Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  “Don’t worry. I’ve never even kissed a girl.” Though two had tried, and I was curious. More and more curious every day.

  She smiled then and tucked her hair behind her ears. She had these small ears, like Willa. Seashells, I’d once thought, right before I gave her a wet willy. “Okay. So what was he pressuring her to do?”

  “To kiss him.”

  Mom’s lips parted, and she shook her head, laughing softly. After a moment, she stared at me, then rounded the counter and pulled me into a hug.

  Unlike my real Mom, who reeked of cheap perfume and annoyance, Victoria smelled nice. Like overbearing love and frosting. Willa smelled like frosting too, and jasmine.

  I hugged her back.

  “You’re a good brother,” Mom said, kissing the top of my head. “I’m not happy about this, but I’m proud of you for being there for her.”

  With that, she fed me cookies and orange juice, then called Dad while I was made to clean my room.

  Hearing the bus pull up an hour later, I tossed my gym shorts into the hamper from across the room, pumped my fist, and then stood in the doorway.

  Willa walked upstairs and dropped her bag at the top, rushing to me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I—”

  She shoved me, hissing as I tripped back inside my room, “You beat him up.”

  My eyes widened, and I laid sprawled beneath her on my bed. “The twerp was trying to kiss you!”

  “So you go and get yourself suspended?” She crossed her arms. “I can take care of myself, you know. You kind of gave me no choice when you decided I was the plague and you didn’t want to get infected.”

  I laughed and frowned. “What?”

  “You heard me.” She left my room, and dumbfounded, I scrambled off the bed after her.

  I pushed her door open before she could shut it in my face. “Hang on a damn minute. I was sticking up for you, and you’re mad at me?”

  She pulled her homework from her bag. “I’m mad because you have double standards, and even though I know you can be mean, I thought you were better than that.” All I could do was stare, and when she looked up, a brow raised, I swallowed. “You can leave now.”

  I did but returned later that night with heated words of my own stretching out over my tongue.

  Before I could open my mouth, she said, “Go to bed, Jackson.”

  “Jackson, now?” I said, scoffing, and refrained from stomping my foot. Just.

  “You’re not Jack at the moment. When he returns, I’ll call you by that name instead.”

  “Enough,” I said, and she turned over to face me, her book hanging between her fingers. “You don’t get to be mad at me for sticking up for you. In fact, you don’t get to be mad anymore period.”

  “Period?” she said, smiling.

  I nodded. “Because you’re not allowed to leave my sight at school now, got it?”

  Her eyes bugged out. “Jackson.”

  “I said,” I gritted, “got it?”

  After frowning up at me for seconds that threatened to snake around my throat and suffocate me, she nodded. “Yeah, got it.” Then she grinned. “Can I borrow your flashlight? Mine’s out of batteries, and I want to stay up and finish this tonight.”

  Relief, stronger than any embarrassment I’d ever felt, rained over me. “Whatever.”

  Fourteen

  “Willa!” I dumped my gear bag in the foyer, taking the stairs two at a time. “Bug, I got second place. I messed up my fender and front wheel, but it doesn’t…” I stopped when I found her room empty and dark, the curtains still closed. “Matter.”

  A tiny clatter sounded, and I spun, moving toward the bathroom. The door was locked. I rattled the handle anyway. “Willa?”

  “Go away.” Her voice was faint, and I felt the hairs begin to rise on my sweat-painted skin.

  She was supposed to come to the race today, but she’d said she wasn’t feeling well.

  I’d been annoyed, thinking she was lying. I’d been an idiot, I realized, when I jimmied open the door with one of her bobby pins.

  She scrambled back, her face pale and her eyes filled with fear as she stared up at me from the floor. “Jackson, get out.”

  That’s when I saw it.

  Blood.

  All over her sleep shorts.

  Sleep shorts that were on the blue tiled floor.

  Willa pulled her knees up, and I caught a glimpse of blood between her legs.

  My eyes squeezed momentarily, and she sniffed as I backed up to the door.

  I clicked the lock in place, then walked over to her.

  Horrified, she gazed up at me, shaking a little.

  Her boobs were growing, and she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her flimsy pale pink tank. The number of times I noticed when she wasn’t was beginning to make me feel like an asshole.

  Mainly because it didn’t sicken me. Still, the way I’d feel warmth gathering inside me, stirring in places it shouldn’t, shamed me.

  At times like that, I’d remind myself she wasn’t my sister by blood. Like a chant, I’d repeat it over and over, if only to ease the guilt.

  We could never go there.

  But over the past year, we’d gone there and many different places, all within the confines of my fucked-up imagination.

  “You got your period,” I stated the obvious.

  She nodded, her lip white between her teeth as she gazed down at her scrunching, peach-painted toenails. “I felt so sick all night, and I couldn’t sleep.”

  I frowned. “That’s why you didn’t come?”

  It didn’t bother me if she didn’t want to watch me race my dirt bike. It bothered me when she said she’d do something and then didn’t do it.

  I wasn’t good enough to go pro. I could’ve been, but I didn’t want to push myself that hard. I’d seen, as had my dad, what it could do to those who loved the sport. For some, passion was swapped for work, and for those who still loved it, disappointment unlike anything I’d seen upon someone’s face before.

  Willa twisted her fingers together. “I couldn’t get up. I was so tired. And when I did”—her nose crinkled toward her thighs—“I found all this.”

