Broken by Travis Thrasher Page B

Dena’s scared of most. Not that
     he’s gone and missing household chores but that he’s going to do something stupid just like the ten thousand times before
     and leave Dena alone. The thought of a cold one is nice. It’d be nice to just have one and relax. But he’s never known what
     it’s like to have just one and probably never will.
    He rubs his eyes and sips on his Coke and wonders about lunchwhen his phone rings. He quickly opens the cell phone. “Dena, where you been? I’ve tried calling you half a dozen times.”
    “Lex?”
    For a moment he can’t say anything, and he turns because it’s as if the voice is just behind him, taunting him. Haunting him.
    “Lex, is that you?”
    “Laila?”
    “It’s really you.”
    “My God, Laila, where are you?”
    “I’m in trouble.”
    Lex marvels at how prayers can be answered. Rather than finding her, she’s found him.
    “Let me come get you,” he tells her.
    “No. I just—how are things back home? I’m worried.”
    “Where are you right now?”
    “That doesn’t matter.”
    “Yeah, it matters a lot. You need to come home.”
    “How’s Papa?”
    “Laila—it’s been four years, right?”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s complicated. It’s been—a lot has happened that you need to know about and I can’t just—I’m not going to just tell you
     on the phone.”
    “I need to know.” Her voice is vulnerable, and he can almost hear the ache throughout it.
    “I’m lookin’ for you—you know that?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m in Chicago. Or I was. Laila, what have you been up to? What sort of men you been hangin’ around?”
    “What kind of question is that?”
    “I got another hundred where that one came from.”
    “Lex, how is my father?”
    Lex doesn’t say anything for a moment. He can’t help the emotionsbuilding inside. All this silence, and then suddenly out of the blue he gets this.
    He forces himself to calm down. “Look, just tell me where you are, and I can make sure that… hey, you still there?”
    He calls out her name but doesn’t hear anything.
    The line is dead.
    He curses and looks at the caller ID.
    The number is unfamiliar.
    He calls back, but the phone just rings and rings.
    After a few minutes, he calls information and asks what area code 864 is. Then he finishes up his drink and leaves a few dollars
     on the table.
    With the cell phone in his hand, he leaves the restaurant and knows where he needs to go.
    He at least knows where she’s at. For now.
    All he has to do is buy a map and figure out where Greenville, South Carolina is.
    As he climbs into the car and starts it, another thought enters his mind.
    Maybe Laila wants him to know where she is. Without having to tell him.
    Maybe this is her cry for help.

9
    My sister was the firstborn I could never live up to. And my brother was the rebel I could never outdo. I was stuck in the
     middle zone–the dead zone as I called it–where I couldn’t do any better or any worse. I couldn’t do anything, not in my father’s
     eyes.
    Perhaps I was misguided like most kids growing up. I never doubted that my father loved me. But he also didn’t know what to
     do with me. Ava had her place in this life. She was smart and strong and knew where she wanted to go even when she was ten.
     Lex had his place too (“behind bars” as Papa said many times). But I was the odd one out, the piece that didn’t quite fit
     the puzzle, the one that my mother would have had a handle on if she had stayed alive.
    My father never remarried. Talk of remarriage or even dating again became almost as taboo as talking about my mother. I hated
     the silence. I hated living with elephants in the room, day after day. I hated going on with this shadow over my soul that
     could never go away. The sun was always there, but I could never see it for the troubling, damning shadows.
    When I won that first contest, I was heading into eighth grade. What did I know of the rest of the world? All I knew