Crash (2 page)

Jessica made a small gasp. “Oh, look! There’s a hole in the lace.”

“Where?”

She pointed to a tiny hole in the fabric and I sighed in disappointment.

“Return it. You’ll find something else.”

I moaned as I stuffed the dress back into the bag. “Go on home, Jessica. It’ll probably take a while.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Her thin arm waved me goodbye as I turned back into the mall with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I hated returning clothes. Any kind of confrontation made me feel physically ill.

The queasy feeling in my stomach doubled as I approached the sales counter where a tall woman stood, her face heavily made up with dramatic makeup, but still beautiful. She was the sort of girl I always admired because of her ruthless style. I never felt secure enough in myself to wear that much makeup or sport plunging necklines.

“What do you need?”

I blushed under her intense stare, which was even more intimidating with the eyeliner. I placed the bag on the table. “Um—I just bought a dress and it has a hole in it. I’d like to return it.” I hated the uncertain tone in my voice.

Her manicured fingers reached inside and gripped the dress in her claws. She spread it out over the table. “I don’t see no hole.”

I leaned forward and pointed, my heart hammering. Her gaze seared across my face. “Where’s the receipt?”

“Should be in the bag, I think.” My voice was in danger of disappearing.

A stabbing feeling struck my heart as she searched the bag and didn’t find one.

“I was just here, you can ask the lady over there.” I pointed in her direction, but she was gone. Someone else took her place.

“No receipt, no return. Sorry.” She shoved aside my bag and didn’t even bother putting it back inside. “Next!”

Numbly, I placed my dress back inside and allowed myself to be swept aside. My face was hot and my lunch churned inside me. I heard laughter from a couple well-dressed, beautiful girls as I walked towards the exit and cringed. Even though they weren’t laughing at me, my brain still insisted that it was a possibility.

Pathetic
, I told myself.
If Jessica was still here she would have made the girl return the dress. She would have asked to speak to the manager.

But I wasn’t Jessica. Inside, my body screamed for me to rush towards a safe place and that was my little red car.

Safe. No one can bother me.

I kept the windows rolled up, even though it was a warm day outside. I didn’t want to hear people’s voices; I just needed a bit of quiet to quell the nastiness in my stomach.

I teared up as I glanced at the shopping bag, disappointed in myself.
I just spent over a hundred dollars on something that needs to be repaired.
It wasn’t even on sale. I knew what my mother would say if she saw this. Ben had always done this stuff for me. Whenever my Comcast stopped working, I gave the phone to Ben so he could deal with it.

When I got home, I shoved the shopping bag in a corner of my closet so that I wouldn’t have to think about my failure for a couple days. Back in my room, I grabbed my sketchpad, ruler, and pencils and spread them over my desk. The best light was in the kitchen, but I needed complete silence to work on art. My environment needed to be a cocoon of artistic energy. My eyes roved over the walls, where I pasted photographs of some of my favorite corporate designs: Apple, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo.

One day, I’ll design something amazing for a company known all around the world.

But for now, I was working on penguins. My boss gave me the assignment to redo the pamphlets for the penguin exhibit. It was one of the most popular exhibits at the San Francisco Bay Aquarium, especially among children. I drew a straight line across the page and my hand instinctively flinched. An image of a wooden spoon cracking over my knuckles echoed through the years and I tightened my fist.

It was only a sketch, but it had to be perfect. I used the ruler even for the text; to make sure the crossed “T”s were perfectly straight.

Hours later, when I finished perfecting every little detail, I sat back and admired my work. Now, it was time to do it all over again. This time on Photoshop and Illustrator. By the time I finished everything, dark orange light glowed on my wall through my blinds. I stared at my stupid, cartoony graphic that burned my eyeballs for the past few hours. There was nothing else to do and the floodgates holding back all my feelings suddenly opened. Imaginary water poured in from the window, ruining all of the possessions in my cave, and finally submerging me. I was gasping for air.

What an empty life you have. Work, work, work
.

