Unbroken

family in years either, but mom got it in her head that we had to spend one last summer there together—before I went off to college, and Carina graduated, and we could all finally stop acting we were anything more than distant strangers living under the same roof, trying like hell to pretend to the world that everything was OK.
    Not that we don’t have practice. After all, pretending is what my family does best. Dad pretends he’s not a washed-up academic with one failed book to his name, and a taste for vodka martinis at four PM. My sister pretends she cares about more than landing herself a rich lawyer husband with a country club membership and a six-figure bonus. My mom pretends she doesn’t regret throwing her life away on a charming British writer, or notice his late nights ‘advising’ students at the office, and the disdain in his voice whenever he does remember to stumble home.
    And me? I pretend it doesn’t hurt me to keep pretending. That it doesn’t eat away at me to see how much she still loves him, meek and cowering for the slightest bit of his attention. That I don’t get these awful panic attacks, every time I think about leaving her behind when I head off to college this fall.
    That’s why I agreed to this joke of a happily family vacation in the end, to try and numb this sense I’m abandoning her. She wants one last summer to pretend? I’ll give it to her. But look where all that pretending has gotten us now: nearly winding up dead in a car wreck before her precious summer even begins.
    “Hey!”
    I hear a guy’s voice behind me, but I’m so desperate, I don’t slow down. My heart is pounding now, so fast I feel like it’s going to burst out of my chest. I know I just need to calm down and wait for the panic to pass, but when I’m caught up in the whirlwind, I can’t see straight long enough to try.
    “Hey, wait up!” The voice comes, louder, and then there’s a heavy hand on my arm, pulling me around.
    “What?” I gasp, violently yanking back. “What the fuck do you…” my protest dies on my lips as I stare up into the face of the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen.
    His eyes are the first thing I notice. They’re dark blue, mesmerizing, the color of skies after sunset. It’s always been my favorite time, that moment when the last light of day has faded away, and the first stars come out. Now I’m looking right up into them, endless midnight constellations. Ringed with thick, dark lashes, they burn into me, intense. Full of secrets, full of scars.
    “Where are you going?” the guy demands, still gripping painfully onto my arm. “You can’t just walk away from this!”
    I pull away, still dazed. He’s older than me, but not by much, his early twenties maybe: tall and broad-shouldered, skin tanned a deep bronze by the sun. His arms are taut beneath the black T-shirt he’s wearing, damp and clinging to his muscular torso. His body is slim but compact, almost radiating with tightly-coiled power in his black jeans and beat-up workman’s boots. Rain drips from his dark hair, curling too-long around his collar, and on his right bicep, I can see the dark ink of a tattoo snaking up beneath his shirt.
    He takes my breath away.
    The world shifts back into focus, and I find that I can breathe again OK. Just like that, my panic begins to ease.
    “Are you listening?” he demands, face set and angry. Then the anger fades, replaced with concern. “Wait, are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”
    He reaches for my face, fingers grazing against my forehead with surprising gentleness. I look into those deep blue eyes again and feel a shock ripple through me. Electric.
    I lurch away, startled. “I’m fine,” I manage, my heart-rate finally slowing. What the hell am I doing? I scold myself. Drooling over some guy on the side of the highway? Don’t I have more important things to worry about—like the fact I was this close to dying just a few minutes ago?
    Now he knows I’m not injured, the guy’s angry expression returns. “Then you’re lucky I don’t kill you myself right now.” he tells me, grim. “What the hell was that back there? Don’t you know you shouldn’t drive fast in a storm?”
    I catch my breath, my frustrations all boiling over at once. “First of all, I wasn’t driving,” I yell back. “And second, it was an accident! Our tire blew, it happens. How is any of this my fault?” I challenge him, folding my arms.
    His eyes follow the motion of my