FRACTURED (4 page)

“Everyone needed me to be strong,” she said, the faintest of smiles painting her face. “And I was. I was there for everyone. My mom, Cooper..."

“But why was nobody there for you, P?” I asked, taking the towel from her hand so I could investigate the damage. “Why couldn't you lean on anyone?”

“That's not my role, Ruby.” She said it as though that fact was painfully obvious. It wasn't to me. “People have always expected a certain level of maturity from me, and this situation was no different. In fact, it called for me to be the best I'd ever been."

“What changed, Peyta? At what point did this all go so wrong?” I asked, begging for any shred of light she could shed on when things got so bad that she had resorted to mutilating herself. "Is this the first time you've done this?”

Judging by the faded silvery-white lines on her other thigh, it wasn't.

She saw where my eyes were locked and tried weakly to obscure my view of them, but the damage was done―I knew. It was the first time that night that the shame of her actions seeped through to the surface.

“I don't do it often,” she defended, wrapping the towel around her waist. “Maybe a handful of times total."

“Does your mother know?” I asked, shuddering at the thought of having to tell her.

“NO!” she screamed, grabbing my wrists so tightly that my hands started to turn purple. “You can't tell her either."

“Peyta,” I sighed, sitting down beside her. “You can't keep this from her. She's worried about you. She knows something is wrong.”

“It's fine, Ruby,” she snapped, moving away from me. Her anger had returned, and I knew that wasn't a good sign. I needed to find a way to dissipate some of her emotion so she wouldn't find herself in the tub, only hours later, dancing with a blade again.

“You want to get mad?” I asked, my voice rising slightly. “Fine!

Get mad at me. Take everything out on me. I deserve it. I left you, remember? Make
me
hurt.”

“I'm not mad at you,” she said, forcing a composed front.

“Bullshit!” I yelled before leaning in closer to her. “You may think you're fooling everyone, but you're not. Especially not me. You're
furious
at me for leaving―for what happened to Jay―because you know that
is
my fault too, right? I'm the reason Matty attacked him. Hell, I'm practically the reason your father was killed too. Why don't you take that out on me? Go ahead, Peyta," I challenged, still up in her face. “Take that out on me.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her bottom lip quivering slightly.

“Because I want you to channel your fucking emotions at someone other than yourself,” I prodded, desperately wanting her to let something out―
anything
. “You want to cut someone? Why not cut me? Why don't you inflict some pain on a deserving party for once?”

“But you don't deserve it,” she started, stepping away from me. She looked frightened.

“I do deserve it,” I shouted, picking up the razor and handing it to her. “Do it! DO IT!”

“I don't want to cut you!” she screamed, throwing her vice against the tiled wall of the shower. It ricocheted wildly back at us, causing me to flinch slightly as it fell to the floor at my feet. "I want to cut
her!
I want Scarlet to pay! I want that bitch to bleed. She nearly killed Jay,” she screamed before crashing to her knees on the floor. “He...I...I couldn't help him. He just laid there. Sean brought me a corpse―
my
corpse, and I froze, just like I froze when my mom was dying. When you were dying. I nearly let him bleed to death in front of me.”

Her sobs came heavy between her words. Her emotional levy had broken, and this time tears, not blood, flowed freely through its cracks.

“For once in my life I didn't feel alone, like my past was finally going to stop haunting me, and then BOOM,” she yelled, slamming her fist into the wall, “everything crashes down around me. I can't take this!”

I couldn’t take it either.

The overwhelming surge crashed over me and took my breath away.

If those were the emotions she’d struggled with while I was gone, then I was thankful that the cuts on her legs were all she’d done in my absence.

The reality that I might not have had Peyta to come back to at all did nothing to normalize my breathing.

Before I could make myself useful to her, Cooper knocked on the door, and without awaiting the go-ahead, opened it immediately. Peyta scrambled to cover herself fully with the towel while I did a quick assessment of what he was about to see. It looked grim. The tub was still streaked with trails of crimson, the blade lying innocuously on the floor next to it.