I just spent my whole Saturday working, wasting most of my time on a sketch I didn’t really need. The emptiness of my life swallowed me like a black hole in my chest, always needing more, more, and more. More chocolate, more beer, more work and clothes. Yet, I still felt unfulfilled. Empty.

Ben was my purpose
. I’m one of those stupid girls who made everything in life about their boyfriend
. Every weekend, holiday, and party revolved around the boyfriend. And now that he was gone, there was nothing left. There was nothing to invest my energy in, besides work and my possessions.

I surfed the web and browsed through Express and Urban Outfitters, adding cute, expensive tops to my shopping cart. Buying crap made me feel better. I had a hole and I would fill it with stuff.

* * *

The town car whisked across the Bay Bridge and I stared out the window at the indiscernible black, rolling hills in the distance. My gaze flicked to the empty leather seat beside me. My hands spread over the seat and I imagined that he sat beside me. He grinned at me in excitement.
Ben would have loved this.
It was like thinking of a dead loved one. Tightness constricted my throat and the dark thoughts invaded my consciousness, sapping the life out of me and evaporating my desire for the party.

The car stopped in a quiet suburb deep within the San Francisco hills and the noise in my head stopped. I could hardly believe that such an ordinary place could exist in the city. It was an incredibly quiet street and the homes had driveways. I stared. Some of the houses were tall, vertical and pastel-colored. We were in front of a giant, white Victorian mansion that looked like a small castle. On the side was a greenhouse. The black gate opened and pink and yellow tulips lined the driveway and encircled the whole house. I got out of the car numbly and walked up the steps, surrounded by white roses. As I passed the glass house, I realized that it was actually a giant solarium, not a greenhouse. The floor was laid out in marble in a checkered black and white pattern. Beautiful patio furniture covered the gleaming floor and guests sat in wicker chairs, enjoying themselves, drinking champagne, and admiring the view.

As I blundered inside, I couldn’t stop staring. There were countless rooms: a room for the pool table, a library, and a study. Upstairs on the second level was a massive patio with its own garden and above that I could see porches sticking out of the bedroom doors. There were several private courtyards surrounding the first floor where one could sit on a sunny day, obscured from all traffic, and read. It was incredible. I never saw anything like it. I grabbed one of the bubbly glasses of champagne bobbing around the rooms on gold-plated trays and wandered.

The champagne slipped down my throat as I walked towards the crowd of well-dressed men and women, most of them Luke’s business associates. They were too intimidating to approach, so I wandered around on my own. He hosted the party in this ridiculously gorgeous mansion to celebrate the success of his multi-million dollar business deal. As his girlfriend’s best friend, I was invited. Jessica wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She refused to leave me alone in the apartment. Part of me loved that about her. Another part, the part closest to my bitter heart, was sick to death of being coddled.

She feels guilty, even though she did nothing wrong.

It wasn’t her fault, but damn did I resent it. And I hated myself for being such a petty friend. Couldn’t I just be happy for her? For the first time in her life, she was happy. I watched her struggle throughout the years with all the rape and abuse hanging like a ten-ton weight around her neck. A sick part of me even felt jealous for that. She was the tragic, selfless and
brave
orphan.

I didn’t have a transformative story. I was just a middle-class, white bread girl with no problems. No issues. No horrible trauma or secret abortion or drug habit. Nothing. I was ordinary. No one ever wrote stories about the ordinary girl. I had all the advantages in the world, and yet I was destined to be mediocre.

No one really understands how horrible mediocrity can be.

My fingers bit into the now-empty champagne glass. I walked through the mansion as the lounge music boomed in my ears, marveling at the number of stairs and the art displayed on the walls. I passed the living room where a Steinway & Sons grand piano stood. It probably cost him at least forty grand and I knew for a fact that neither of them could play. I sank my finger down on the ivory middle c and winced as a harsh note glared at me. Not only that, but it was out of tune! It was like biting into kale—bitter, bitter, bitter.

