Broken, page 9
Before I got to the door, whoever it was started banging on it.
“Hold your hockey socks, I’m coming,” I said and clicked the lock open.
The weird sensation that buzzed down my spine when it was Clay, was disorienting. Not sure why it was surprising; Clay was the only person I’d invited over since I moved to Carterville. Even if he did nicely decline the first offer.
“Hey,” he said, and leaned against the doorjamb.
“Hey to you,” I said and smiled. Clay waking me up, brought about a continuous loop of Clay porn in my head, and I had to think about the execution scene from The Green Mile to control the ache Clay caused without even a touch.
“I thought you might enjoy a picnic.” Clay held up a large picnic basket, and his lips turned up into a smile, exposing two very deep dimples on his cheeks.
I took a step back to let him in, lost my footing, and crashed into the entry table on the wall behind me. A lamp and some figurine fell to the floor.
He reached for my hand to help steady me.
“And here I thought I was incapable of knocking you off your feet,” he laughed, and leveled his gaze on mine.
I twisted a stray piece of hair that had fallen out of the bun it was in and deliberated on the fact that no one had ever put that much effort into trying to make me happy. I knew for a fact Clay was the first guy who was kind to me without the foregone conclusion of getting into my pants. Clay truly wanted to be friends. I’d seen him at the Downtown Cafe with his other friends, and it always seemed as if he had mentally removed himself from them.
“Clay, there is not a girl in this world who could resist your smile.”
“Really,” he said and cemented on the biggest, fakest smile. Even that face was irresistible.
I needed a breather to clear my mind before I could start the day. “I need to change. Can you give me ten minutes?”
He appraised me for a moment then shot up an eyebrow and tilted his head. “You’re not already ready? You mean you can do better than this?”
I looked down at my stained t-shirt. “Sure, I can get naked.”
“Don’t tease, precious.” He slapped my behind. “It makes me think unfriendly thoughts.”
In my hurry to leave before the blushing set in, I kicked a piece of glass across the wood floor.
“I hope that wasn’t priceless,” he said, and eyed the figurine that had fallen and shattered.
“I hope not. The house was furnished when I moved in, so it’s not mine.”
Clay whistled and gave the room a quick glance. “Why don’t you go change so we can get out of here?”
I needed a shower, and frankly, I needed to pee. I grabbed clean panties, a bra, a pair of cutoff blue jeans, and a soft pink blouse that covered my scars out of my dresser. Pink had always featured my ever-present tan and gave me the shot of confidence I was lacking. Kate and her merry gang of suck-ups always appeared pulled together in their designer clothes. At the present moment, I owned three dresses, four pairs of shorts, two pairs of blue jeans, and twelve shirts, and not one of them carried a designer label.
Out in the hall, I shot a glance at Clay, who was picking up some odd clay sombrero saltshaker. Part Mexican, I found it strange how many small Hispanic touches were around the house. And if I hadn’t needed to pee, I would have watched Clay and tried to discover his fascination with the objects around the place. However, nature wouldn’t wait any longer.
Once I showered and dressed, I hung the towel and bath cloth over the shower door, brushed my teeth, and added deodorant before checking my face in the mirror. I’d never been one to wear makeup. I wanted the world to see me, not some painted clown of myself. However, when I thought of the girls who hung around Clay, I decided to place a little mascara on my lashes, hoping it would do a little to bring out my green eyes, and ran a hand through my hair before pulling it back up in a bun.
I rushed to the living room, having taken a little over ten minutes, but not much more.
Clay placed some whatnot back on the shelf. “See you got the saltshaker? Any idea where the pepper shaker is?” he asked.
“Not mine, so the answer will be a no.”
