Broken Glass Read online

  Broken Glass

  Broken Glass

  By Tabitha Freeman

  Copyright © 2012 by Tabitha Freeman

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,

  and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TRFreeman, LLC.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my grandparents, Danny and Martha. Not many people are blessed enough to have a second set of parents. I love you.

  Preface

  “Why do you want to live?”

  Wow. Wasn’t prepared for that one. I could’ve handled a “How are you feeling today?” or maybe a “How do you think you’ll be spending your time once you’re back at home?”

  But this?

  “Why do you want to live?”

  I took a moment to collect my thoughts. My answer had to be a good one, after all. Everything depended on this. Four-hundred days depended on this. My freedom depended on this. Everything depended on this one question.

  I thought about how Henry would answer. He’d probably just smile, shrug his shoulders, and answer the question with a question, like, “Why do any of us want to live?”

  I thought about how Aurelia would answer. “So that I can become addicted to the worst kind of drug and eat raw road kill,” I could hear her saying in that dark, smart-ass tone she was infamous for.

  And then, my thoughts went to Tyson. How would he have answered such a question?

  “Why wouldn’t I?” he’d probably say. “Life’s a garden. Just dig it.”

  But this wasn’t about Tyson, or Henry, or Aurelia, or anybody else, for that matter. This was about me. God, I really needed some chocolate milk. This was possibly the most important day of my life and all I had to do was answer one simple question! What the hell was wrong with me?

  Well, in all honesty, it could take quite a few years to answer that last quip. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  It was December … almost the beginning of a new year. A new life.

  My name is Ava Darton. I was twenty-three years old. For one year, one month, and five days I had been under the supervision and care of Craneville Psychiatric Hospital in Constantine, Virginia. Ward 4. Room 316.

  Let me rewind even further. Imagine, if you will, my life as an old VHS movie. You push the rewind button on the TV VCR remote. You need to see things from the beginning, as you do with every other movie, for anything to make sense. You watch as blurs of colors and distorted images flash in front of your eyes on the television screen. Everything is going backwards. People, places, cars, smiles, tears, flowers, everything is rewinding in its path. Time is going backwards. Memories become present events and future unknowns. Time is at your own disposal, going in reverse just by the push of a button on a remote control. The past is now.

  Welcome to my own insanity.

  For four-hundred days and then some, my reality was nothing but those blurred images of color on that imaginary VHS you’re watching. How does someone become this way? How does an average, everyday girl become a nutcase?

  It’s time to press play. Be warned that sometimes, the tracking is a little bit fuzzy, the sound distorts, and the image colors are a little off.

  Let’s begin.

  Hello. My name is Ava Darton. And I flew over the cuckoo’s nest when I was just a senior in high school. This is my story.

  Tyson

  1.

  The first time I ever met Tyson, I knew I would fall in love with him. It was a ridiculous notion, particularly because of the fact that a.) I was only eighteen and b.) I’d always been nauseated by the mere thought of “love at first sight” and really romance in general. But I guess it’s just one of those things that you have to experience for yourself before you really, truly know that it exists.

  Tyson and I were introduced in the weirdest setting. I was on the school newspaper, and my assignment as an amateur journalist was to take some pictures of the high school chorus performing at the local church. After I’d gotten my necessary photographs, the middle school chorus began to perform. I didn’t particularly want to stay and watch them sing, but I didn’t want to be rude and just walk down the middle of the church to the exit, either. My solution was to try to sneak out unnoticed. The only exit door that was unlocked was the one I was trying to avoid, so I decided to just climb out the window in the back of the church. I was sure no one would notice.

  I ended up falling out of the window and into the church shrubbery, dropping my camera in the process. The camera popped open when it hit the ground and the film came out, exposing every picture I’d taken.

  “Damn it!” I hissed under my breath, scrambling out of the bushes.

  “Are you okay?” I heard from across the churchyard. I looked up and saw three guys about my age standing on the walkway leading down to the church.

  “Yeah,” I called back and picked up my camera and the ruined film. My friends Cassie and Emily came outside then—though they’d used the door instead of the window.

  “You climbed out of the window?” Cassie asked me with a loud laugh.

  “I fell out of the window,” was my reply. “And I nearly died.” That was my personality—exaggerating the facts for the sole purpose of humor.

  “Jake!” Emily suddenly yelled to the guys across the street, waving.

  “Hey!” One of the guys yelled back to her and then all three began making their way across the street.

  “Well, isn’t that just awesome that they’re coming over here,” I mumbled to Cassie as I dusted the dewy grass off of the knee of my jeans. “They saw me fall out of the damn window.”

  “Ava, it’s bad to swear at a church,” Cassie told me, grinning nevertheless.

  “Jake, how are you?” Emily asked, giving the tallest guy a hug. Emily knew everybody. Not just in our county, but also in every surrounding county.

