Free Hopelessly Broken by Tawny Taylor

recliner that used to be Dad’s. As he sat, it tipped slightly to the right. The leg had broken the day before the accident. Jenn hadn’t had the money to fix it. But she hadn’t wanted to throw the chair away either.
    Aeron looked funny sitting in it now, leaning slightly while pretending he wasn’t. “Were you busy? Am I interrupting something?”
    “Oh, that’s okay. I’m not on a deadline right now.”
    “ Deadline? Ah, you’re a writer?”
    “I am. ”
    “That’s cool. I’ve done a little writing myself. I…I have downtime during assignments sometimes. And some of my assignments are really rough. The writing is good therapy. Sometimes I think I might go nuts if I didn’t have writing.”
    “Oh, I know what you mean. I live through my stories. They’re all I have now, except Logan. I don’t have any friends anymore. I don’t leave this effing house.”
    “ That sucks. Why?”
    “Because I can’t. What if someone finds out we’re here alone? What if someone reports us? We’ve been living like this for months, since my aunt left and didn’t come back. It sucks. I used to have a normal life. I used to hang out with friends. I used to laugh. I used to do a lot of things. ” She blinked. Tears were not burning in her eyes. No, they were not. “Now…all I do is write and dream about when things will be normal again—if they’ll be normal again.” She blinked several more times. No, she would not cry. She would not, dammit.
    “ Look.” Aeron jammed his fingers into his hair. “I came over this morning to say…I’m sorry I left, but after…what…almost happened that night. I couldn’t take the chance of you getting the wrong idea—“
    “That’s my fault. I’m lonely. There. I said it. I’m so freaking lonely that I thought I saw something between us that clearly wasn’t there. I scared you away.”
    He didn’t respond at first. She took his silence as a silent acknowledgment, fearing that if he said the words aloud, she might cry or something. “Jennifer, I—“
    “You don’t have to explain. I get it. You don’t feel the same way I do. It’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can handle the truth.”
    “That’s not what I’m trying to say.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze locked to hers.
    “Then what are you saying?”
    “I’m saying...what the hell am I trying to say?” He rammed his fingers through his hair again. “I don’t know.”
    “All I want is the truth, whatever it is.”
    “You deserve the truth.” He stared down at his feet. “The truth…is…I’m lonely too. Maybe that’s why I made you think I…I kind of misled you.”
    What did that mean? How had he misled her? “I don’t understand.”
    “For me, it’s my work that stands in the way. I have this job tha t I hate. I move around so much I never get the chance to make a single friend before I’m on to the next place. I’ve been living like this for years, not having anyone to talk to, to share my life with, to laugh with. For a while I was okay with it. If I got lonely, I found a girl…we would hook up for the night and that was enough.” Finally, he looked up. His eyes. They were full of emotion. Intense, raw emotion. “That morning, in the kitchen, when we were throwing flour at each other like a couple of two-year-olds was one of the best times in my life. I’ll never forget it. I wish I could have more times like that. A lot more. But I can’t.”
    “Why don’t you just quit that job and get a new one?”
    His sigh was audible. “It isn’t that easy.”
    “Why not? I’m sure you could find another job. What do you do?”
    “This boss doesn’t let you quit.”
    “What do you mean by that , won’t let you quit? Slavery was outlawed over a hundred years ago.”
    “It isn’t slavery per se, but I still can’t quit.”
    What the hell?
    “It’s complicated,” he added, as if that might clarify the situation.
    Strangely enough, it did. Somehow. “Ah, did he make you