The glass tiers of intricate petit-fours and Kara’s Cupcakes, which had been customized with golden “P”s just for this party, and the bottles of champagne raised out of dripping ice to provide an endless pour of golden excitement—all of it irritated me. They were showing off.
Look at me! Look at what I have! It was excessive.
I wanted to spit.

The muscles on my face ached from smiling too much. I grabbed the door that led outside and pushed it. Desperate to get away from all the noise and people, I stepped outside and immediately sighed with relief. I wanted to be alone so that I could feel like crap without anyone asking me if there was something wrong.

A redwood porch with tables and chairs overlooked a sprawling garden and backyard. I clutched my shrug around my shoulders and shivered in the freezing, starless night. My shoulders curled forward as I set the champagne glass on the rail and leaned so that the wood dug into my ribs. The noise of the party shut out, I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath. The darkness reminded me of nights with Ben when I’d lie in bed and watch him sleep. I never felt so safe.

“Bad night?”

A husky voice shattered my sanctuary and my body turned—right into another body.

“Whoa.” I looked up and saw a broad chest. I backed away and saw a man standing in front of me, looking disheveled in his dark gray suit. It wasn’t his attractiveness that I noticed right away; it was the restlessness of his black eyes, which seemed to hold me still.

A slow smirk stretched across his rugged face. His dark hair flared around him, just as wild as the rest of his appearance: loose tie and shirt untucked, a shoelace trailing behind his scuffed patent leather shoes. He looked drunk, except he held nothing in his hands. There was no stink of alcohol.

“Speak for yourself.” I felt a surge of annoyance toward the man who spotted my dark mood. A bit of surprise registered in my brain. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to talk to an attractive guy like him, but I didn’t find him intimidating at all.

He gave me an unconcerned shrug. “What, this?” He tugged his collar. “I hate parties, but I’m always expected to go to them. I try to look like shit so people leave me alone.”

A smile flickered on my face and he grinned back. Even in his haphazard attire, he was handsome. He had a straight nose and hollowed cheeks. His flushed cheeks would have made him look like some sort of dark angel if it weren’t for his narrowed eyes. How could someone be so attractive but look like shit at the same time?

“I don’t want to be here, either.”

I normally wasn’t this honest, but something about him made me feel like being open. I shivered as he drew closer to me. There was so much energy behind his eyes that I felt suddenly warm and my skin trembled with the abrupt change. A jolt of electricity shot up my leg as his jacket slid from his sinewy shoulders so that he could drape it around me. His hand rested for a few seconds on my shoulder and I felt the absence of his warmth when he took it away like a swift fist to my stomach.

“T—thanks.” I stuck my hand out from his jacket. “I’m Natalie Porter.”

He took my hand and squeezed it. My heart fluttered as another surge shot through his hand into mine. The way his hand grasped mine made me wonder how his hands would feel around my hips. I snapped myself out of it.

“William Pardini.”

Pardini? Oh, crap.
I reflexively squeezed his hand. “You’re—you’re Luke’s—?” I couldn’t quite keep the doubt from creeping into my voice. He’s a member of that super rich family? He sure doesn’t look like it.

“Cousin. Yes,” he said in a tone that really said: Yes, unfortunately.

William didn’t look like a Pardini. Sure, he had the Italian features: black hair and eyes, a permanently tanned look, but he was dressed like a homeless person. It was as if they had plucked one of the homeless from Civic Center and shoved him into a designer closet.

He only released my hand when I pulled back. His hot gaze dipped down my dress and back up again. He was being blasé about checking me out, but there was no shame in his eyes.

All I could think about was how perfectly shaped his lips were and the slow drip of never ending solitude, of entire weekends constructed around a visit to the grocery store and checking my email obsessively. The hole in my chest throbbed like a festering wound and his eyes seemed to burn with the same desperate longing.

“So, what do you do?”

My hand flew to my neck to play with the necklace that dangled there. “I’m a graphic designer. I work at the San Francisco Bay Aquarium.”

He leaned on the rail beside me, stretching his body luxuriously as every bit of his eccentric energy focused on me. His tie was dangerously loose and I fought the urge to readjust it.