Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  Copyright © 2020 by Ella Fields

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, resold or distributed in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from the author, except for brief quotations within a review.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Editor: Jenny Sims, Editing4Indies

  Proofreading: Allison Riley

  Formatting: Stacey Blake, Champagne Book Design

  Cover design: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  PART TWO

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  STAY IN TOUCH!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ELLA FIELDS

  For Allie

  who actually followed me to the end of the earth

  Of all the truths I’ve ever been told,

  the loudest lie was yours.

  Willa

  Six years old

  The house shook, and I bolted awake at the sound of a familiar scream, reaching for the cool base of the touch lamp shaped like a castle on my nightstand.

  It wouldn’t turn on.

  A loud crack pierced the silence, followed by a boom so deafening, I jumped as I grappled with my nightstand drawer for the flashlight inside.

  He was the worst person in the world.

  A bully, a thief, and a liar yet my feet carried me to my bedroom door. I pulled it open before throwing myself down the hall.

  Orange flashes of light bobbed off family pictures lining the chestnut-colored walls, and I stumbled as my foot found one of Jackson’s stupid toy cars.

  Hopping and hissing, I squeaked as another crack sounded right above the house. My ears rang, and the house came alive beneath the eerie glow of lightning, showing me that Jackson’s door was open. Three rumbling booms followed me as I ran, my breaths loud in the otherwise silent night, and hurled myself onto his bed.

  He sat up, a yell snatched from his throat before I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Quiet, unless you want Mom and Dad to make me leave.”

  He wasn’t my real dad, but ever since my mommy had married him after I’d turned one and I’d learned to talk, I’d called him that. One time, after he’d yelled at me for spilling chocolate milk in the kitchen, I’d uttered his real name, Heath. I was promptly berated by my mother for ten minutes about all the ways I’d hurt his feelings.

  Heath liked rules and having a clean house, a whole lot, but that didn’t mean I wanted to make him sad. And since then, I’d never ever dared to call him anything other than Dad even though it made my real daddy make a frowny face.

  Mommy said she’d taken me to the doctor for a checkup when I was four months old. She’d been so tired, and when I’d continued to chuck all over her, she was barely holding on by a breaking thread. Whatever that meant.

  Anyway, that was when Heath stepped into the small office with baby Jackson, who was there for his six-month checkup.

  He’d offered to help Mommy clean up, and when she’d burst into tears—hormones, she’d said—he gently took her hand and led her outside for some privacy. Mommy said it was mortifying, the way she’d sobbed in front of this handsome stranger, babbling about how my daddy couldn’t change jobs, and how he’d told her he didn’t want to be with her.

  That made me sad. That my daddy would hurt her feelings like that. That he could make her so upset she’d cry in public and need help from a stranger. My mommy never cried. Ever. So she must have felt awful.

  Heath had then gone back inside to cancel their appointments before taking her back to his house for coffee. His fiancée had split when Jackson was only one month old, and she didn’t want custody. Whatever that meant. So it was just him and Jackson who lived in what would become Mommy’s and my first home. Apparently, we used to live with her friend, but I could never remember what Mommy said her name was.

  After feeding me, she’d passed out on Heath’s couch with me snuggled into her side, and the rest, as they say, was history.

  Jackson’s green eyes were narrowed, and he shook his head. Then, rather roughly, he yanked my hand from his mouth. “I don’t need you.” I made a face that had him sighing. “Fine, just don’t get your ugly toes near my face.”

  I stole one of his three pillows and tossed it to the end of his twin bed. Snuggling beneath his galactic comforter, I tugged it to my chin, shivering as the thumping of my heart slowed.

  Jackson tugged it back. “Quit.”

  I pulled. “I’m cold, you toad.”

  He grumbled, and his foot nudged my butt as he shifted down the bed so we could both have enough warmth.

  I kicked him back. He grumbled again.

  Silence wandered into the room, the house, and into the dark sky I could see through the gap in the navy blue curtains behind me. So dark that when lightning crisscrossed through it, my mouth fell open while I waited for the crack of thunder.

  Jackson stilled, his fear another blanket to smother us.

  “Miss Squires says storms are the skies way of grieving.”

  The boom sounded over his exasperated, “What?”

  “She said that every now and then, just like we do, the sky needs to have a bad day and be upset.” I turned my cheek into the pillow, my eyelids heavy. “It’s upset, but it needs to be so it can feel better soon, and then its smile will reappear.”

  Jackson said nothing as the rain began to hammer against the exterior of the house. “You think the sun is the sky’s way of smiling?” He’d tried for derision but failed thanks to his curiosity.

  “I do,” I said. “And when the moon comes out, that means the sky is sleeping.”

  Some minutes later, the storm but a mere rumble fading beneath the patter of rain, I was almost asleep when he asked, “And the stars? What are they?”

  I smiled. “They’re nightlights.”

