Page 86 of Broken Pieces
"There better be a set of car keys under here," Maddox calls out from where he's half buried under the tree. "You still owe me for wrecking my baby."
Max snorts out a laugh. "You loved having to work on yourbaby,you should be thanking me."
Maddox doesn't say anything back to his brother, but I hear him mutter something under his breath about Max being the asshole twin.
“Have you heard from your mom yet?” Max asks bringing my attention towards him.
“Yeah, she sent me a text last night.”
She’s off on a cruise this winter with her latest guy. Turns out she was cheating. Apparently, it started on their wedding day and Reginald found out a lot sooner than we realized.
Once the accident happened, he quietly filed for divorce and now they’re separated. He says I’m still welcome to visit him and that I’ll always be part of the family. I’m not sure if he’ll still be sure of that when he finds out I’m dating both of his sons though.
I pull out my phone and show Max the photo Mom sent me of thewish you were herepostcard still on the rack in the shop. He snortsat it then shows me the equally impersonal text he got from his dad yesterday. Just as he’s about to put it away a notification pops up and I grab his wrist when I see James' name.
“You’re still obsessing over him?” I ask quietly so Maddox doesn’t hear. The last thing I want is to ruin his good mood with talk of James Mikael.
“I’m not obsessing, I’m just anonymously helping his other victims get some kind of justice.”
A cold shiver runs over my skin at the wordvictims. I can’t believe I didn’t see what sort of person he is. Sarah tried to warn me about him, but I was too wrapped up in my own shit to see that she was asking for help.
She's become a close friend these past few months and I wish I had let her in sooner.
Not long into our first year at college she hooked up with James at a party and they started dating, but he made her do things she didn't want to do with him. She broke it off after one of her friends caught him telling his friends that he was also getting with me as well as Sarah.
After some digging we found out that he’d raped more than a few girls on campus and one girl back in high school, probably more.
It was only his weird obsession with me that had him playing the long game. I still don't remember it very well, but I'm sure my phone call with Maddox and Max was the reason he didn’t rape me the first night I was alone with him at that house party.
We turned everything we found into the police, but it wasn’t enough.
I thought him never being able to get an erection again, after what Maddox did to him, would have to be it for his penance. Especially since I refusedto let them kill him and risk them getting arrested. But Max never let it go.
I look over at Maddox who’s still oblivious to our conversation and I'm grateful for that. He put his life on hold so he could help his brother and he deserves to enjoy today without any more stress. “Does he know what you’ve been doing?”
“Of course. You think he’d let me sort the fucker out without him? He doesn’t need to think about it today though, neither do you.” He tosses his phone away from us on the couch and holds me close to him. “Trust me, he’ll be behind bars with his dad soon enough.”
I feel him tense next to me and I put my hand on his knee to soothe him.
After I ran, I missed the whole ordeal they had to go through to get some justice for Max. The only reason I didn't get dragged in for questioning was Reginald's influence over the judge. It really does pay to have friends in high places.
Max was the town's sweetheart, the beloved star, meaning everyone took his side over the man that turned out to have a drinking problem and shouldn't have been behind the wheel in the first place.
Maddox comes over, holding a gift wrapped up in shiny silver paper. It kinda looks book shaped from here, my favorite type of gift. “This one’s from both of us.”
“Why do you look so nervous? Is it a smutty book? I’m not sure what can be so bad that it would have you sweating like that.” I grin as I take the gift from him and start to unwrap it.
It’s an exact copy of my edition of Romeo and Juliet, but this one looks brand new. “Thank you, both of you. That’s really sweet. I dostill love my old copy though, especially since I know you fixed it for me, Maddox. Even if youstillrefuse to admit it.”
“Just open it,” Maddox scowls.
When I try to open it, the pages feel like they’re stuck together and only the front cover moves away.
Inside, a small square has been cut out of the pages and in that rests a red velvet box. I feel Max get up from next to me, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the box to see where he’s going.
I pull it out and try to form a complete sentence. “This is—it’s a—you both—”
“Give it here.” Maddox takes the box from me and I stare cluelessly up at him.