A Million Shattered Pieces

Chapter Eighteen

"You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress, simultaneously."

"I see why you care about him so much." Zoe's eyes followed Brock out the cafeteria doors.

Second semester had begun. And we had spare time between classes with her. At first, it had been awkward to sit at a table with both my best friend and my boyfriend. They spent an awful lot of time staring each other down, silently challenging the other to try and take me away. It exhausted me.

"And why is that?" I asked, fingers tapping on the hardcover book in front of me.

Zoe sighed, those amber eyes still on him. She looked back once he vanished from sight. "Brock is like your dream guy. He's a wonderful person." Sadness swept over his face. "But he's not happy."

Everyone could see it. After what happened a week and a half earlier, with his mother walking in on us, things had slowly started to go downhill again. Whether it be that flicker of emptiness, or the way he became less affectionate. I was always on the verge of screaming.

The only comfort I had was that he was still clean. Three weeks. Come Friday, it would be four. An entire month. Scars, I could deal with now. Fresh wounds, not so much. I prayed every night to never find any new cuts. To see that would destroy me even more.

"So, about your dress..."

"Please, don't." I pushed my glasses back up, the habit second nature after so many years. "I'll never have it. I do not wish to be tortured by talk of it."

She cleared her throat. "I found one almost exactly like it. For two hundred bucks cheaper."

That caught my attention.

Since the morning we shopped around for prom dresses, I couldn't stop thinking about that red dress. The way it was flared at the hips, fitted like a corset at the waist and bust. Tiny sparkles covered the entire bodice, in a pattern that would make me look like moving flame if it caught on the lights at the prom venue. I lusted after that dress. It was in every dream, the heartbreak that I would never be able to afford it tearing me up.

Funny, how I spent my time wanting a dress, when Brock's condition seemed to be worsening with each passing day.

"Do not blame yourself. It isn't your fault."

I looked up at Zoe, slowly raising an eyebrow. "What?"

"You always get this...look. When you think of Brock. Like you think it's your fault that he's this way. It's not, Claire."

"I—"

"What did I miss?" Brock took a seat beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. It still left me breathless, the way he looked at me.

As if I was the light in his world of darkness. The one glimmer of feeling in a sea of emptiness. If only it were that simple.

"Nothing," Zoe chirped, already starting to pack up her stuff. "Listen, I think I should head out. Anthony wants to meet up before math."

I almost choked on the sip of water I'd taken. "Anthony? Anthony Santos?"

She shrugged her toned shoulders, throwing her backpack over one. "He asked me out to prom in May. How could I say no?"

I didn't have to fake the amusement as Zoe walked away, turning around to blow a kiss at Brock and me. She focused on me, a wink the only indication she had no real plans to meet up with Anthony.