The Heart That Breaks Page 4

  BY SOME MIRACLE, Lance heads to bed at nine o’clock that night. It could have been the six-pack he drank after supper. Even so, it would be unusual for that to have enough of an effect for him to miss his late night shows.

  Mama goes to bed early too, so I gather up my blankets and alarm clock and crawl out my window long before I would normally have dared to.

  I’ve just reached Henry’s house when I spot a shadow at the corner of the trailer. It scares me so bad I nearly jump out of my skin. Thinking it’s Lance, I start to run back to my room.

  “Ann-Elizabeth?”

  The voice turns my feet to concrete. Surely, I’m dreaming. It can’t be.

  “Nathan?” I say, turning around slowly.

  “Yeah,” he says, pushing a bike toward Henry and me. Henry barks a warning.

  “Shh,” I say, rubbing Henry’s head in reassurance. “It’s okay.”

  “Is he going to bite me once I get over there?” Nathan asks, clearly uncertain.

  “Not unless I tell him to.”

  “Will you not tell him to?”

  I smile a little. “For now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, adding, “Did you really ride all the way from your house?”

  “It’s only ten miles,” he says. “So you know where I live?”

  “Everybody knows where you live. It’s one of the biggest houses in the county.”

  He puts his bike down, then walks over and reaches down to rub Henry’s head. Henry starts to wag his tail, looking up at Nathan with a big grin, his whole body wagging now, reminding me that the only person he ever sees is me.

  “I repeat. What are you doing here?”

  He shrugs a backpack off his shoulder. “I was hoping you could help me with our English homework.”

  “You were not.”

  “Yeah. I was.”

  “You make straight A’s. You don’t need help.”

  “That doesn’t mean I think it’s easy.”

  “You think I’ve got something on you where English is concerned?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you came all this way for nothing. Besides, how did you know where I live?”

  “Google maps.”

  “And you rode your bike all the way out here just so we could do homework together?”

  “It actually wasn’t dark when I left. It took longer than I thought it would. Who knew there were so many hills?”

  “You’re crazy,” I say.

  “Possibly,” he concedes, smiling that ridiculous smile of his, and all of a sudden, I feel my heart pound against my chest.

  “Were you just planning to knock on the door at nine-thirty at night?”

  “I hadn’t really planned that far ahead.”

  I try not to smile, but I can’t help giving in just a little.

  “What happened to your cheek?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, putting a hand across the small cut on my face.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  “You need to go, Nathan,” I say, suddenly remembering that Lance could come out here and find him, and there’s absolutely no doubt that he would find new ways to make me miserable.

  “But I just got here.”

  “I was getting ready to go to bed.”

  “You’re outside with your dog.”

  I realize that I’m digging myself a hole. “I came out to check on him before I go to sleep.”

  He gives me a long look. “Mind if I ask why you’re carrying blankets and an alarm clock?”

  Through the living room window, I see the light from the kitchen flick on. “Oh, my gosh! Get down, Nathan. Now! If he sees you, I’m dead!”

  To his credit, Nathan doesn’t question me. He drops his bike and follows me behind Henry’s barrel, Henry trotting after us both with a questioning whine. I slide to the ground, my knees hunched up.

  Nathan crouches down beside me, Henry scooting under my arm and licking my face.

  “If who sees me?” Nathan whispers.

  “Lance,” I whisper back.

  “Who’s Lance?”

  “My mama’s boyfriend,” I say, as if he should already know the answer.

  “He lives here?”

  “Yeah.” I sigh. “He does.”

  “He a jerk or something?”

  “You could say that.”

  We sit for a bit in silence, me holding my breath most of the time. After a few minutes, I stick my head out and see that the kitchen lights have been turned off. Hopefully, he’s stumbled his drunk self off to bed.

  I say a little prayer that he won’t go in my bedroom looking for me. Then I think about what had happened this afternoon. My stomach drops, and a wave of nausea sails through me.

  We stay like this for what feels like a long time. When I finally raise my head, Nathan says, “Any chance you’re gonna tell me what all of this is about?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Were you planning to sleep out here with your dog?”

  “His name is Henry.”

  “Henry,” Nathan corrects.

  “Yeah,” I say defensively. “What of it?”

  He’s quiet for a few moments and then, “Is that like a one time thing or a regular thing?”

  “If every night is regular, then it’s regular.”

  He leans back and looks at me for several long seconds, as if he’s just seeing me for the first time. I’m pretty sure his conclusion is not a positive one. “Why can’t he stay with you in your room?”

  “Because Lance says he can’t.” The last word breaks at the end, and I’m mortified to feel the tears sliding down my face.

  “Hey,” Nathan says. He slips an arm around my shoulder, a little awkwardly. I resist at first, keeping myself stiff. But honestly, the simple caring in his touch feels so good that I collapse against him, tears coming now so fast and hard that it’s pointless for me to try and stop them.