“Everything okay in here ladies? I heard some shouting and—”

He froze once the door fully unveiled the macabre secret it had only just moments before contained. I watched as the tenuous nature of what he beheld unmasked his expression, disbelief setting in. He stared down at Peyta, who scurried more tightly behind my legs for shelter, before looking up to meet my gaze.

In a rare moment, we shared no words at all. With a single and deliberate shake of my head, I silently ordered him out of the room. He complied without question. I would explain everything to him later, as I always did, but he didn’t need the full impact. Seeing Peyta in that state for a second more would have given him that, and Cooper would never have forgiven himself for not seeing her strength for what it was at the time—a façade of bravery to mask her dark secret.

With a sigh, I moved quickly to lock the bathroom door before any more unwanted visitors could arrive, then I came to sit by Peyta, who had again perched herself on the side of the tub. She shook violently while she let out years’ worth of emotions in the tiny bathroom. All I could do was hold her and ride out the storm.

I cried with her, desperately needing to let out some emotions myself. Different personality types dealt with grief and trauma in different ways. Some needed to talk their feelings through, some stuffed them down deep enough that on most days they could function as though the feelings never existed. Others, like Peyta, held a certain volatility at bay with only the weakest of supports—add too many stressors to the pile and everything collapsed.

“She's gone,” I whispered, leaning my head against her as we rocked together on the edge of the tub. “I don't know where Scarlet went, but she's gone. I can't find her. I wish I had more answers for you, P, I honestly do, but I just don't. When Scarlet killed Matty, something snapped inside her. She took me hostage and ran wild for three weeks, only to let me out at the most inopportune moment,” I explained, wishing I could tell her more. “I didn't know how to break it all to you, but you have to know that I wanted to call you right away. I love you, Peyta.

You're my family.”

“I kept the store going for you,” she sniffled, gripping me tighter.

“I know you did, P. Cooper told me all about it. He was so proud of you.
I'm
so proud of you, but I'm worried too,” I said, pulling away from her enough to see her face. “I've seen plenty in this past year that scared me, but nothing has scared me more than what I just saw you doing here today. I can't let you continue this, and whether that means telling your mother or dragging you to some program somewhere, I'll do it. Nothing about this is okay, Peyta. You need help.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I don't want to feel this way anymore.”

“We'll fix it,” I said softly before kissing her head. “Together, we'll fix it.”

4

It took forever to get home.

After I helped clean Peyta up and made it abundantly clear to her that she needed to confront her mother about her issue or I was going to do it for her, I left her to it. I prayed that she would. That was a conversation I would
so
not look forward to having with Ronnie.

When I emerged from the house, I saw Cooper sitting in the car, doors closed, engine off. His hands gripped the wheel as though he was driving while his gaze was off somewhere in the distance, unfocused and unsettled. He was rattled to the core by what he'd seen, just as I had been.

It appeared that I was dealing with it far better.

Nothing changed as I approached the TT or when I walked in front of it. He just sat and stared blankly out the windshield at nothing. When I popped open the passenger door, I got in with absolutely no response from him. He was clearly in shock. I didn't know what to do, so I sat there in silence, staring out the front window with him while I waited for him to come back to the present. To come back from whatever dark place he'd found in his mind.

As the minutes passed, I worried about what was going on inside the house. I wondered how Ronnie was taking the news. Eventually, I looked over at Cooper and gently placed my hand on his, which still gripped the wheel tightly.

“Cooper?” I whispered, trying to coax him back from wherever he was.

“She was...,” he started, unable to force the words out.

“Yes. She was,” I replied softly, giving his hand a light squeeze.

“Because you...”

“Yes.”

“But why? Why
that
?”

“Because it's what she knows, Cooper,” I explained delicately.

“She's done it before. I saw the scars."

The leather under his hand groaned as he strangled the wheel. He hung his head down to his chest and slammed his eyes shut. After a minute, he pulled himself together enough to sit back up and release his grip ever so slightly, but he wouldn't face me. His gaze drifted straight ahead yet again.

