Beyond Broken(58)

She thought about it, searching through memories, although most were fragmented or broken from when she was a child. But then she hit on the perfect one and right as Caleb shifted his head to look at her, she smiled.

"I could tell you about my tenth birthday."

"Okay."

"Um," she said, tucking a hair behind her ear. "Well, my mom planned this huge party. She loves organizing events and playing hostess. All my friends and their parents and all the neighbors were invited. There must've been a hundred people packed in our backyard that day. At least, it seemed that way to me. Everything looks bigger when you're younger, you know?

"I wore this frilly pink dress that day. My mom kept it and I found it before I left for college when I was cleaning out my room. It was the most hideous thing you've ever seen, looking back on it, but I loved that dress. I couldn't wait to wear it for my birthday and I pranced around our backyard and pretended I was some fairy princess." She smiled. "And then I think I cried because one of the neighbor boys spilled juice on it and it stained."



       
         
       
        

Caleb made a sound in the back of his throat and it might even have been a laugh.

"It was still a good day though. My mom hired this bouncy house for the kids. I don't think I saw Thomas at all that day because he stayed in there with his friends. My dad was video taping the whole thing when he wasn't barbecuing and I remember that my mom was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But my favorite thing about that day was this beautiful music box my dad gave me. I still remember it. It was pink and gold and when you pulled the top up, there was a little carousel inside that would go round and round. I think it was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever owned. I remember it being really heavy too, but my dad said that made it harder to break, which wasn't necessarily true considering that my mom broke it years later when she was dusting and it fell to the ground. It never worked right afterwards and eventually, it stopped working altogether, around the time my father died." Maddie sighed. "But every night until then, I would fall asleep to it. For years. Sometimes, I still miss it. It was like a baby blanket or a teddy bear, you know? Something that was comforting and nice to have." She looked over at Caleb, only to find that he was still watching her. "Did you ever have something like that?"

He blinked and furrowed his brow. "No."

Maddie smiled sadly. She hadn't really expected a different answer. She couldn't exactly picture Caleb, young or not, cuddling a stuffed animal or a ratty old blanket as he slept. In fact, she couldn't even picture him as a child at all, being young and silly and naive. She wondered what he'd been like, who his friends had been, if he'd gotten into a lot of trouble, whether he'd liked to play outside or indoors, whether he'd been as serious and prickly as he was now.

She didn't know much about him at all when it came down to it. But she liked to think that she'd uncovered a little about the man sitting next to her over the past week and a half. And she could be content with that.

At least until he offered her something more. If he ever did.





TWENTY-ONE





Caleb was warm when he woke up the next morning. His mouth was dry, his head was pounding, his arm was numb, but he was warm, which was an abnormal feeling considering he hadn't turned on the heat last night and it was November.

When a familiar scent hit him and he opened his eyes only to see a mass of brown hair he'd nuzzled into, clarity struck. His arm was numb because Maddie was using it as a pillow and he was warm because their bodies were pressed so closely together, not an inch of space was between them.

For a moment, Caleb froze. His mind replayed the events of last night, as best as he could at least, considering his pounding headache, and was only mildly relieved that nothing happened between the two of them. Or disappointed. He couldn't tell. 

What he did remember was drinking himself into oblivion in the garage. Everything else was fuzzy until he was bent over the toilet and the panic he experienced when he felt someone touch him. It had been Maddie, of course, but for a brief hazy moment, he thought it'd been someone else.

He squeezed his eyes tight when he remembered the things he'd told Maddie, sitting on the bathroom floor. Jesus. He didn't think he'd gone into details, but he remembered the look on her face. The hitch in her breath like she'd been on the verge of tears. And he remembered being ashamed because he didn't want her pity. Certainly not hers.

The last thing he remembered was Maddie's story. He liked listening to her voice and he liked the way she smiled a secretive smile every now and again. And he liked how happy her childhood seemed, if not a little jealous. What would he have been like if he'd grown up in a family like hers, where his parents weren't alcoholics and druggies, or his sick bitch of an aunt hadn't sexually abused him for two fucking years?