  “It’s okay,” he says, as if he doesn’t know what else to add.

  But he has no idea how not okay it all is.

  Henry nuzzles up against me, licking my face over and over again, as if he’s determined to make it better.

  When I finally sit up, I am mortified that I’ve let Nathan see me like this. “How did this happen?” I ask.

  “Maybe because it was what you needed?” Nathan says softly.

  “To make a fool of myself in front of you?”

  “You haven’t done that.”

  “By most anyone’s definition, I’d say I have.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Nathan asks bluntly, as if he doesn’t want to give himself time to rethink the question.

  “No,” I say quickly, shaking my head.

  “That cut on your face,” he says.

  “I did that. Stupidly. In the shower.” At least it’s not a complete lie.

  He looks as if he’d like to ask more, but he doesn’t press me further. He shrugs the backpack off his shoulder, opening it up to remove his English Lit book. “So about that homework.”

  “It’s too dark out here to see that.”

  He pulls a phone from his pocket, waves it a little. “Flashlight. Check.”

  “You’re a regular boy scout, aren’t you?”

  I’ve never liked sarcasm, so it’s not as if I think it sounds great coming out of me or anything. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism, but even so, I feel bad and say, “I bet I know which question you’re wondering about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Number five.”

  “Yep.”

  We talk it through for several minutes, and then Nathan jots down his answer.

  “So,” I say then. “You rode ten miles on a bike for that amount of help.”

  “Maybe there was another reason.”

  I lean back, give him a long look without making him admit I had been right about the ulterior motive thing.

  It takes him a few seconds to get it out. “I was wondering if you�
�d like to go with me to Homecoming.”

  If he had just pulled out the winning lottery ticket from last week’s Power Ball and declared it mine, I don’t think I would have been any more shocked. “Homecoming?”

  “Unless you’re already going with someone else?” he says awkwardly.

  “No,” I say, “but I can’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrug. “I don’t have a dress. Or shoes. Or-”

  “You have plenty of time to get them.”

  “I realize it’s dark,” I say, “and you probably didn’t get a good look at the neighborhood, but in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, we don’t have boatloads of money for things like homecoming dresses.”

  As soon as I say it, I flinch at the harshness in my voice and say, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just. . .things are pretty tight. Besides, whatever extra I have, I save up for Henry and our move to Nashville.”

  From the look on Nathan’s face, I’m guessing everything I’ve just said sounds like it’s been uttered in a foreign language to him.

  “You’re moving to Nashville?”

  “After I graduate high school.”

  “To do what?”

  “I want to be a singer.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret them. Sitting here in the middle of a trailer park with my dog tied to a plastic barrel, I must seem about as far from that kind of dream as it is possible for a human being to be.

  “I’d like to hear you sing,” he says, surprising me.

  “Your dad’s in the business so you must think I sound like I think it’s easy to just move to Nashville and boom, you’re a singer.”

  “I didn’t think that. I want to move there too. Probably after college.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugs. “I write songs.”

  For some reason, I’m surprised. Although I guess I shouldn’t be. “Like your dad. That’s so cool.”

  “They’re not anywhere near as good as his, but he says they have heart and soul, and that’s where all good songs start.”

  “I’d like to hear them.”

  “I don’t sing in front of other people. I don’t like my voice.”

  “I bet you have a good voice.”

  “Nah.” He’s quiet for a moment, and then, “Maybe you could try one of them sometime.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to hear you sing one.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a bunch.”

  “But you’ve never heard me sing.”

  “No, but I’m guessing you have a beautiful voice.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Just hearing you talk. I can imagine what it would sound like.”

  Something between goosebumps and chills run up my back. I absorb the words and the invitation, and it’s like someone just opened up a rainbow right in front of me and all these wonderful colors I’ve never seen before come spilling out. But the two of us come from different worlds, and trusting another person’s motivation as pure isn’t a natural response for me. “You must know a lot of people who can sing.”

  “Not anyone I’d want to sing my songs.”

  “That’s nice, Nathan, but-”

  “There’s no but. It just is, Ann-Elizabeth. For now, let’s go back to the Homecoming thing. I could help you get a dress.”

  “I don’t want to be your pity case. Please don’t feel sorry for me.”

  “I’m not. I just. . .my sister has dresses she’s worn in weddings. I know she wouldn’t mind letting you borrow one. They’re just hanging in her closet.”

  Henry sticks his head under my arm and nudges me hard, as if he’s lost patience with my lack of attention. I rub his back as I say, “Why would you want to take a girl like me to Homecoming when you could pretty much have your pick of anyone at school?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because you have everything popular girls insist on having in a guy.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be that.”

  “You can’t help it,” I say, matter-of-factly.

