Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(71)

After a few minutes watching the argument escalate – Suzanne getting more worked up, Brian easing off, trying to calm her down – I forced myself to slide out of the car and make my way over to them. I paused a few metres off, thrusting my hands deep into my pockets. Brian glanced at me.

‘Why are you even here?’ Suzanne was yelling at him, seemingly unaware of my approach. ‘You’re useless. You’re so fucking useless.’

‘You’re right,’ Brian said. His voice was calm now. Controlled. ‘I am useless. I’m sorry.’

‘No.’ Suzanne’s face screwed up, her hands clenching into fists. ‘No, that’s not OK. You can’t do that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Brian said again. He held up his hands, palm up, away from his chest. ‘You’re hurting, and I’m sorry.’

Suzanne bridged the gap between them and smacked her closed fist against his chest. ‘I hate you.’

‘I know. It’s OK.’

Another punch. ‘I hate you.’

‘I know, Zannie.’

‘Shut up.’ She pummelled his chest, her frustration almost palpable in the air. He let her, holding out his hands away from her, waiting.

I could see what he thought he was doing. I recognized this moment from the earnest, moralizing TV shows I’d watched that took on an Issue and solved it in forty minutes. This scene was ubiquitous – the unhappy person taking out their frustration on someone who loved them, before collapsing in tears into their chest, all that rage spilled out, purged. The healing always came next.

But that wasn’t what would happen here. I had no idea if Brian could see it too, but as I watched Suzanne smacking her hands ineffectually against her brother I saw it clearly. He was steady and solid, so together and unbroken. Her fists, her shouting, her fury, had no impact on him, not really. Nothing she could throw at him would dent or bruise him. She, in contrast, was so unbearably fragile. A house of cards on the verge of collapsing. She’d already been pummelled by closed fists and someone else’s rage, and it had broken her. All Brian was doing was forcing her to see this unbridgeable difference between them.

She did break down, of course. The tears took over and she pressed herself against him, letting him settle his arms around her shoulders. I heard him saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ and I wondered how he could lie like that. Why did people do that? Where did that impulse come from, to tell someone so clearly far from it that things were OK?

‘Let’s go,’ Brian said, quietly but firmly. Still with one arm around Suzanne’s shoulder, he started walking back towards the car. He met my eye and smiled reassuringly, understanding and secure.

In the car, Suzanne curled herself into her seat, facing away from us both. We were all silent as Brian eased out of the hard shoulder and into the traffic. After a few minutes, Suzanne’s tentative, shaky voice broke the silence. ‘Caddy, tell me something good.’

I thought she’d forgotten I was there.

‘In Iceland,’ I said, keeping my voice light and steady, ‘there’s a waterfall that always has a rainbow in front of it. Like, guaranteed. You can go and stand under it. Or at the end of it, you know, like a leprechaun.’

‘An Icelandic leprechaun?’

‘Of course. They’re the best kind.’ I waited for a moment. ‘Do you want another one?’

‘Yes. Please.’

‘Last year, during the Brighton marathon, my uncle tripped and twisted his ankle three miles from the end. So another guy, who was running for Mind, I think, gave him a piggyback the whole rest of the way, so he’d still finish and get the full money for the charity. He was, like, a total stranger.’

I heard a smile in her voice. ‘That’s a nice story.’

‘Hey, Zannie,’ Brian said. His voice was gentle. ‘You want to pick some music?’ He reached across her and pulled an iPod from the glove compartment. She took it from him and began scrolling through it. He squeezed her shoulder, solid and steady, before returning his shaking hand to the wheel.





We drove most of the way home without talking after that, listening to an album called August and Everything After twice through. I’d never heard any of the songs before, but Suzanne and Brian clearly had a lot, because at random intervals they would both sing along to a single sentence, or even just a word, making me jump each time. It was the kind of music where even the happy songs felt sad. Or that could just have been my mood.

By the time we pulled off the motorway and began winding through the familiar Brighton streets, Brian and Suzanne were talking comfortably, not quite as if the argument hadn’t happened but more like they’d consciously left it behind. It occurred to me that being able to smile so soon after crying was something you learned.

‘So how much trouble are you going to be in, Caddy?’ Brian asked, throwing me a knowing smile as he slowed for a red light.

‘Don’t say that,’ Suzanne said. ‘You’ll make me feel bad.’

‘You should feel bad,’ I teased. ‘We’re not all as used to it as you.’

She turned in her seat slightly to grin at me. ‘Am I a Bad Influence?’ she asked, waving her fingers and making a face of exaggerated fear.

‘The very worst,’ I said, laughing more with relief than anything else.