Clay turned and almost knocked off an empty picture frame when his eyes caught mine. “I guess you’ll do,” were the words that came out of his mouth but his face told a different story. His eyes blazed and devoured me. “We match,” he added and winked. I raked my eyes over his body and realized my subconscious had worked overtime again. He had on a pink and green plaid button-up shirt, blue jeans, and those damn cowboy boots. I hated him for a second; he didn’t have to be a designer to look like a runway model. He could slip on a pair of plain brown boots. I laughed, hiding my secret desire for my newest and biggest turn-on: those damn cowboy boots.
I hurried when he opened the front door and stood back, waiting for me. A true gentleman. My feet halted on the spot when I walked outside. Where his motorcycle usually sat was a white Jeep Gladiator with metallic rims and an immaculate paint job. He had already placed the basket in the bed of the Jeep, and I was still frozen in place.
He held open the car door. “Come on, precious. I don’t have all day. The potato salad will go bad.”
“Where’s the bike?” I asked, as I crawled into the Jeep.
His easygoing expression disappeared, and in its place, he had a look I couldn’t quite describe; it was almost reflective. However, it didn’t last long before that Clay Carter patent side smirk flashed on his face. “I have to have a truck for all my bitches,” he answered, as he slammed the door.
Once he was inside the Jeep, Clay adjusted the air conditioner and cranked the engine. He had grown quiet. I hated the silence. It was unsettling.
“So, since I get to ride the bike, does that make me not one of your bitches?” I asked, and punched him on the thigh.
“I don’t know what it makes you,” he said, and took my hand in his. “I guess my best friend because the bike is just a ‘me and you’ thing.”
That was the sweetest thing he had ever said to me.
He continued to stay silent until we pulled off onto the cotton field beside the cemetery where my mom was buried.
Clay placed the Jeep in park. “Pennies for your thoughts?”
“Where is this?” I asked, almost scared of his answer.
“See that house over there?” He pointed to the house that shared the hill with the cemetery.
“Yes,” I replied.
“That is the only home I’ve ever known.”
That was Clay’s house. I’d sat in the cemetery often and wondered about the family who lived in that house. It was a sprawling ranch, sitting on a rolling hill with several patches of cotton and wheat fields. A horse barn stood beside three silos and a large pond bank. The whole scenario reminded me of the dad’s house in The Parent Trap, even down to the spotted horses in the pasture. I couldn’t imagine having anything other than the perfect childhood in a place like that.
“My great granddad built it and left it to us when he passed away. My dad’s side of the family has lived on this hill for over two hundred years.” He pointed out a huge oak tree in the corner. “That is where my treehouse is.”
I craned my neck out the Jeep window until I could see an old rickety ladder swaying in the wind. “Treehouse?” I asked, more confused than anything.
He turned toward me with a mocking smile. “Will you come play with me in my treehouse?”
“Really?” I tried to smile back, but the smile was unconvincing.
“When I was little, I spent every waking moment up in that treehouse. As I got older, it was where I escaped from the parents. It’s where I smoked my first joint.” He stopped talking and looked over at me. “Lost my virginity.” He stared out the front windshield. “I haven’t been back since the night it all got to be too much, and I snapped.” He shrugged his shoulder. “I want you to help me reclaim this place.”
“Are you seriously bringing me to your make-out spot?”
“Yeah, I guess I am, but if it makes you feel better, I don’t want to have sex, just talk.” He flicked the tip of my ear and chuckled before opening the door.
Yeah, it feels absolutely amazing to be the one girl you don’t want to screw, I thought.
It hurt, but as I watched him as he walked around the front of the truck, it was impossible to stay that way. He was hurting enough for the both of us. His confident swag was replaced with a walk of defeat. His long, luscious, million shades of blond hair fell around his face, covering his stoic profile. I willed him to look at me, and when he finally did, I gasped at the despair in his eyes. Why didn’t anyone else seem to notice how he was hurting? His proud exterior was a mask to hide what was really going on beneath the surface.
When he opened the door and took my hand, he squeezed a little too tight. His tension was almost palpable and led me to believe this was a big deal for him. In the distance, I heard the roar of a tractor and the honking of geese overhead. But nothing could distract me from the gloom and doom on Clay’s face.
