Flawless//Broken Read Online Free Page B

impossible. How would they know where we live? How would they get in? And that still doesn’t explain why Ellie doesn’t remember it.
    I rush into my room and check my purse - my keys are still here. Everything is still here - my dinky, old school flip phone, my wallet with my painfully awkward ID and all of two dollars in it. Ellie doesn’t remember it at all. Which means it’s me. My brain. I hallucinated it? Dreamt all of it?
    I go to the bathroom, the bright pink walls startling me for only a second. I forgot she painted those. If I forgot something as simple as that, is it possible I forgot last night entirely? Did I get stupid and buy a drink, and go too far like I used to? Blackouts aren’t new to me. I used to drink to blackout every weekend I was a Freshman in college - to try and forget what happened back home. To forget how bad it was. To punish myself. I’d wake up in some stupid guy’s bed or on a stranger’s couch. It was a miracle I didn’t end up with an STD or get murdered.
    Did I do that again? Did I break my promise to never hurt myself again?
    My stomach sinks. The mirror shows a girl with make-up smeared eyes, a tired frown, and scraggly black hair hanging like a frayed curtain around her shoulders. I splash water on my face to try and get rid of her, but she stays. The scar under her jaw is bright purple and as angry as ever. It’s still there. It’s still making my face uglier than ever.
    “Get it together,” I murmur. “You’ve gotta be stronger than this.”
    I take a hot shower. Ellie makes me warm waffles with lots of syrup and butter, just the way I like them. Breakfast is my first and only true love. Men are disappointing. Waffles, however, can never disappoint you.
    I ask Ellie if drank anything last night, and she says she doesn’t think so, but I could’ve in the time before we left, when we were separated. I try to drown my confusion in more waffles and scalding coffee with tons of cream and sugar. Ellie offers to take me with her to her tour of SFU, but I turn her down as politely as I can. I need the time alone. But after thirty minutes in the empty apartment and my fragmented mind, I feel like I’m losing it. I pull out a folder and fill it with a thin stack of resumes. I throw on black jeans and a red blouse, pairing it with black flats - my only halfway decent job-interview look. I would buy a fancy work blouse or two, but I never finished college, so I’d never get the sort of jobs that required snazzy outfits, anyway. It’s a miracle if I get any job at all.
    I pull my hair back into a bun, swipe on a little eyeshadow, and grab my keys.
    Our neighborhood is on the poorer side - above the warehouse district and just before the projects. But still, a weird gentrification goes on in the fancy, gluten-free vegan cafes that cater to the sort of people who can afford to live far, far away from us. One cranberry-goji berry-acai berry-chia seed muffin costs twice as much as the minimum hourly wage. I hand them my resume anyway, promising to work as hard as I can. The manager smiles at me with too-white teeth and says they’ll be in touch. A dozen other practically identical coffee shops tell me the same thing, with the same cordial brusqueness. I try to be optimistic and assure them I’m young, and eager, and will always show up on time. But I get the feeling they see dozens of young people like me looking for work, with far more impressive resumes. And none of them have awful face scars.
    People pass me, and I find myself scanning their faces - hoping one of them is Genevieve. Hoping beyond hope one of them is Darius. I want to confront them. Darius’ face lingers in my mind - and not just because he was handsome. It was something else, something about the fact he lit me up like a wildfire in August, and yet threw a dagger into a man’s forehead and killed him. He scares me like nothing else. He turns me on like nothing else.
    I make a face in my reflection in a passing