Breaking Glass Read online

  Susannah smiles and tosses the flowing bronze waves from her face. Even though her eyes are hollow with dark circles, they flash brightly. It breaks my heart to see her this way, and I know it’s my fault. Somehow, I missed everything. Missed the truth behind her smiles.

  “Hi, Jeremy,” she says with a nervous laugh. “I feel a little silly doing this, but I guess this means you found the link.”

  Her voice steadies, the expression sharper as she continues. “And if that’s the case, well, that means things aren’t very good for me.”

  My spine stiffens, but I force myself to keep watching.

  “So, well. But I hope you’re doing okay, carrying on. Running, studying and stuff, the usual Jeremy things,” she says. I almost have to stop as my breath catches, but I let it continue.

  “Where to start…let’s see. Everyone probably thinks I ran away again, right? Do you think so, Jeremy? Well, I didn’t. The main thing I need you to do right now is figure out exactly what did happen. Let’s call that your job. But you’re not going to be able to do it alone. You’re going to need help. And the only person who can help you, who knows where all the secrets are, is me.” Pause. She furrows her brow and taps her chest. “Are you still with me, Jeremy?”

  Susannah stares at the camera, as if waiting for my response. I nod, unconsciously, as if she can see me, feeling like a complete fool.

  “I thought so. So, the first thing you need to do is find me, Jeremy. Not my body, but me. The me that is everlasting, that transcends death—like the Kabbalah teaches. Yeah, I know you consider that spiritual stuff junk, but think of how you wanted me, Jeremy. I know you did.” She laughs, and turns her head to the side in a coquettish pout. Involuntarily, a thrill runs up my one leg to my groin. I shudder, ashamed and freaked out. Getting it up for a dead girl while she talks about her eternal soul. Sicko.

  “C’mon, Jeremy. You are the worst actor of all time. Every time we were together I caught you undressing me with your eyes.” She giggles and lowers her cami, just a little, revealing the tops of her breasts. Oh God. Oh shit. Dead girl porn.

  “But Jeremy,” her voice softens. “I know you. Beneath all that was more. Much, much more.”

  A relieved smile breaks on my lips. So she knew that, too, at least.

  “And I was the supreme idiot, chasing after an even bigger idiot. Ryan Morgan.”

  Susannah sighs and pauses to sip from a glass of water. “I chose to ignore all the signs. Chose. Even though I knew it was killing you. Killing me, too. I was too scared. Scared that if I loved you back I’d ruin it and lose your friendship, your devotion. I couldn’t risk that, Jeremy. You were my lifeline. Do you understand?”

  Sorrow turns to shock. What is she saying?

  “I love you, Jeremy. Maybe even more than you loved me.”

  I pause the video. I want to throw the laptop through the window and stomp it to bits with my crutch.

  I’ve never hated anyone more than I hate Susannah right now for what she’s done to both of us.

  I hate myself, too, for not seeing it. Not taking a chance and calling her on it.

  Fuck us both.

  But I press play and continue. I can’t stop myself now.

  “I know. You’re probably pissed. I never really showed it, so how would you know? I’m a master of disguise. A crippled girl with a diseased heart. But that’s all over now. All that’s left is the essence. The part you loved. Think of it as Susannah Nectar.”

  I can’t listen any more. I pause, wanting to douse her words in a vat of vodka.

  The pantry. There’s got to be more in the pantry. My phone rings, but I ignore it. It isn’t her. I know that can’t be possible.

  A moment later the house phone rings. I hear my father’s voice on the answering machine.

  “Jeremy? I heard what happened with Marisa. It’s okay. Just call me and let me know how you are. I’m stuck here at the office, or I’d come home to see you right now.”

  No way. Let him sweat. Let him talk to me.

  I wheel into the pantry and root through the boxes there. Dad’s done a pretty thorough sweep. All I find is the mostly empty bottle left from the last bender I went on. I screw off the cap and chug down the remains. It’s not enough to blot out reality entirely, but it’s enough to slow the shaking in my hands.

  I return to Susannah.

