The Anatomy of a Broken Heart //Completed//

4. Caleb

The party ended early when I found Ansel, broken faced and bleeding on the back patio of the cabin. I'd gone out to get some fresh air after the fight with Farrah, and nearly tripped over him. In the distance I heard someone screaming and then the squeal of tires on gravel as a car pealed out. It must have been those two idiots who did this to him.

We got him to the hospital, where the doctor told him he was lucky his nose wasn't broken. "Hey maybe he did you a favor and fixed your ugly mug," I laughed, trying to lighten the tension. Ansel never took anything seriously, but tonight he was different. "You should've seen the look in his eyes, dude," he kept repeating. "You should've heard the way he screamed at her."

"Her?"

"The girl he was with. She got him to stop hitting me. Probably saved my life."

"She was the one who got you into this mess in the first place. Don't go making her a hero, Ansel."

We didn't go back to the cabin. Instead, I drove Ansel to my place so he could recover before he had to face his parents on Monday. Mine were out of town at some annual charity event they liked to attend to make sure they got the media coverage necessary to keep my dad's medical practice in the public's mind. Whatever.

They got home early on Sunday, and when they saw Ansel's face beat to a pulp, they weren't even surprised. The doctor who attended him had already called Uncle Jamison. My parents were livid but his parents were mostly indifferent. As long as the police weren't called and a scandal wasn't caused it was no harm no foul in their eyes, and Ansel still had his "political career" ahead of him. Aunt Esther was a state senator and 'her son was going to follow in her footsteps.' That's a direct quote.

I, on the other hand, had committed the crime of the century for letting those junkies on the property. "What if the police had been called, Caleb?" Mom held a perfumed kerchief up to her nose as she paced about the sitting room. "What if they'd found the drugs? What would you have done then?"

They weren't concerned for Ansel's well-being, no. They were concerned about their own public image. After all, the chairman of the board of directors at the whatever-the-hell dad was a part of could not, nay, would not, be dragged down by some petulant teenage rebellion.

And they were right. It was idiotic of Ansel to do that crap and to get involved with pricks like Jasper. We did have an image to uphold. We were important in Olympia, and of course I knew that, despite what Farrah thought. Of course I knew.