  “The sky gets scared?” he asked, sounding bewildered.

  “Of course, it does. It needs a lot of nightlights because it’s ginormous.”

  Jackson made a humming noise. “Makes sense.”

  The sun was smiling when I heard voices at Jackson’s bedroom door, but I didn’t open my eyes.

  Heath was talking. “How much longer do you think he’s going to be scared of storms?”

  Mommy tutted. “For as long as it takes for him not to be. Lots of kids are.”

  Heath grunted. “We should move them.”

  Mommy said nothing for the longest time, and I drifted away to the sound of her murmured, “No, let them be.”

  “You’re right. They’ll probably be grumpy if we wake them after a rough night.”

  Mommy’s tinkling laughter made me smile, and I hid it by turn
ing my face into the pillow. “Jackson’s perpetually grumpy anyway.”

  Heath laughed at that. “Wonder where he gets that from.” He yawned. “Come, I’ll make coffee.”

  I heard them kissing a minute later, and my nose crinkled. I hated watching grown-ups kiss. Unless it was during a movie or inside a picture book. Kissing always looked better in movies and story books.

  When the door creaked shut, Jackson’s foot nudged mine, and we both ducked under the comforter to hide our giggles.

  Jackson

  Eight years old

  A twig snapped, and I crashed to a stop between Mr. and Mrs. Pondersen.

  Peering through the frost-sprinkled greenery, I squinted against the light glinting off the headstones.

  Close. She was close.

  The cemetery stretched and crawled in a wave of hills that gradually rolled toward the creek at the very bottom. Knowing a sea of dead bodies was buried mere meters from our back fence used to freak me out until Willa dragged me back here a year ago under the guise of her favorite hat fluttering away on the breeze.

  There was no hat. We’d searched for thirty minutes before she’d told me, and then she’d stood there while I’d berated her, calling her every word I could think of that meant stupid.

  She’d glanced up at me beneath the dark lashes that framed her giant hazel eyes, a tiny curl to her pillow-soft lips. I knew they were soft on account of the times she’d pressed them to my cheek after I’d done something nice for her.

  She always raced off before I could shove her or pull her hair.

  I didn’t like her.

  She was annoying, too quiet, too content, and too damn nice all the time.

  But damn if I didn’t love her. She was my sister, so I supposed that was how it was meant to be. You didn’t like them, but you had to love them.

  In any case, it made our mom smile, which, in turn, made my dad smile. I liked it when they smiled at me. It was a rarity, that was for sure.

  A flash of bright blue caught my line of vision, and I spun to the left, almost tripping over Rodger Stempson in my haste to catch Willa.

  “If I saw you, that means you’re out,” I hollered between cupped hands.

  No answer. And no sign of her.

  I stopped in a clearing with tiny plaques, turning with the rose gardens that lined this section of the cemetery. “Willa?”

  I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.

  Smirking, I tugged up my shorts and pulled down the brim of my baseball cap, then trudged over to the area I’d last seen her.

  “A diversion,” I hissed, spying her blue ribbon swaying from a branch. When I plucked it off, some of the satin tore, and I rubbed it between my finger and thumb. “You wicked little witch.”

  Then I moved, hurdling over the plaques and headstones, gardens and bouquets, the wind singing in my ears as the sun began to melt behind the hills I was scaling.

  The sweet sound hit my ears a moment later, like that of wind chimes meeting a flute.

  Willa couldn’t keep from giggling to save her life. It was one of the things that annoyed me most about her. It was also one of the things that endeared me most to her.

  “You tricked me.” With my hands on my hips, I spat at the ground beside her head, looming over where she was lying in the tall grass at the very top of the hill.

  Willa bit her lip, sinking farther into the sea of green. “You can have two turns at hiding tomorrow.”

  Groaning, I fell to the grass and laid down beside her, my words labored thanks to running uphill like a madman. “I need to go to my mom’s tomorrow.”

  Willa sighed. “I bet you miss her. I miss my dad.”

  I didn’t miss her, thanks to hardly ever seeing her. Once a week, unless she was busy, I spent half a day at her place. Usually on Sundays after church.

  When I visited, she’d park me in front of the TV with a wicked cool PlayStation that belonged to one of her ex-boyfriends, and then she’d go back to speaking to her friends or her current boyfriend on the phone.

  Willa, though, she rarely saw her dad. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was a Marine and was away a lot for work. He said that one day, as soon as he could, he was going to set up shop wherever she was and stay put so she could see him whenever she wanted.

  I wanted to believe him for her, but grown-ups were good at lying. They lied as if it were a sin to ever tell the truth.

  “I like the video games,” I finally said.

  “Our dad says video games are the work of the devil.” Our dad. That was how we differentiated when we spoke of them all at the same time.

  I snorted. “Then why does he play one when he’s on the toilet?”

  Willa gasped. “What?”

  “Shh, don’t act like you know nothing, Bug eyes. It’s a card for my sleeve.”