  “Did I upset you, Jeremy? I’m sorry. I know you’re a sensitive guy and sometimes I lay it on a bit too thick. What I mean by my nectar is my soul. The best part of me. The part I always wished I could give you, but that was too clogged with gunk. Anyway, before we get to that, there’s still some life crap we have to talk about.”

  Susannah cocks her head and stares intently at the camera. “If you can handle it.”

  My heart starts to pound. There’s a jump in the video, and Susannah reappears with her hair pulled back, a T-shirt now replacing the cami.

  “Well,” she says. “I’ll bet you’re just dying to know what I mean, aren’t you? You always were a nosy guy, Jeremy, with your head buried in all those history books. I mean, the way I see it is—what’s history, anyway, but a shitload of other people’s gossip? I guess it’s just special gossip that goes with the important stuff. Well, here’s a piece of history, or as you would call it—a primary source—for you.”

  She lifts an eyebrow, a half smile forming on her lips. I shiver, and pause it. It’s the same expression she’d wear when we’d get into one of our mind-bending philosophical loops that usually ended in extreme silliness, her punching me in the stomach and making faces.

  Sorrow tugs at me. Lost, lost. Gone for good.

  I press play to continue Susannah’s YouTube manifesto. “If you want to know what happened to me,” she says, her face suddenly fierce, “go ask Ryan who Derek Spake is.”

  Derek Spake? I roll the odd name over on my tongue. It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. He’s certainly not from Riverton High.

  There’s a sharp pounding at the back door. I stash the bottle of Absolut behind some pillows and figure I can fill it with water and hide it later. I roll into the kitchen, still a little buzzed. I can handle Dad now. He’ll see everything’s okay and just go back to the office, relieved there’s no threat of confrontation or any real need to talk.

  But it’s not Dad. It’s Ryan, and Taylor Pinski from the track team. Taylor’s a good guy, but I’m not sure I want to face him. I roll to the door and gaze up at them.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  Ryan is beaming. He’s holding up some gleaming metal contraption. “Anyone for a leg?”

  I glance at Taylor. He looks incredibly uncomfortable, his fixed smile and shifting eyes a dead giveaway. But Ryan, the actor, is perfectly at ease. “Wanna try it on? Let us in, Jer.”

  “Is that mine?” I ask, incredulous that I am soon going to become a cyborg—half man, half machine.

  Ryan laughs. “Nah. This is a prototype. They’ll have to make a custom one just for you. But try it on for size. Take it for a run.”

  “I don’t think so, not right now, Ryan. I’m kind of busy.” I don’t mention that I’d rather walk on my hands than strap that contraption to my aching appendage.

  Ryan smirks and glances at Taylor. “Too busy to meet your new leg?” Taylor returns a hearty guy laugh and they both gaze down at me.

  “Okay,” I say. “Sure. Come in.” I’m buzzed enough so that Taylor’s obvious stares aren’t going to bother me much. And then there’s that thing I need to ask Ryan. I’m itching to confront him about the contradictory police report and the newly named Derek Spake. Right in front of Taylor Pinksi.

  I unlock the door and roll back so they can come in. I’m in jeans, one leg cut off so it’s just long enough to drape gently over the stump. I catch Taylor’s eyes snap to my groin, then snap away. Ryan claps me on the back.

  “So. Do you want to strap it on and take a spin?”

  I force a laugh. Jerk. “As if, Ry. I’m still healing. Thing hurts like a b
itch.” I watch Ryan’s face, enjoying the flicker of discomfort. But his brow creases with genuine concern, and now I’m not so sure he doesn’t really feel it.

  “Dude,” he says softly, kneeling down to my level. His eyes meet mine and I see something puzzling there, something I don’t recognize. “I’m sorry, man,” he says. “I’m sorry how fucking hard this must be for you.”

  I don’t know what to say to that really, other than, “Thanks, Ry. I appreciate what you’re doing. With the leg, and all.”

  Ryan nods and gets stiffly to his feet. “Yeah. I know you do.”

  Ryan and Taylor leave and I’m alone with Susannah. I hit play again, but from the progress bar, I can see I’m at the end of this installment.

  “So,” Susannah says. “Any luck? I’m guessing you got nowhere. In fact, you can look under every tree, every archive but I’m betting you won’t learn the truth about Derek Spake. The only one who can set you straight, or should I say is willing to, is me. So before you click the next link…find me. Find me, Jeremy.”