“I thought she was taking everything so well at first,” he whispered in a confessional way. “I knew she would break down when she thought she was alone, but it seemed understandable. I had no idea..."

“You couldn't have known, Coop. It's not your fault.”

His expression was pained. He was fighting to keep his emotions in check.

“How many?” he asked out of nowhere.

“How many what?”

“Marks...on her legs. How many?” I frowned, not wanting to answer him. The answer I had to give was not going to help. "Ruby, please. How.

Many?”

“More than I could count in the short time I could see them. Some were fresh. Others were long healed,” I said, wishing I'd had better news for him. "She told me she's only done it on a few occasions in the past, but I'm not sure I believe her.”

He squeezed his eyes hard, wincing away from the information he’d requested. When he opened them again, a single tear escaped and slowly rolled down his face. Reflexively, I wiped it away.

“What do we do, Ruby?” His expression was pitiful when he finally turned to face me. It was plain on his face that he felt helpless, and it was a feeling he was beyond uncomfortable with.

“She needs help, and not the kind that we can give her, Coop. She needs counseling. I told her that she has to tell Ronnie or I'm going to do it for her. This can't be blown over."

“Will she do it?”

“I don't know, but I'm checking with her tomorrow. I'm not letting this go. God knows I don't want to, but I'll tell her mom if she forces my hand. Peyta needs all the support she can get right now. From
all
of us.”

He breathed out forcibly with one large gust, then fired up the Audi.

“Okay,” he said curtly. “Whatever it takes.”

“Agreed,” I added, forcing a smile.

He forced a grim one in return.

“I guess we should head home before any more enlightening facts can pop up.”

“It's still early, Coop. Haven't I taught you not to say things like that out loud? Don't taunt the Universe. It doesn't like it," I sighed. “I know these things. It seems to have it out for me more often than not.”

He put the car in reverse and rolled it gently down the driveway.

“Glad to see that you're on your best driving behavior in the new car,” I mocked, trying to lighten the mood a tad. "Don't think you played me with the whole 'I don't think you should drive when you're this upset'

thing. You just wanted to drive the new car.”

Once he hit the road he threw it in first gear and peeled out, literally burning rubber in Ronnie's neighborhood. He glanced over at me with a slightly haunted smile.

“What do you think I've been doing while you were gone? I spent a lot of time in this car trying to find you.”

“Cooper, I think you should slow down a bit,” I said calmly as I watched the speedometer steadily increase.

“I spent a lot of miles running up and down the Eastern Seaboard too,” he mumbled, begrudgingly obliging my request.

“I'm sorry, Cooper,” I whispered.

He gave his head a shake then turned and smiled at me. Truly smiled.

“I didn't mean to sound that way, Rubes. I just...” He paused for a moment to choose his words carefully. "I've got a lot built up too that needs to come out. I need to find an outlet for it.”

Filled with concern, my eyes darted toward him, searching his profile for explanation. I didn't like the subtext of his statement. Clearly seeing my distress, he elaborated.

“Not drugs, Ruby. A
healthy
outlet.”

“Okay,” I sighed, sinking lower in the passenger seat. “I think we all need one of those all-inclusive vacations in Aruba or something. We're all wound
way
too tightly at the moment.”

“Aruba,” he scoffed. “Your pale ass would practically go up in flames there.”

I wanted to argue, but he was right. Not wanting to admit that directly, I conceded the point.

“You know what I mean.”

“I think you have a little too much on your plate to be planning any trips,” he said with a chill to his tone. "You just got back from one.”

“How's that list of healthy outlets coming?” I asked curtly.

“Poorly. It's coming along poorly, apparently.”

“So it seems.”

Our conversation stalled momentarily as we rolled into downtown Portsmouth, neither one of us wanting to say the wrong thing and potentially start a fight. There were entirely too many emotions packed far too tightly in my little sports car. We needed to decompress.

Cooper suddenly chuckled to himself at some thought he hadn't gotten around to sharing with me. It was a nervous laugh that held a hint of instability. I was used to hearing that from myself―never him.