  “This is Cassie and Ava,” Emily said then, pulling away from Jake and introducing him to us. “Jake goes to Constantine. He played in the all-stars baseball team with Jeremy.” Jeremy was Emily’s brother.

  “Hey,” Jake said, nodding at us. “That’s Grant and that’s Tyson.”

  Cassie and I greeted them with “hi’s” in unison.

  “What are you doing in Marcher?” Emily asked him then.

  “Oh, Tyson’s sister is in the middle school chorus,” Jake replied. “We were just watching her and then we were gonna head over to your house, actually, and hang out with Jeremy for a while.”

  “Do you go to Constantine High School?” Emily asked Tyson. He nodded.

  “Yeah, I just moved down here with my dad,” he told her, but I noticed he kept glancing over at me, too.

  “Your sister doesn’t go to Constantine Middle School?” I spoke up, confused at why his sister was in the Marcher Middle School chorus if he lived in Constantine.

  “No,” he answered, his eyes on just me now. “She lives here in Marcher with my mom. Me and my dad just moved down here to Constantine so we could see my mom and sister more.”

  “You’re parents are divorced?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered. Suddenly, I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to know every thought going on behind those incredible blue eyes of his. That’s what first stood out so strongly to me. His eyes. They were absolutely the most intriguing pair of
eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

  Emily began a conversation with Jake again—I can’t even remember what was said. I wasn’t really listening as much as observing Tyson. Dark brown hair that was short and messy, blue jeans, a poofy, dark green coat, and blue tennis shoes. His hands were stuck snugly in his blue jean pockets and everything about him made it hard for me not to stare.

  “So I hope you’re all right,” Jake suddenly said to me. I had to snap back to attention and managed a small laugh.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said, smiling slightly. “But I’m a little mad about my camera. All my pictures for the school newspaper were on that film and now it’s all ruined. I’m shit out of luck.”

  Cassie sniggered and Emily rolled her eyes.

  “Ava, you’re going to Hell for cussing at church, y’know?” Emily said then. The guys laughed.

  “I’m not inside the church,” I argued, chuckling.

  “Are you a senior?” Tyson asked me suddenly.

  “Yeah,” I answered, glad for having a reason to focus on him again. “You?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Hey, are the middle schoolers performing yet?”

  “They just started,” I told him.

  “Oh,” he said. “I better get in there…”

  “Yeah, and I should go shoot myself in the face for falling out of that window and ruining my film,” I muttered. Tyson laughed.

  “I have a camera in my car, if you want to use it,” he offered.

  “Really?” I asked, my eyes meeting his. “That’d be great!”

  “I’ll go get it,” he said. “I parked just around the church. You wanna come with me?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. “We should hurry so you can see your sister.”

  “Guys, I’ll meet you inside,” he said, glancing back at Jake and Grant. I nodded at Cassie and Emily, signifying the same thing, and then I walked away, following behind Tyson.

  He slowed down and stepped back a bit so that he was walking beside me.

  “Your name’s Ava?” he asked then.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “And you’re Tyson?” Like I didn’t know.

  “That’s me,” he replied, smiling crookedly. “Have you lived here all your life?”

  “Unfortunately,” I said, rolling my eyes. He looked over at me and laughed. I immediately loved that laugh.

  “Why’s that?” he asked me. I shrugged.

  “It’s just so boring here,” I told him. “There’s nothing to do. The closest movie theater is twenty minutes away in Constantine, and, no offense, but there’s not much to say about Constantine, either.”

  “So, it’s like one small place surrounded by a million other small places,” he deduced. I smiled.

  “Yeah, it’s like a trap,” I said and he laughed again. God, what a great laugh.

  “This is my car,” he said suddenly, stopping at a black El Camino.

  “Wow,” I said, my mouth literally dropping open. “This car is so amazing! What year is it?” It was gleaming in the cold January sun of the day.

  “1978,” he replied, smiling proudly.

  “It’s so shiny,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he laughed, opening the passenger side door and leaning in. “I made a deal with Jake that I’d drive when we went out on the weekends if he’d just wash and shine her up every week.”

  “That’s awesome,” I breathed, taking in every detail of the classic automobile. My eyes wandered then to his…bottom half. He was bent over, searching the floorboard and I really couldn’t help but notice his incredibly nice glutes.

  “Here it is,” I heard him say. He came back out of the car with a small camera in his hand.

  “It’s old school, I know,” he apologized, handing it to me. “But what can I say? I’m just an amateur photographer.” I laughed. We walked inside the church together, whispering about how I’d fallen out the window, trying to be quiet, but we both had the giggles.

  We sat on the floor against the wall in the back of the church.

  “This camera doesn’t have zoom on it,” I whispered.

  “That’s a good thing,” he whispered back. “Because you can take a picture of the middle schoolers and since you’re so far away, no one will be able to tell the difference.”

  “But their uniforms are a different color,” I pointed out.

  “Get the pictures developed in black and white,” he said simply. “Trust me, nobody will ever know but you and me.” I got the giggles again.