  The screen goes black.

  Then

  Susannah’s summer art classes started the next week, the week Ryan and his family were on vacation in Maine. I’d gotten a job as a camp CIT. I was done every day at three, bone-tired from chasing around bratty six-year-olds, but I ran anyway. No excuses. Rain. Heat. Hurricane. Hangover. Day in, day out.

  Susannah got home from the city by four and agreed to be my pacer every day. She’d kept her promise.

  That Monday, I rested on the couch, the air-conditioner rattling at full blast, waiting for her to call. I felt a twinge of guilt for planning to see her when Ryan was away, but temptation won out over loyalty. It’s not like I was going to do anything. Susannah was way too into him and I wouldn’t dare violate that trust.

  It was my favorite week of the summer. Maybe my favorite week of my whole miserable life.

  Every day, after my run, I’d take a shower and bike to town to meet her for pizza, then the two of us would head to Awesome Cow for fruit smoothies. Later, we’d go back to my house and root through my collection of artifacts for oddball things she could cut up for use in her animations. On my crowded shelves we’d found a reproduction of an old Sears Catalog, circa 1910, as well as an Old Farmer’s Almanac. There was even a box of vintage greeting cards I agreed to let her cut up. I’d paid twenty bucks for them at a yard sale just a few weeks earlier, but I couldn’t say no to Susannah.

  I barely drank at all that week. Barely had a hint of a nightmare. But, of course, Ryan came home and the afternoon visits with Susannah stopped.

  The YouTube links to her first animations started coming through via emailed links. Just for me, Susannah said. Because only I would understand.

  Just before her class finished up, without a word Susannah was off again. Ryan’s parents had left him on his own for the first time. Patrick Morgan had gone on a business trip and Celia had to make an emergency visit to an ailing relative. The Morgans had asked Dad to keep an eye on things, but Dad, of course, asked me if I would because he was super busy with a case. To make a long story short, Ryan didn’t waste any time hosting a huge pool party at his house on a week night. Every kid in town was there.

  And everyone was drunk and swimming naked in the pool. Except me. I remained conspicuously stone-cold sober. I hadn’t been able to swim in water deeper than my shins since the day my mother plunged her car into the Gorge. Just sitting next to water was challenging enough.

  “Dude!” Ryan stumbled into me, slurring his words. “Hold down the fort for me, will ya?”

  He disappeared into the house flanked by two freshman girls for over an hour while the music got louder and all hell broke loose in his backyard. Lucky for Ryan, the Morgans’ property was so sprawling, I doubt any of their distant neighbors heard the racket.

  It was four in the morning when the shrill ringtone of my phone woke me up. I’d been asleep for maybe an hour on the leather sectional in the Morgans’ TV room.

  “Jeremy?” rasped a hoarse, scratchy voice.

  Groggy and disoriented, I raked my hand through my greasy curls. “Who else would it be? Who is this?”

  “It’s me.”

  I was suddenly wide-awake. “Shit, Susannah. Where the hell are you?”

  I thought I heard her sniffle, but it was followed by a short laugh. “I’m at the Louis Armstrong International airport in Louisiana, waiting for the 4:30 AM nonstop to New York City.”

  I glanced at my phone for the time. “What on earth are you doing in New Orleans? Isn’t it, like, three there?”

  “Please don’t go there, Jeremy. I have an hour and ten minutes until boarding time. And I thought—I thought you could entertain me.” Again, the nervous laugh.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, Jeremy. I’m okay. And if I wasn’t, were you going to come down and fetch me?”

  “If I had to. Yes.”

  There was a muffled sniffle on the other end of the line, then silence.

  “Suze?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m still breathing, if that’s what you mean. But, I should really go now.”

  “Don’t hang up! You said you called so I could entertain you. What do you want to talk about? What topic? Pick any period of history and I’ll cough something up. But whatever you do, just don’t ask me to sing.”

  Another sniffle, then a laugh. “Okay. Ancient religions for five hundred.”

  “Hmmm. Right up my alley. Okay, what fruit, in Chinese mythology, represents immortality?”