“Are you okay, Clay?”
He shook his head and looked toward the treehouse. “The last time I was here, it was bad. Real bad.”
“Are you sure? We can go somewhere else,” I said, as I climbed out of the Jeep.
“No, I need to do this.” He paused and then looked back at me. My heart ached like an open wound at how beautiful he was, and yet, still there was something about him that was broken and in pain. “I can do it with you,” he said hoarsely.
Clay guided me through the trees and held onto me with an ease that went way beyond a pure friendship. Before we reached the ladder, he bent and plucked a dandelion from the earth and held it up to his lips. His eyes closed as he blew the fluff away. The dread embedded in his face had me praying one of those seeds would reach the ears of God himself.
He led me a tad further until we reached a ladder hanging down and swinging in the breeze. “Ladies, first,” he said, and helped boost me up onto the ladder. “Nice view,” Clay said, and popped my backside with the palm of his hand, causing a twinkle of spark to shoot across his eyes.
When I pulled myself up into the treehouse, I did a double take. They had kept the place in immaculate condition. The planks covering the wall were honey-colored, same as the floorboards.
Clay came up behind me, let out a breath that sounded like relief, and placed the picnic basket on the floor. His hands encircled my waist. “What do you think?”
I leaned my head back onto his chest as I took in more of the room. The south-facing wall of the treehouse had a large opening with a view of acres upon acres of farmland. The west side of the structure had a half-sized pool table and one of those basketball net games. On the opposite wall was an old, ragged sofa; it was almost a relief that everything wasn’t perfect in his world.
“If I get kicked out of the place I’m living, can I live here?” I asked, and walked over to a table piled with Harry Potter books.
He laughed, the corners of his eyes wrinkled up in delight, and nodded.
“I knew you were the one I wanted to come up here with me but,” he said, and cracked his knuckles in the palm of his hand, “I like it here with you.”
“I like it here too,” I said, smiling back. I loved the idea Clay wanted to share a part of himself with me, even if it was another time the lines blurred between us.
He walked over to the large window on the south wall and unlatched a hook, pushing open the whole wall. His vast muscular body blocked out the sun for an instant, causing the light to cast a halo around him.
He sat on the edge of the treehouse, letting his feet dangle off the side, and patted the spot next to him.
“The last time I was here. I snapped,” Clay let flow from his lips when I sat down beside him. “The pressure of being Wes and Courtney Carter’s son, people telling me that my life was perfect when it was everything but. My dad is in love with some woman I don’t even know. My mom lives in the past and can’t stand me. She always says I’m just like him. I’m like none of them. They’re all crazy. They had this built for me when I was eight so that I would stay out here and away from them. No one has ever just cared about me, only what I could do for them. But you care. You don’t ask for anything. You didn’t care where I live. What my family has. That I’m a Carter or what that even means in this town.”
I placed my hand against his palm and worked my fingers around his. “You’re pretty great all on your own. I just enjoy being around Clay. I couldn’t care less about the Carter part.”
“Please tell me you were happy growing up. ‘It was great’ is not just some excuse, so you don’t have to talk about it. You deserve to be so damn happy.” He dragged all five fingers of his hand across his hair and had that faraway look he got when his thoughts ran deep.
“The first fourteen years were almost magical. I lived with a couple named Charles and Ruth Williams. It was like living with the world’s greatest grandparents ever. Their life revolved around me and my dancing.”
“You dance?”
“I did. I loved ballet and was one of the youngest members of my ballet school to go on pointe. I was only nine. But when Mimi, my foster mom, died, the wills-that-be wouldn’t allow me to stay with Pawpaw. So, the next four years, they shuffled me from home to home.”
“Were they good to you?”
