Misery overstayed its welcome.

But fate will not be so easily swayed.

Gabriella Mason and Teller Reddy have walked a thin line between affection and hostility for years. The intensity that once set them on fire has ended their engagement and separated them by more than just miles.

Forced together by circumstances they never saw coming, Gabriella and Teller have no choice but to face the past that brought them together and ultimately severed them apart.

Wrecked and Damaged have collided.

This is what happens when they try to pick up the pieces.

Excerpt

I’m not as young as I used to be.

The aches and pains in my neck and back from sleeping on Ella’s porch for two nights make my increasing age very apparent. Four or five years ago, I’d crash out on the cement outside her apartment and wake up ready to chase her around until she forgave me.

I haven’t been able to turn my head since I left St. Helena three days ago.

“Did your arms stop working, too?” Maby scoops dirty clothes from the floor as she passes. “And since when do you smoke in the house, Tell?”

My sister tosses my mess into the laundry room and then opens the sliding glass door to let in fresh air. Sunlight cuts through the parted glass, intruding on my misery and shining a light on my negligence. Maby examines the kitchen, tossing empty takeout boxes into the trash, dirty plates into the sink, and continues to search the refrigerator for sustenance.

She gags.

“Oh, my God, Teller.” Maby holds the gallon of spoiled milk out in front of her, hiding her nose in the crook of her elbow. “Have you even bothered to clean out the fridge since Ella left?”

“Why would I do that?” I drop what’s left of my cigarette into a soda can on the coffee table in front of me. The cherry sizzles in sticky syrup; a trail of smoke swirls from the opening in the lid, disappearing before it merges with the haze hanging above. “If I don’t eat at the hospital, then I go through a drive-thru on the way home. Fuck that refrigerator.”

Maby drops rotten dairy into the garbage and drags the trash can to the fridge, where she proceeds to dry heave and shriek, discarding month-old leftover containers and liquefied fruits and vegetables.

“Doesn’t Mom come over to help you clean?” she asks.

Sticking another smoke between my teeth, I toss the empty pack across the room and stand, stretching my stiff joints and tense muscles. This place is a fucking mess, but so is my life. With my reason for existing out of reach, there’s no point in keeping up with pointless creature comforts, like tidiness and nutrition. I live off fast food and nicotine, hoping it kills me before misery does.

“Obviously she hasn’t been by for a while.” I light my last cigarette as I stride through the kitchen to the backyard.

Green eyes the same color as mine follow me out, casting the same disappointment everyone I care about shares with me during these dark days. “That’s probably because you’re a grown-ass man. What the hell, Teller? When’s the last time you’ve washed a load of laundry?”

The right side of my mouth curves into an imposturous smile. “It’s easier to buy new socks and underwear than to wash the ones I have.”

Maby’s jaw drops long enough to taste the decay secreting from the fridge. She coughs and turns toward the sink as she chokes, cupping her hands under the stream of water and bringing it to her lips. “Burn this place down. It’s the only way.”

I exhale my slow suicide overhead and laugh. “It’s not that serious, Maby. Look out here. The gardener and the pool guy still make it by every week."

“That’s great.” She joins me outside, inhaling a lungful of clean air as she says, “At least your neighbors won’t suspect you’re one bag of trash away from being on the next episode of Hoarders.”

“The fish tank’s clean.” I drop the smile when it begins to hurt my face.

Maby rolls her eyes, taking a seat under the pergola. The large beams pitch parallel shadows across her body, leaving half of her face washed in sunlight and the other in the shade. "I’d tell Ella to petition for custody if it wasn’t.”

That’s the second time she’s mentioned my demise since showing up unannounced, wrecking my four-week pity party with her concern and sisterly affection. Why can’t she let me rot like the oranges in the refrigerator? Did I fuck with the apples? No, I let them die with dignity. Show me the same respect.

Maby thinks it’s a good idea if I talk about my feelings and be open about what I’m going through, but what the fuck does she know about having your heart torn from your chest with a drop of a ring and a swing of a bat? Husher hasn’t left her side since the day they met, and now she’s promised forever to the poor bastard. My sister owns no wisdom that can save me.