  “Good grief. I have no idea. Lychees?” she said, now consumed in a fit of genuine giggles.

  “Errrnnnghhhhkk,” I honked, simulating a wrong answer buzzer. “That would be ‘What are peaches?’ Peaches were the immortal fruit the Monkey King stole from the Heavenly Garden. But then Buddha caught him, gave him a slap on the wrist and told him he was a bad, bad monkey boy.”

  Peals of her exquisite laughter spilled out from the phone. “Yum! I could go for an immortal peach right now.”

  I smiled, triumphant I could make her laugh. “I’m not sure the grocery store variety can bestow eternal life.”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Who wants to live forever, anyway?”

  I fell silent, tongue-tied, momentarily swept up in my own turbulent thoughts.

  “Jeremy? Thanks. You really did cheer me up.”

  I wanted to ask her why she was two thousand miles away at an airport, at three in the morning, in need of cheering up. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, given the secrets I was hoarding on Ryan’s behalf, and clearly she didn’t want me to press her.

  So I said, “Happy to be of service.”

  “There’s that service thing again. It’s not like you get community service points for being my friend. But, Jeremy, I really—you’re the best. If you were here with me, right now, I’d kiss you.”

  Poor love-starved fool that I was, I closed my eyes and savored that statement, practically tasting her lips on mine. “Will it keep?”

  “Huh?”

  “Will the kiss keep? It won’t spoil or get stale, will it?”

  “Um, Jeremy? I have to go.”

  And just like that, she hung up, her theoretical kiss still lingering on my lips.

  C H A P T E R

  t w e l v e

  Now

  No one tells a history freak he can’t dig up the past. Susannah might have believed I couldn’t find dirt about Derek Spake on my own, but I’m not buying it. Besides, what else do I have to do?

  It turns out Susannah was wrong. I knew the name Derek Spake had rung a bell. There’re local newspaper clippings about “Unstoppable Spake’s Unbeatable Mile.” He’s a star runner from Hurley, the next town over, and now that I think of it, I remember him, with his smart-ass smile and the daring challenge in his eyes. I hadn’t placed the name because Ryan and I always called him “Unspeakable.” Unspeakable
had thought he was all that until his team went down last season under our unstoppable winning streak.

  The burning question—what the hell does Susannah have to do with Derek Spake?

  I vow to ask Ryan about Spake. Just to get his reaction.

  The house phone rings again. It’s Dad. I toss him a bone and answer.

  “Jeremy! I thought maybe you’d want to go out for a change. Get some dinner. I know you had a rough morning, but the doctor says it’s fine to go out, if you’re up to it. In fact, she says you need to get out of the house, to get moving and get your blood circulating.”

  I think about Taylor’s gawking stare and multiply it by fifty. “Thanks, Dad, but I’m kind of whipped tonight. Can you bring in some pizza?”

  A hesitation. Hurt, maybe? A lost opportunity to talk, dad to son? “Sure. I’ll be home a bit late, then. You go ahead and order for delivery. Charge it to our account.”

  “Fine, Dad.”

  The night is mine.

  While combing the Internet for more shit on Unspeakable Spake, I get a brainstorm. No way would cheapo Dad throw away a pirate’s ransom of vodka. No damn way. He’s got it someplace he thinks I can’t get to. Either up in his room, or tucked away somewhere in the basement.

  I consider the rickety wood descent to the damp basement and what it would take to navigate that. Not a chance.

  But, by lifting my butt backward up the staircase, step by step, I’m at the top in no time. If I find what I’m looking for, then it’ll be worth the trouble. My efforts are rewarded. Dad didn’t even bother to hide the carton of Absolut, nestled on his closet floor between a pair of scuffed-up loafers and another pair of equally scuffed-up boots. Cheap. Too cheap to buy a pair of decent shoes, and certainly too pragmatic to toss out ten bottles of Absolut.

  Getting back down the stairs is harder than I thought, but I make it with a full bottle, white candle and matches in tow.

  Everything I need for a date. With Susannah.

  I decide I’m going to conserve this bottle to make it last. Exercise some of my old self-control. If I clear out the stash upstairs, Dad will get wise.