  He folds his arms across his chest, and I can see that I have upset him. “Do you want to go with me to the dance or not?”

  “Honestly? Yes. But I can’t, Nathan.”

  “You mean won’t.”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he says, getting to his feet and brushing off the back of his jeans. He picks up his backpack, hefts it on to his shoulder. “See you in school then.”

  He leans down and rubs Henry’s head once. Henry licks his hand, and we both watch him climb on his bike and roll off down the driveway.

  I wonder what he would have said if I had told him why. But it’s humiliating to think of telling him anything else about Lance and the fact that I don’t dare give him a reason to notice that I’m liking boys.

  Besides, once Henry and I are inside the barrel and curled up under the blanket, it’s almost as if Nathan had never been here at all.

  Maybe I dreamed it.

  *

  Nathan

  BY THE TIME I ride the ten miles back to Franklin on my bike, it’s almost eleven-thirty. Heading down the street where our house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, notable names in the country music industry on either side of us, I can’t help but notice the difference between here and the place where Ann-Elizabeth lives.

  I think of the rows of grimy trailers and feel a stab of guilt for the life I have. I try to remember if I have ever felt guilty about it before, but can’t think of a time when I did. I don’t know that I’ve ever had cause to make a comparison. Of course, I’ve driven through neighborhoods nothing like my own, but I never really had a reason to wonder who lived there and how different their life must be from mine.

  But tonight, I did.

  Maybe I should have before now. I wonder though how we come to question things that aren’t part of our own experience. I guess we only do that when it actually does become our experience.

  I put my bike in the garage and enter the house through the door leading to the kitchen. I down a glass of cold milk from the fridge and head into the living room. My dad is still up, strumming a couple of enviable licks on his guitar when I walk in.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He looks up with a distracted smile, as if he’s just noticed I’m here. I recognize the look on his face. It’s the one he gets when he knows he’s on to something that’s going to turn into a good song.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I say.

  “You’re not, son. Come on in.” He puts the guitar down on the sofa next to him. “You’re out late.”

  “Just visiting a friend.”

  “Ah. Girl or boy?”

  I shrug. “Just a friend, Dad.”

  “Okay.”

  “That sounded good,” I say, sitting down on the chair across from him. “That lick you were playing.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Not sure where it came from, but I kinda like it.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “My publisher booked a session with Holden Ashford for Friday. I’d like to go in with some good ideas.”

  “Doesn’t he write his own stuff?”

  “A lot of the time, but apparently, he’s been a little busy being a dad, and they’re looking for something fresh.”

  “Cool.” I pick up my own guitar from the spot where I’d left it earlier and sound out the chords he’d just played. I hesitate for a moment and strum the additional notes I hear in my head.

  Dad raises an eyebrow and follows along. From there, he adds a little more, and we go like that for a while until we’ve got the basis of something good. I sit back and look at him with a small smile.

  “Pretty soon, I’m going to have to start putting your name on things.”

  “Nah,” I say, playing through it again. “It’s your original inspiration.”

  “You have the ear, son.”

  “Thanks. Pretty clear where I got it though.”
<
br />   “Any new thoughts on what you want to do after high school? This last year goes fast.”

  I shrug, aware that I don’t have the courage to voice what I really want. “Belmont, maybe.”

  He stops strumming and studies me for a moment. “Am I correct in assuming you’d rather skip the college part and get on to the real world part?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, picking at his guitar. “I’ve told you my story before, so it’s not like you don’t know it. But maybe it’s worth me saying again. My dream was to write country music for a living. As it turned out, I was able to do that. But I definitely didn’t take the easiest road here. I spent a lot of nights sleeping in the back seat of my old Honda Civic. Both of us know you aren’t going to need to do that, but if I have a regret, it’s that I know I could have benefited from some formal education. Talent is a main ingredient. You have that, son. There’s something to be said though for taking the time to learn from the masters.”

  “I’ve learned from you.”

  “And I’m proud of that. I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with going to school and working on your dream at the same time. It’s a fact that one is almost certain to help the other.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I say.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Yeah?” He looks up at me, his expression expectant.

  “There’s this girl I went out to see tonight. I actually asked her to Homecoming.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She doesn’t really have the money for a dress.”

  “Oh.”

  “I told her she could wear one of Hannah’s. She’s got plenty.”

  He sits back on the sofa, sets his guitar down on the floor. “I can appreciate the logic of that, son, but what did she say?”

  “She probably sees it as a hand out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what would have been the right thing to say?”

  “That’s a tough one.”

  “I’d like to take her.”

  “Does she want to go?”

  “I think so. Except for the dress thing.”

  “Maybe you ought to just tell her you don’t really care what she wears. You’d just like to take her to the dance. And if she wants to go, she’ll either take you up on the offer or not. But then it’ll be her decision without having to feel like you’re offering her charity.”