The Broken Pieces Left Behind

Chapter 21

I think my face may have been broken. Or my muscles there might have gotten loose or something.

I'd had a smile permanently glued to my face for the last two days. It was especially prominent when I thought back to my date or thought about my boyfriend. Sometimes it was weird thinking of Jack as my boyfriend. For a long time after we met I had mostly thought of him as an annoyance, one I had no idea how to get rid of. Now I just simply always thought about him.

His eyes, or his smile. The way I felt around him and what I felt for him. It felt like a dream, and I wasn't ready to wake up just yet. Wasn't there something about all of this that was supposed to make me concerned? I wondered. I mean I was a practical person when it came to most things, but with him I was just too turned around, mostly in a good way, to be any kind of practical. My plans usually went out the window when he was around.

Phil had told me that I was overthinking things, constantly looking for ways in which things to go wrong because I was afraid to be truly happy. I tried to puzzle it out myself but made no headway. Part of me thought that he was a little too invested when it came to my relationship with Jack, he may have been more obsessed than Erin.  That thought made me smile.

I stretched lazily glancing at my phone, it was late evening. I normally didn't take naps during the day, but after my session with Phil tiredness overwhelmed me; pulling at my eyelids until I could no longer fight the lure of sleep. Normally I would sleep through until morning, but my bladder didn't agree with that and I figured since I was awake I would get something to eat.

I shuffled out of my room, yawning deeply and headed to the kitchen when I stopped cold, a fearful gasp escaping my lips.

There was a strange man sitting at the kitchen counter.

His hair was dark and shoulders wide, covered by a gray t-shirt, all in all he seemed rather comfortable. If he was a serial killer, he was just weird.  What was he going to do sit at the counter and wait for his victim to come up and politely ask him why he was here? And then what, announce he was here to kill them, not smart.

Sara's laugh broke through my thoughts and I let out a momentry sigh of relief, at least this guy wasn't going to try an kill me, for the moment anyway.  My mother was wrapped in a fluffy pink robe moving around the kitchen with graceful ease which led me to believe that she'd had company over last night. Sometimes, most times, I hated that I knew so much about her sex life. I would have much preferred to believe that she just didn't have one.

Thinking back I hadn't seen much of her the last few days, but I wasn't exactly looking. This was another one of her phases and over time I had just learnt to roll with it, it was easier that way. We could have been in the same place --as evidenced-- and not seen each other.

I studied them for a moment, her cheeks were pink and eyes bright, her hair was piled atop her head showing off the line of her slwnder neck. The guys voice was deep, and while I wasn't sure what they were talking about I could hear his obvious affection for her in his voice. My first impression of him was that he seemed nice which was a stark difference to the ones she'd brought around before, but there was still time for him to sink of the standards thay she had when it came to men.

"Oh, hi," chirped my mother nervously when she noticed me in the hall. I answered with a small wave of my hand. "Becca this is Ari." So this was the infamous Ari, he looked relatively normal. I self-conciously tugged my cardigan around my body and ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times, noting that my jeans shorts and t-shirt was relatively modest. Why? I wasn't quite sure. I didn't care for any of Sara's boyfriends or what they thought of me. "Ari this is Becca, she is my...my sister."