AFTER ALL OUR BROKEN PIECES: A SHORT STORY

ALL OUR BROKEN PIECES - A SNEAK PEEK

  "You can't keep two people who are meant to be together apart for long..."

Lennon Davis doesn't believe in much, but she does believe in the security of the number five. If she flicks the bedroom light switch five times, maybe her new L.A. school won't suck. But that doesn't feel right, so she flicks the switch again. And again. Ten more flicks of the switch and maybe her new step family will accept her. Twenty-five more flicks and maybe she won't cause any more of her loved ones to die. Fifty times more and then she can finally go to sleep.

Kyler Benton witnesses this pattern of lights from the safety of his treehouse in the yard next door. It is only there, hidden from the unwanted stares of his peers, that Kyler can fill his notebooks with lyrics that reveal the true scars of the boy behind the oversized hoodies and caustic humor. But Kyler finds that descriptions of blonde hair, sad eyes, and tapping fingers are beginning to fill the pages of his notebooks. Lennon, the lonely girl next door his father has warned him about, infiltrates his mind. Even though he has enough to deal with without Lennon's rumored tragic past in his life, Kyler can't help but want to know the truth about his new muse  

GOALS . EVERYONE' S GOT TO HAVE them; at least that's what my dad says. For the last two years, it's been my mission, no, my goal, to make our front lawn resemble a football field for no other reason than to piss my father off. Don't get me wrong—guys like him don't mind having lawns that resemble football fields. Therein lies the problem. He'd love it. He'd admire it. He'd bask in its undeniable glory with unshakable pride. More than that, he'd rage. The sort of red-faced-vein-throbbing-style pissed because accepting the perfect lawn means I mastered something he never could. I've come close before, alternating the height of the grass in patches, but I still haven't perfected it. That is my goal.

Here's my theory: He likes to make me work. Thinks it'll teach me to be a real man. Maybe that's true, and hey, if the art of lawn maintenance is his vision for my future, then who am I to argue? The truth is it isn't like that at all. He wants me to be a yuppie attorney, just like him. Guy doesn't want a kid; he wants a clone. Better luck next time, old man. I'd rather die.

I survey my work, nodding, pleased with the shifting pattern and alternating shades of light and dark green. Today is the closest I've ever come to achieving greatness. I give myself a mental high five. I should call the guys, have a good old-fashioned game of rugby in the backyard. Dad coming home to a bunch of riffraff, as it he calls it, might make his head explode. Not the worst idea I've ever had.

I let myself in the back door and go straight to the kitchen. The scent of garlic floats through the house, courtesy of whatever simmers on the stove, but Mom or Macy are nowhere in sight, so I ignore the growling in my stomach and grab a Coke, sliding it into the pocket of my hoodie before U-turning back outside, sidestepping the pool and crossing my immaculate lawn until I reach the ladder to the tree house.

Yeah, a tree house. Go ahead. Laugh. Let me find the fucks I give.

Hint:

None.

That is correct. I do not give a single solitary fuck about how absurd it is. I'm seventeen. Six foot one and growing, and I still prefer to remain hidden in the trees. It's rad and if anyone knocks it, I'll knock their teeth clean out of their face, no joke.

Two wooden rungs are affixed to the tree stump near the bot-tom, and they're the only steps I use to enter the door. It's not a big effort for a guy my size, because during its construction, my father wanted to make sure he would fit, too, and he's not what I would call a slight man. I was six. We'd gone for a family dinner at the home of a client of my father's, who like all his A-list clients shall remain unnamed. The guy had built a tree house for his kid. A standard, run-of-the-mill kind. A few pieces of wood, a floor, and a roof.

My dad got one glimpse of it and decided that I needed one, too. But mine had to be higher, bigger, and better, so he hired contractors to build me the Taj Ma-freakin-hal of tree houses. He promised me the world that summer and I got this. My kid sister, Macy, got a motorized pink jeep. The only reason I got the better end of the deal is because Macy outgrew her SUV in a year.

Dad and I planned to spend time up here, doing all kinds of father and son things. He's been twice, both times before the accident.

For this reason alone, I should hate it. I should loathe the thing with the burning fire of a thousand suns, but I don't. I can't. It's my only escape. I write music up here because it reminds me of a time when life wasn't so messed up.

I pull my hoodie up and over my head, discarding it on the wooden floorboards, grateful for the relief from the oppressive heat. It's the first day of spring and sweltering already. In a week it'll be hot enough to cook eggs on the sidewalk and for me, a serial overdresser, that sucks. Cracking the can of soda, I shove my earbuds in and scroll through my playlist until I find it. Nirvana. R.I.P. Kurt, you were a musical genius. I lay back and stretch my legs on the small mattress tucked against the wall. A slight breeze blows in and I watch the steel-gray curtains, sewn by my mother, catch on the wind.

I turn down the music, not because Kurt's vocals should ever be silenced, but it seems like a nice day to catch a catnap before dinner. My eyes close and seconds before the pull of sleep takes hold, a car with a destitute muffler rumbles not so far in the distance.

I sit up and inch closer to the small window, getting a face full of curtain as the wind's direction shifts. A cab ambles up the drive at the house next door and parks, its muffler chugging with relief as the sputtering stops. An interesting phenomenon in a place like Bel Air. It's the kind of neighborhood infested with sports cars like mine, Range Rovers, Hummers. Status symbols on wheels. Yellow checkered taxicabs screaming for a little maintenance stick out like sore thumbs. Josh, our next-door neighbor, and proud owner of both a Corvette and Porsche's version of an SUV, steps out of the cab, reaches into his coat pocket, and whips out a pile of cash.

The driver exits the vehicle, too, and moves to the rear of the car, removing large bags of luggage and a trunk. By the looks of the trunk, they're transporting a body. I sit up straighter.

Ever see a TV show or movie and wonder how they find such good music? Well, there's a guy for that. Josh. He's a music super-visor. That's a legit job, and since we live in LA, he doesn't have to travel much and when he does, I'm certain it's not with purple polka-dotted luggage.