I’m fucked.

I’m half a soul without Ella. Half a man.

Half.

I’m just half.

“Look,” I say, kicking a pebble into the grass, “it was nice seeing you, but I have to be at the hospital in an hour, so you need to go.”

Leaning back in her chair, Maby lifts her feet up and makes herself comfortable. “I think I’ll stay here with you for a while.”

I flick my smoke into the pool and shake my head. “Not happening.”

“Did you seriously just do that?” She scoffs. “Pull yourself together, man. Do you not realize how lucky you are to live in a house like this and own a pool like that? You’ve always been an ungrateful prick, but for fuck’s sake, wake the hell up.”

If Ella wasn’t an eight-hour drive away, I might not feel so empty. But she is, and I do. This isn’t like the other times we’ve argued and taken breaks for a few days. She boarded an airplane and left me with no indication of ever coming back. We’re not kids anymore. I can’t drop my entire life to kick down her door and beg until she forgives me. Letting the food go bad and the laundry pile up is one thing, but I have patients and a motherfucking goldfish who needs me here.

“Can you watch Phish for a while?” I ask, attempting to rid myself of one obligation.

“Why? Are you going somewhere?” My sister follows me upstairs to my bedroom and immediately opens the curtains to let more bastard light in. Tiny particles of dust drift in the air as I pick up a pair of scrubs from the floor, searching for the cleanest pair.

“My plane leaves Friday morning.” I drop denim to my ankles and expose my boxer briefs, unable to keep a smile back when my only sibling yelps and spins around.

“You’re going back to St. Helena,” she says over her shoulder.

“Is that a question?” I ask, tying my scrubs.

“Do you plan on sleeping in the front yard again?” Maby trails behind me to the bathroom. She leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest.

I turn on the faucet and splash cold water onto my heated face, unsurprised she knows about that. Apparently, my runaway speaks to everyone but me.

I wonder how long it would take to drown if I filled the sink and sank my head in? The liquid would fill my lungs instead of this heart fuck, and I wouldn’t have to listen to Maby talk about Ella anymore.

That sounds like a motherfucking win-win.

“I plan on doing whatever’s necessary until she talks to me.” A flash of heat fills my stomach when I think about the day she left.

When she dropped her engagement ring to the floor like it meant nothing.

When I took a bat to her car.

“Should I be worried?” Maby asks. She hands me a towel to dry my face.

“Not sure.” I look at myself in the mirror. Purple sleeplessness hangs heavy beneath my eyes, and my hair’s overgrown, sweeping the tips of my ears. I haven’t shaved my face in a week, and there’s blood on these scrubs.

Maby sees the stain when I do and asks if I need help finding a clean uniform.

"Forget it," I say. I push myself away from the counter and leave. “I’ll grab a pair from the hospital.”

Her footsteps click on the wooden stairs as she hurries to keep up with me, but I can’t be in the fucking house a minute longer. The walls scream loneliness. The bedsheets are bitter. Every corner carries memories of the brunette girl who’s tangled in my veins, mangled around my lungs until I gasp for air the same way I do in the middle of the night when I remember Ella’s not here.

Panic shoves me outside, where my eyes close against the low sun streaming through tree branches and browning leaves. The cool evening temperature bites my sweltering skin, and the scent of damp grass, wilted flower petals, and the water flowing through the gutter offers me something real to concentrate on. Inhaling through my nose, I hold fresh air in my lungs and close my eyes as oxygenated blood flows through me and my head clears

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About the Author

Mary Elizabeth is an up and coming author who finds words in chaos, writing stories about the skeletons hanging in your closets.
Mary was born and raised in Southern California. She is a wife, mother of four beautiful children, and dog tamer to one enthusiastic Pit Bull and a prissy Chihuahua. She’s a hairstylist by day but contemporary fiction, new adult author by night. Mary can often be found finger twirling her hair and chewing on a stick of licorice while writing and rewriting a sentence over and over until it’s perfect. She discovered her talent for tale-telling accidentally, but literature is in her chokehold. And she’s not letting go until every story is told.

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