  “Unless you tell someone,” I said then. He put his right hand over his heart.

  “I’ll take it to the grave,” he muttered and I had to cover my mouth so no one would hear me laughing.

  I took the rest of the pictures on the camera and Tyson and I somehow managed not to disrupt the performance. When it was over, we stood up and clapped like everyone else and then made our way to the front of the church to see Tyson’s sister.

  “Which one is she?” I asked him.

  “Tall girl, blonde hair,” he told me, pointing. I nodded, spotting her as she walked gracefully down the altar steps. She stopped and began talking to some of the other chorus members.

  “Hey,” Tyson said, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned around.

  “Hey,” she replied and looked at me.

  “Uh, Ava, this is my sister, Laura,” Tyson said then.

  “Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too, Ava,” she replied, shaking my hand. She turned back to Tyson then.

  “Are you coming to Mom’s?” she asked him. The resemblance in these two siblings was remarkable. Same brilliant blue eyes, crooked smile, slender physique, and even a similar way of speaking.

  “No, I’m going over to a friend’s house and then I’m going back to Dad’s,” Tyson told her. “But I was going to take you back to Mom’s first.”

  “That’s okay,” Laura replied. “My friend Julie is giving me a ride.”

  “Oh,” Tyson said. “Okay, well, uh, you did good.”

  “Thanks for coming, jerk,” she said, smiling and giving him a hug. “I gotta go, though…Julie’s waiting. Are you coming to Mom’s this weekend?”

  “Probably,” he answered.

  “Okay, I’m gonna go,” she said. “Love you.”

  “You, too,” he replied and then she bounded off. We followed after the crowd to the entrance of the church then and I couldn’t help but notice the way the light coming through the stained glass windows of the church hit his eyes just perfectly.

  “You can actually exit through a door this time,” Tyson said suddenly. I laughed.

  “Yeah, I can,” I replied. “That’s a lot safer, don’t you think?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “So where did you move here from?”

  “Seattle.”

  “Really? That’s a long way from Virginia.”

  “Tell me about it,” he sighed. “It sucks there, though.”

  “Why is that?” I inquired. “Because of the rain?”

  “Yeah. I hate rain. It’s so depressing.”

  “Me, too. It’s good weather to read in though.”

  “You read a lot?”

  “All the time,” I told him, a little sheepishly. “It’s the nerd in me.”

  “What kind of stuff do you read?” he asked. I shrugged.

  “Everything,” I replied. He smiled at me then.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  When we finally got outside, we were immediately greeted by Emily.

  “It’s about time,” Emily said to us. “We went to the Waffle House and back.”

  “Thanks for bringing me something,” I said dryly. We followed her over to Cassie’s car, where Cassie, Jake, and Grant were standing.

  “You ready, Andrews?” Jake asked Tyson. It didn’t take two seconds for me to realize that ‘Andrews’ was Tyson’s last name—and another two seconds to put ‘Ava’ with ‘Andrews’ and realize just
how good it sounded.

  “Yeah, man,” Tyson said.

  “You’re not taking Laura home?” Grant asked.

  “No, she got a ride with one of her friends,” Tyson told him.

  “I guess we’ll see you girls in a minute then?” Jake asked, looking at Emily.

  “Yeah,” Emily replied. “Cassie, you’re staying with me tonight, aren’t you?” Cassie nodded.

  “Ava, are you coming over?” Emily asked me. Was she serious? Of course I was coming over. How could I possibly pass up a chance to spend more time with Tyson Andrews?

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” I nodded, trying to play it cool.

  Then, the guys got in Tyson’s shiny, 1978 black El Camino and we got in Cassie’s jeep. I kept my eyes on Tyson as he drove off.

  “So, Tyson’s a hottie,” Emily said, looking at me with a grin as we followed them out of the parking lot. I raised my eyebrows at her.

  “There’s definite chemistry there,” Cassie spoke up.

  “Emily, why don’t we talk about Jake?” I suddenly said. They giggled.

  “I’ll admit it—Jake’s a looker,” Emily said, smiling.

  “Cassie, did I see you checking out Grant?” I asked.

  “No,” Cassie replied. “You know I’d never so much as look at someone else besides Trevor. Besides, Grant’s got a funny-shaped head. Didn’t you notice that?” We broke into hysterical laughter. At eighteen, our biggest worry in the world was staying away from boys with “funny-shaped heads”. We had no idea how much bigger the world really gets.

  When we got to Emily’s house, we all went to the basement, which was our typical hang-out spot in high school. The walls were splashed with faded pink and green paint (watermelon colors, as Emily liked to refer to them) and movie posters were tacked up everywhere at odd angles. In the right corner of the basement, next to the purple-themed bathroom, was the family wet bar, locked at the parents discretion. Couches and beanbag chairs were scattered throughout the rest of the room and faced the ultimate recreation we loved in Emily’s watermelon basement: the big screen, plasma TV.