” He pointed to the TV with the remote. “I would have tried to keep it down.”

  I glanced at the TV and smiled, an expression that I found myself doing more and more. “I usually only see you yell at the broadcasters from MSNBC. What’s so special about the local news tonight?”

  “They’re doing a segment on all the carjackings lately…”

  I looked up just in time to see a pretty newscaster standing in front of a dirty garage. And though I didn’t find anything particularly interesting about what I saw there, Dad turned up the volume, making it impossible for me to ignore the TV.

  “…more commonly known as chop shops, these garages pose as legitimate businesses then disassemble stolen automobiles in an effort to sell the parts
later on. Chop shops are showing up throughout the Southland area, causing concerned citizens to rally local authorities to find a solution.”

  “Most auto thefts occur during the night,” a cop on the TV said. “The best thing to do is to make sure your vehicle is locked and the windows are rolled up.”

  “Others, however,” the newscaster’s voice wavered dramatically. “Are not so convinced that the problem can be easily remedied.”

  “It’s not in the high crime areas anymore.” I smiled while the TV switched to a clip of a guy pulling the microphone to his face. “Thieves go anywhere to get the parts they need. Whether they resell them or use them as betting chips during street races…”

  The segment continued, but I faded out, my head and heart connecting things that I didn’t want to acknowledge to begin with. I considered everything I knew about street racing and what I had heard, combining it with William’s expensive car and the odd night jobs he never seemed to want to talk about.

  William said he had cut his hand opening something. What exactly had he been opening that he needed a screwdriver for?

  “Charlotte? You do lock up your car, right?”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “Every day.”

  “Good.” Dad nodded. “We should talk more like this.” He looked down at his papers and once again cleared his throat. “It’s nice.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It is.”

  “Speaking of talking…” Dad gestured to me with the remote as if it was a maestro’s baton. “Who is that you’ve been spending all your time on the phone with? I don’t think you’ve put that thing down all week.”

  I looked down at the phone in my hand and tried to ignore my reflex to frown. Who was I talking to? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure myself.

  Dad and I made our usual small talk for another minute before I excused myself, ran upstairs, and locked my bedroom door behind me. Maybe I was being suspicious, letting my imagination run away with me, or just looking for a reason not to trust him, but the more I thought about it, the more the pieces in my head started to make sense. Sitting down at my computer, I typed in William O’Reilly but went straight for the backspace until he was deleted completely. Instead, I spun around in my desk chair, listening to the hinges squeak as I leaned back. When I stopped back at the keyboard I tried again, this time, typing up the words New England and auto theft and hitting enter before I lost my nerve.