Free All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen Page A

covered the tip of it. “Are you okay?”
    “It’s fine. Now you rest here, and I’ll get you a snack to tide you over until dinner. And don’t worry, none of the blood got on the food.”
    “Seriously, Mom, can you please stop talking about it?” Liv shuddered. It wasn’t so much the blood as the feeling seeing it had given her.
    Like the life was slowly draining from her.
    Mom smiled, then leaned down and hugged her. “It’s okay if you’re squeamish, just don’t faint like that again. You scared me.”
    “Believe me, I’ll do my best.”
    Mom disappeared into the kitchen. Dad sat on the couch and picked the National Geographic off the coffee table. His expression changed as he scanned the pages, reading the different stories.
    Sitting there, supposedly relaxing, wasn’t really relaxing. It was boring. And it made her start thinking about everything that was wrong with her. “I feel like I’m falling apart.”
    Mom stepped into the doorway, vegetable plate in her hands. “You’re not falling apart. In fact, you’re very lucky to be as healthy as you are.” She placed the plate on the coffee table and Liv saw the snack she’d brought. Carrot sticks and celery. The same thing she’d been chopping when she’d cut her finger. Yeah. No thanks.
    “Your mother’s right. The fainting was a reaction to seeing blood, not because anything’s wrong with you.” Dad lowered his magazine. “Although we are going to have to get you over that. You can be anything you want to be except afraid.”
    “I’ve got two doctors living under my same roof,” Liv said. “If there’s a situation involving the word that I’m not going to say, I think I’ll be fine.”
    “Well, what about when you go to college?”
    A crease formed between Mom’s eyebrows. “I don’t even want to think about that.” She sat next to Liv and patted her leg. “We just got you, and I’m not letting you go.”
    Liv tensed as cold crept up her spine. “Just got me?”
    “I mean, we just got you healed, and it seems like only yesterday… Just no more talk of leaving. As far as I’m concerned, you’re living with us forever.”
    Dad shrugged. “Fine by me.”
    Mom’s and Dad’s eyes landed on her.
    “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” she said. “I can’t even seem to make it through a day without some kind of tragedy.”
    …
    Later that night as she was crawling into bed, Liv realized she’d never gotten the answers from Mom so she could start on her English composition paper. In fact, all night Mom and Dad had been exchanging odd glances. After Liv and Dad had taken a walk, something that was becoming a nightly ritual, Mom pulled Dad into the kitchen and told her to go start on her homework. When she said she needed information for her paper, Mom’s tone sharpened, and she’d told her to do her other homework and worry about the paper later.
    Clenching her jaw so she wouldn’t scream—which was what she felt like doing—she flipped onto her other side. What are they keeping from me? And why are they keeping it from me?
    She tried to connect the dots, but without her memories, too many of the dots were missing. It all came down to the wreck, though—that much she was sure of. They act like the full truth would break me. Does that mean they know about the voices? Or maybe there’s something else. Liv’s stomach knotted.
    Something even worse.

11
    The sun beat down, hotter than normal. Liv squeezed into the small square of shade covering the bench, but it didn’t help much. The shade widened and she automatically looked up.
    After her eyes adjusted, she realized the dark outline belonged to Spencer. Ever since he’d so nicely pointed out they weren’t friends, she’d done her best to avoid him. When he’d come into math class earlier, she’d purposely kept her head down. Now that he was here, she clenched her jaw and stared down at the book in her hands.
    “I take it from your ignoring me that I made you