Cracked Porcelain by Drake Collins Read Free Book Online

that room, listening to her dad’s arc-saw cutting through an engine’s metal. That whirring, grinding song put her to sleep many a night.
    There were always boys. The shy ones would shuffle around the shop from time to time but they were in a worse mental world than she was in. They were lost souls looking for acceptance. She was lost, but content in limbo. She knew they didn’t want her, they just wanted someone to want them. They wanted reassurance and saw her to possibly be one equally desperate and likely to quicken them. There’s no truth in that kind of desperation.
    “I left everything as you left it. I knew you’d be back,” Gareth beamed with a suffering pride as they stood in her bedroom's doorway, looking in.
    Maximillia inched into the room, overtaken by nostalgia, even though it had been less than a year since she set foot there. Her condition was the elephant in the room. He couldn’t ignore her scrawny appearance.
    “Can I feed you at least?”
    She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
    He couldn’t relent, ever the concerned father. “You’re just so skinny, Maxie. Have you been eating?”
    She nodded, looking back at him. “Yeah, of course.”
    “Are you sick?” He knew where his questions were leading him. He was hoping she’d reveal a truth that contradicted his suspicions.
    “No, I’m fine, dad.”
    “You don’t look fine, sweetie.”
    She sighed, rolling her eyes, snapping out of that nostalgic sentimentality and moved quickly to start tossing certain items into her ba g, as if anxious to leave. He knew he was losing her again.
    He treaded carefully. “Can you stay? At least for the night? I missed you, sweetheart,” he begged, his eyes welling with tears. “I haven’t seen you in so long. I miss you every day. I
just—”
    The words struck her dead in the chest. She shut her eyes, her back to him, her face squinch ed as the tears trickled. She hunched forward, propping herself up with an outstretched arm resting on her workbench. He rolled around to face her, touching her hand. She flinched. He wasn’t a hard ass hovercycle mechanic anymore. He couldn’t afford to be. Not in this moment.
    “Honey, you know, she left me, too. She didn’t just leave you.”
    She covered her face, but he knew she was crying.
    “There’s nothing you did that was wrong. That crap she was taking... it poisoned her mind. It was the drugs, honey. It changed her. That’s what they do. They take everything that’s good about a person and it erases them.” His tears were streaming now, his fervent pleading unapologetic. “Don’t leave, Maxie. Stay with papa. Stay here so I can take care of you.”
    She yanked her hand away from his, still crying.
    “Don’t leave me again, sweetheart. Papa loves you. I’ll take care of you. Don’t become her!”
    “Shut up!” she barked, snatching up her bag and anxiously scurrying past him, struggling to see through tear-blurred eyes.
    Maximillia didn’t make off with much: some random chotchkies, a few unused uni-cred cards, a bag of candy. The oppressively emotional reunion with her father forced her into a mindless grab for whatever was in front of her. Gareth could only sit helplessly in his chair as she scuttled off. He’d lost her again.
    Things weren’t much better in the world of the Bay Bruisers. Mardo was a man of many vices, regardless of his self-projected persona of modern-day messiah to the lost social outcasts of Mandra Bay. Many of his vices were public: young women, food, drugs and drink and self-love. His lesser known, private vice was gambling. The problem was that he didn’t gamble with
small-time hoods. He gambled with the big boys. Amongst the Bruisers he was the top-of-the-food-chain apex predator, but amongst the upper class underworld warlords he was just a prawn in a sea full of hyper-evolved thrash sharks. He was also a prominent, world-class loser.
    If a god existed that lorded over the realm of hopelessly ill-fated