Broken Course (Wrecked and Ruined #3)(47)

What the actual f*ck is wrong with him? I’m thirty-three years old. I don’t need a babysitter. The whole f*cking world treats me like a child and it’s so damn frustrating. He’s just another prick who always talks down to me and refuses to let me live my own God damn life.

But I have to hold on to him.

Brett’s all I have left, and that speaks volumes to how screwed up my life truly is. He’s finally trying to move on with this Jesse chick. I just can’t in good conscience allow that to happen. I don’t love Brett, not even a tiny bit, but I need him to love me. I spend all day every day wanting nothing more than to be alone, but when the sun goes down, the solitude becomes terrifying. My mind races and images of Manda lying dead on the highway invade my every thought. I never actually saw that visual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not branded into the backs of my eyelids. My overactive imagination is a cruel bitch. I have even conjured up a whole scene from the night of the wreck where I get trashed and laugh as I drive directly toward the tree.

Yet, every Thursday night, Brett shows up at my house and the world inside my mind goes quiet for a few hours. I focus on slinging all of my pent-up pain at him. It releases some of the constantly building pressure that threatens to overtake me. I know my words kill him, but it’s better him than me. Each time he visits, he always leaves just like I want him to. Hell, I spend hours trying to force him to leave. But he always comes back. It’s Brett’s biggest flaw and greatest attribute.

I don’t know why I picked today to come over to Brett’s apartment. But I woke up this morning feeling even more on edge than usual. I’ve been hiding out in my room since the seven-layer-dip fiasco a few weeks ago. The sound of his words still rings in my ears.

"There will never be another Brett and Sarah Sharp."

The best part was the look on his face when he said it. I honestly had to fight back a laugh. It was as if that were the very first time he ever admitted it to himself. We haven’t been together in four years, and he is just now catching on to this? And they say I’m the one who suffered a brain injury.

I laugh to myself as I swing open Brett’s front door, quickly locking it behind me. If I’m going to be successful in my plan to break him and Jesse up, I’m going to have to give her doubts that Brett can’t talk himself out of. I’d known that the appearance at the coffee shop probably wouldn’t be enough, but it was just too damn easy. His sisters still have my old e-mail address on their family e-mail distro. They send what feels like a million pictures a day. It was all too easy to print out that picture of Brett’s niece. She looks just freaking like him. It’s definitely not a stretch to believe she could be his child. When I slammed it down on the table that day at Nell’s coffee shop, I thought Jesse’s eyes were going to bulge out of her head.

However, Brett clearly managed to weasel his way out of that one. Now, it’s time to step this up a bit. I reach into my purse, pull out one of my earrings, and toss it under the pillow on the couch. Just so there is no doubt about who it belongs to, I picked the same ones I wore the first time I met Jesse.

Damn it. I really liked that pair too.

I then move to the bathroom and search through the drawers. Just as I hoped, I find a few women’s toiletries. I pull a handwritten note from my purse and begin to search for somewhere to hide it. Just for good measure, I grab the pink toothbrush before shoving them both in the drawer.



I pull the red panties from my purse and make my way to his bedroom. The minute my eyes lock with the wooden picture frame on his nightstand, the breath is stolen from my lungs. My arms fall limply at my sides and I stagger forward. With every step closer, a knife is twisted in my gut. I immediately recognize the picture of Brett holding Jesse, but it’s the frame that causes a sob to rip from my throat.

It’s one of Manda’s frames. Caleb made them for her all the time. His house used to be littered in them before she passed away. She loved to take pictures and he, well…loved to display them. As far as I know, he has never once made a picture frame for anyone else. It was something special he did only for her. Yet here on Brett’s nightstand sits an image of Jesse Addison inside one of them. The pain starts to subside as my blood begins to boil.

Jesse…in Manda’s f*cking frame.

Did Brett ask Caleb to make this for him?

No. No! There is no way he would have made this for Brett.

This is Manda’s!

My pulse begins to race and I fight to breathe. Anger rages through my veins, struggling to find it’s way out.

That f*cking home-wrecking whore is inside my Manda’s frame.

I snatch it off the nightstand and sling it as hard as I can to the floor. It shatters the glass, but the sturdy frame remains intact. I roughly pull the picture out, purposely ripping it in half as I go.

Why in God’s name would Brett put her picture in Manda’s frame?

"Manda." I gasp her name out loud when just the thought of her isn’t tangible enough. "Fuck!" I scream.

Suddenly, a thought explodes into consciousness. Jesse must have stolen this from Caleb. Oh my God! She isn’t just replacing me—she’s trying to replace Manda as well.

The roaring in my ears becomes almost deafening as the very thought renders my mind unable to process anything else. My vision tunnels, blocking out everything around me except the severed picture in my hands. I purposely rip it again—this time dividing it directly across her face. She can f*ck with me, but I will never allow her to make people forget about Manda. I f*cking hate that manipulative bitch for even trying.