Breaking Glass by Lisa Amowitz

and bigger parts. Ryan could sing like crazy and commanded the stage as though it belonged to him.
    I finally understood that there was much more to my old friend than met the eye. And that Susannah saw clearly what I’d completely missed. Ryan really had star potential.
    Still, it didn’t make my agony any easier. But instead of drifting away, idiot that I was, I kept coming back for more.
    Susannah started designing the scenery for the school plays. Not wanting to leave poor, faithful Jeremy out of the equation, Susannah drafted me to do lights, since I sucked at everything else besides running and knowing shit no one cared about. And the most surprising thing of all was that, although Trudy was still the town pariah, Susannah was accepted into the Morgan household like a long-lost relative.
    Ryan got his first lead role in the school’s production of Pippin and it took up most of his time. Susannah complained that Ryan’s dad didn’t seem to get how brilliant an actor he was and that it bugged her.
    “Figures,” I said. “Patrick Morgan’s a competitive guy. That’s how he built the family empire. Acting is a joke to someone like him.”
    “That’s a rotten thing to say, Jeremy. Mr. Morgan is an amazing human being.”
    “I’m sure your mother would totally agree.”
    Susannah went quiet.
    “What? Did I say something wrong?”
    “Just leave my mother out of this,” she snapped.
    “Okay.” I should have known better than to bring up Trudy Durban, but it bugged me the way Patrick Morgan seemed to have Susannah eating out of his hand. She’d made it clear how her mother bitterly disapproved of her dating Ryan. That they fought about it all the time. One night, Trudy had chased Susannah down the street with a cooking pan. The cops had been called; if Dad and Patrick Morgan hadn’t stepped in, Susannah might have been removed from her home and placed in foster care.
    Susannah cleared her throat, her eyes bright. “My mother is an asshole. The Morgans treat me better. They’re my real family.”
    One week later, that March, a month before her fifteenth birthday, Susannah ran away for the first time.
    She didn’t get far. Just to her half-brother’s house in Rhode Island. She had only been gone four days before she’d called her mother to come pick her up and bring her home.
    When Susannah got back, she seemed changed in some subtle way I couldn’t put my finger on. There was a ferocious gleam in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. She smiled and joked around as always, but in class she attacked her art with a silent fury that set my teeth on edge.
    “Jeremy,” she asked, looking up from her work one afternoon. “Do you ever think about what happens to the soul after we’re dead?”
    “No,” I lied, staring out the window. I’d never talked to her about how my mother died, how I relived the horror each night. I figured someone had to have told Susannah by now. Everyone in Riverton knew all about brave Jeremy Glass and his life of tragedy. “I can’t say I have.”
    Susannah continued pushing bits of colored mosaic tile into the weird many-armed figurine she’d been working on for weeks. “I’ve been doing some reading.”
    “Cool.” I’d been bending her ear about the five or so books I had going and hoped my nerdish habits were rubbing off. “What about?”
    “Oh, world religions and stuff. This is me as Kali, Goddess of Destruction.”
    “But you’re not a destroyer, Suze,” I said, laughing. “You’re a creator.”
    She stopped working and turned to look at me, a delicious smile curling her lips. “Nature is destructive and creative, all at the same time.”
    It was such a Susannah thing to say. Holding back on the urge to kiss her, right there in art class, felt like swallowing knives.
    Later that period, Mr. Wallace announced to the class that Susannah had received a full scholarship to participate in a summer Digital Arts seminar in the city, where she would study animation and