Broken

Chapter 1

Stepping back out into the relentless desert sun, I once again wished we were still back in Minnesota, or at least that we were done moving. Then again I may as well have been wishing that mom had decided on somewhere other than Utah, or that we'd had some long-lost relative die and leave us a small fortune, or even better that Dad and Cindi...

The thought was much too dangerous to complete. My breathing had already sped up, and my balance degenerated so quickly it was a small miracle I made it over to the U-Haul before I keeled over. I'd hated the battered vehicle that had spent the last two days carrying us west across I-80. It was hard to keep up the feeling though when it was the only thing protecting me from a concussion.

Half of the horizon was green and beautiful, not land of the thousand lakes beautiful, but still not bad. I of course ended up on the wrong side of the truck; barren dirt and rocks, only occasionally relieved by scrubby plant life, as far as the eye could see.

I still didn't buy into my mom's oft-repeated claim. I'd told her before that Utah would be a lousy place to try and make her way as a photographer. Only, very sick, masochistic people buy calendars with this kind of crap on it. Sane people take pictures of furry little animals romping around green landscapes and sell those.

That helped a little, my breathing was starting to slow back down, but that was too related to the other reasons we'd moved. I wasn't mentally back in safe territory still. I sought refuge in something even more mundane. Namely the fact that tomorrow I would have to go enroll in school and try to blend in with a bunch of small-town Juniors who've all probably known each other since they could walk.

Going to a new school after missing the first month of classes was a prospect likely to generate anxiety in the most outgoing of teenagers, and I was far from that, but it was a different kind of worry. As I mapped out all of the things that could, and probably would go wrong, I could feel my heart slowly settle back down out of my throat.

If I were pretty or athletic I'd probably manage to fit right in. It always seemed like the kids that move in partway through the year usually have some kind of instant-in with the cool crowd, but that probably won't happen for me.

It wasn't that I didn't want to make friends; I just wasn't very good at it. My equilibrium seemed to have returned, so I took a few unsteady steps around to the back of the truck. If I didn't return with a box soon Mom would rush out expecting the worst. Unless she got caught up visualizing some new project, in which case it would be hours before she thought to come check on me.

We'd moved the beds and most of the other heavy items in earlier, which helped explain my exhaustion, but that didn't make the pile of remaining items in the back of the truck any less foreboding. I decided to take the easy way out, and picked up a couple of blanket-wrapped mirrors.

I didn't unwrap either of them. That was dangerous too. The face that'd look back out of the glass looked almost more like hers than mine. Shoulder-length blond hair, and blue eyes still seemed to be all the rage, but mine were ruined by pale skin that burned instead of tanning, and a build that had retained its baby fat long after most of the other girls had started slimming down.

Those extra inches had evaporated recently, but of course it couldn't be a cause for celebration. When mom surfaced enough to notice how much weight I'd lost, she worried I was developing an eating disorder. She couldn't seem to understand that I hated the new me more than she did. Cindi was the skinny one. I'd tried to make myself eat enough to fill back out, but I'd had a hard time remembering meals lately. It was easier to just cinch my pants up a little and avoid mirrors. Even when I did remember, the calories in didn't seem quite able to keep up with the calories my body routinely burned up. I guess panic attacks are harder on your system than most people realize.