  “Do you mean a card up your sleeve?”

  I scowled, tearing grass and throwing it at her face. She only laughed, which I was pretty sure was what gave our location away.

  The weeds swished, and our parents’ faces came into view.

  I looked at Willa, who paused in brushing the long strands of grass from her face, looked at me, then gulped.

  “The cemetery? Really?” Mom said, brows tugging toward her pert nose.

  Dad looked as if he was going to fall over from the long-suffering sigh that shook his shoulders. “Back to the house.” When we were too slow to get up, he barked, “Now.”

  With our heads bent low, we trudged after them through the rows of dead people and the gardens that hummed with life; all the while, our parents grumbled and muttered their displeasure.

  “You should know better, Willa.”

  Stepping onto our property, I tried not to frown at what that implied, but in the end, I scowled.

  Dad barely blinked as he slammed the gate behind Willa, then glowered at me. “Well? Nothing to say for yourself?”

  I dragged the toe of my sneaker through the perfectly trimmed grass in our backyard. “We wanted to play hide and seek, and the backyard gets boring.”

  Willa’s clasped hands were strangling one another.

  “So it was your idea, then,” Dad said more than asked.

  I nodded, and Willa squeaked, but I kicked her foot and shot her a look of murder that made her shut her mouth.

  I lost my dessert privileges for a week, and the next afternoon, I arrived home after dinner to find Willa in her room, watching as Dad bolted up the gate at the back of our yard.

  She nudged her half-eaten bowl of ice cream toward me, then let her head flop into her hands, her wavy brown hair getting stuck to the ice cream on her lips before she blew a raspberry to push it back.

  “Why the long look?” I spooned some strawberry ice cream into my mouth.

  Her bottom lip protruded, wobbling a little. “I just… I liked playing there.”

  I shrugged. “We were bound to be found out eventually.” Our parents could only kiss and whatever it was they did when they sent us outside to play for so long. “Besides, a closed gate means nothing.”

  Willa dropped her elbows from the windowsill, allowing her gauzy curtains to fall back into place. “What?”

  “You really are stupid.” I licked the remaining ice cream from the bowl, smiling. “We have a side gate, too, dummy.”

  Willa giggled, and my chest inflated at the sound.

  Willa

  Ten years old

  I tried to keep from wincing as my hair threatened to separate from my scalp under Mom’s vicious fingers.

  “Stop it,” she hissed. “We’re running late.”

  Which always made having my hair done worse than usual, her impatience showing with every tug.

  Jackson, who was eating his second bowl of cereal at the counter, made a face at Mom’s back.

  I bit my lips, but the snort crept free.

  “Willa,” she said with another hard pull at my hair. I flinched, my eyes squeezing shut. “Unless you want to unload the dishwa
sher instead of watching cartoons when we get home, I suggest you remember your manners.”

  I couldn’t miss my chance to watch My Little Pony while Jackson was visiting his mom, Kylie. “Sorry.”

  “You’re getting a little old for the stupid ponies anyway,” Jackson said, jumping down and taking his bowl to the sink to rinse it.

  I frowned down at the dark cherry wood floor, my pink Mary Janes shifting.

  “Jackson,” Mom warned. “Hurry up and get ready, please. And if you’ve got nothing nice to say—”

  “Say nothing.” Jackson sighed, rolling his eyes as he muttered, “I know.” He disappeared down the hall and upstairs to get changed.

  Dad entered the kitchen, his dark hair combed back over his head and his green eyes scrutinizing his mug when he lowered it to discover he’d finished his coffee already.

  He placed it in the sink, then adjusted the long sleeves of his pressed white dress shirt. “Ready?”

  Mom hummed, her fingers letting up as she braided the ends of my hair. “Just about.”

  Heath smiled, and the warmth of it, the approval shining in his eyes, clearing the lines around his mouth, made me smile too. “Beautiful, Willa.”

  I hated wearing braids, let alone piggy tail braids, but I didn’t dare say that. Mom wouldn’t listen to me anyway. Instead, I said, “Thanks, Dad.”

  His smile deepened, his hand brushing over my cheek before he made himself another cup of coffee to go.

  A coffee he dropped to the ground at the sight of my father, my real one, standing beside our car in the drive, talking animatedly with Jackson. “Shit. Fucking shit.” Heath stormed back inside. “Victoria!”

  Shock slowed my feet. Heath rarely cussed. My dad hardly visited.

  “Bug eyes,” Jackson said, his big teeth on display as he grinned. “Your dad blew a bunch of stuff up.”

  I stopped a few feet from them, my hands tucked in front of me, clenched.

  Dad, scratching the back of his head, laughed a funny sounding laugh. “Ah, yeah. Let’s maybe not phrase it quite like that.” He clapped Jackson on the back, then took a step closer to me, his hazel eyes swimming with what appeared to be tears. “Willa Grace.”