“Not bad, just didn’t care. I was a check to them.” I wasn’t ready to discuss what the first couple’s son did to me. I was confident I never would be. I loved it when Clay looked at me with a hunger in his eyes. I liked having someone look at me with something other than pity. If Clay only knew what those boys did to me, he would never look at me like that again. I would become just another charity case. Poor pitiful little Annie.
“Do you still want to do the ballet crap?”
I laughed at the term crap. Clay didn’t know all the secrets of my past. He couldn’t understand the pain I’d suffered. He flirted with me without measuring how his words might affect me. He didn’t hold back any punches. He pushed me to my limits. With him, I felt normal. I liked feeling human almost as much as I loved the dimples he was flashing. “It’s been too long now. My dreams of being a Prima Ballerina are long gone.”
He hooked a foot around my ankle, which was dangling off the side of the treehouse. Clay sang the chorus of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” into my ear before kissing the front of my temple.
I ducked my chin onto Clay’s chest, creating a veil of my hair to hide the redness on my cheeks. “I love that song. I did one of my last solos to it.”
“Yeah, my granny Ann loves the ballet. She and my dad used to go all the time.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “My granny would love you; you remind me of her. Maybe, you can meet her sometime?”
“I doubt Kate would appreciate you taking me to meet the family.”
Clay laid his chin on the top of my head. His embrace was hard, yet he made no apologies for needing me, too. “I don’t give a damn what Kate would like.”
The sun overhead glowed, and Clay watched it with a steady glare. He often looked at me with a depth that was well beyond his years, and at times, I’d caught him studying objects with a fascination that was unexplainable. Clay held more in him than he let anyone know, but for some strange reason, he allowed his shield to slip around me.
“Why did you come to Carterville?” he asked.
“I just wanted to know something about my past. I needed to know if I have any family out there. Why do you ask?”
He laughed; the sound was a mix of nervousness and joy. He startled me when he lifted my hand and brushed his lips across my knuckles. “Cause all I want to do is get out of this town. Can’t figure out why someone would want in.” He squeezed my hand that he was holding three quick times. “I hope you get your answers, but in all honesty, I’m just glad you’re here.”
A small buzz hummed through my body when Clay rose to his feet then helped me to mine. He led me over to a small, medium height table and placed me in one of the three ladder-back chairs sitting around it.
He opened the picnic basket and took out a pair of Beats Pills. His iPhone synchronized with it. He flipped through his music and smiled before pressing play. The lyrics of X Ambassadors “Unsteady” filled the treehouse, lyrics about someone wanting a certain person to hold him in this unsteady world. I tried holding Clay’s gaze as I listened to the words of that song.
Did they represent his feelings for me? Did Clay want me to be the one who holds him?
It made me want to weep at that possibility.
Clay held his head down as he gathered the food out of the picnic basket, but a small trace of a smile never left his face. When the song ended, he glanced up at me smiling bright enough that both of his dimples were prominent on his face. He turned down the volume on his phone and placed the last of the food on the table. I needed him to say something about that song. Instead, he zoned out.
****
Clay Carter
Music had always been an escape for me. I would let the music pound in my ears and ride my Harley for hours. Then Annie happened, and music no longer held the power to erase the images in my head, the endless pain, the never-ending crying of my mom, thoughts of when it would all be over.
Then, a song I haven’t heard in ages started to play. In that instant, I would not only play that song for Annie, but I wanted her to be the one to hold me in this unsteady world.
I wanted her to hold my hand as I walked my next few steps through this life.
I wanted to tell her everything. Tell her I was broken. But I would settle on her being near me. “Eat up; my granny worked hard on this.” I handed her a plate and looked around at the variety of food Granny had packed for me. I called her at six AM and to no surprise to me, it elated her to help, almost too thrilled to be cooking for a girl she had never met.
“Your granny made all of this?” Annie asked, and scooped up a spoonful of chicken salad.
“Yes, and F-Y-I, she was glad it was you I wanted it for and not Kate,” I said, as I sat down beside her and took a bite of the apple slice she was holding.