  “When did you wake up?” It was almost one in the afternoon.

  “About ten minutes before you got here.” Swallowing, she said, so quiet, “I didn’t know what to do. It’s nothing like I thought it would be.”

  “It’s a massacre,” I tried to joke.

  Her cheeks caught fire. She reached for her soiled shorts, then thought better of it. “It’s okay, I’m going to shower and—”

  “I’m messing with you, but yeah, it’s gross.” I opened the shower door, turning the water on. “So get in and get cleaned up. Mom should be inside by now.” She’d been helping Dad unload the car.

  “I don’t want her to know. I mean, I’ll tell her, but not today.”

  I didn’t need to ask why. Victoria was a fusser. She’d give her the talk, another one, and would likely put her on some type of birth control.

  Nodding, I walked over and grabbed her hand. I pulled her to her feet, making sure my eyes stayed on her face. “You need anything?”

  Slowly, her eyes dragged up my face, colliding with mine. Her bottom lip, indented from her teeth, rubbed her top one, and she shook her head.

  When her eyes dropped to our hands, and I felt her thumb brush over mine, I shivered and bounced back, then got out of there.

  It’d been a few years since I’d been in her panty drawer. The last time I had, she still had pairs with frogs and cats on them.

  Now, they were all purple or pink or black. My fingers shook, hovering over the purple pair, her favorite color. I snatched them and slammed the drawer closed, then opened the next one to get a bra.

  Fuck. I began to sweat all over again. “Don’t think, just pick one.”

  It didn’t match, but I didn’t care. Moving to her closet, I grabbed the orange T-shirt dress she usually wore around the hou
se.

  Opening the bathroom door just enough to slide them inside, I heard the slap of suds hitting the shower floor.

  Swallowing, I went to shut it when Willa said, “Thank you.”

  I cleared my throat. “It’s fine.”

  “And I heard you, that you came second,” she said before I could close the door. “Congrats.”

  Smiling, I couldn’t help but say, “Congrats to you, too.”

  Her laughter encouraged my own to burst free.

  Willa

  Fifteen

  “Aren’t you a little old for camping?” Dad said, turning the page in his car magazine.

  I pulled the tray of fresh cookies from the oven, setting them on the stovetop. “It’s still fun.”

  “It’s her birthday,” Jackson said, entering the kitchen and opening the fridge. “If she wants to camp, we’ll camp.”

  “Correction,” Dad said, holding up a finger. “You two can camp. I’m staying indoors where there are no mosquitos.”

  I smiled down at the cookies, pressing one with my finger. “You’ll cramp our style, anyway.”

  Dad scoffed. “Nothing you say will convince me, Wil.”

  That had been what I’d hoped for. The last thing we wanted was he and Mom squeezing into the four-man tent with us.

  Jackson had been setting it up at the very back of the yard. I hadn’t had a chance to go out and see it yet, but I knew from the way he was glugging down juice at the fridge from the carton with his back turned that he was done.

  “Where’s Mom?” Jackson closed the fridge.

  “Got caught up with the conference.” Dad drained his coffee. “She’ll be back in time for tomorrow, don’t worry.”

  After years of studying and raising us, she’d become an attorney when I was seven years old.

  Dad owned and ran Thorn Racing, an action sports company that had been in his family for the past two generations.

  Already, Jackson wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, and he often tried to get Heath to take him along to board meetings, events, and to let him listen in on Skype conversations. When I’d asked him why, he’d shrugged and said there was just something alluring about running a company with that much importance. That and he loved to ride, both BMX and dirt bikes. The safety, the family name plastered all over people’s gear, and the lives it helped protect awed him. Not only did the company rely on our dad to keep it running and turning a profit, but its customers, the sponsors, the athletes, and some of the general population did as well.

  It seemed like too much pressure if you asked me, to which he’d said, “Exactly,” with a smile that gleamed and caused his green eyes to spark with excitement.

  “Make sure you lock up and keep your phones on you.” Dad waved his hand, laughing as he scooped up his magazine. “Who am I kidding? You’re not kids anymore. You won’t last past midnight.”

  Jackson waited until he was gone before turning to me. “A challenge, Bug. Are we up for it?”

  He chuckled at my raised brows, and the deep, abrasive sound of it always caught me off guard, even months after it’d changed.

  He was no longer a boy, but a young man, and the changes weren’t going unnoticed by just me. He’d been asked to every event and dance since we’d started high school, and he’d accepted most of the invites. Yet as far as I knew, he hadn’t had a girlfriend yet.

  I cleared my throat, then tied my hair back into a loose braid. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A valid one, considering we are indeed not ten anymore.”

  I’d wanted to camp since then, which was the last time we had. My dad, my real one, had been the only one to oblige me, though, and that was last summer.

  “I’m no flake.”

  Jackson stole a cookie, hissing as it burned his skin. He threw it in his mouth anyway and spoke around it. “No, but you are a girl.”

  I shoved his shoulder, and he laughed, bits of cookie flying from his mouth and landing on my cheek.

  “Ew.” I brushed it off, and he laughed some more as he left the kitchen.

  “Don’t forget the red frogs, or I probably will bail early.”

  An hour later, cookies in the Tupperware container, the red frogs in a bag with other candy hanging from my wrist, and the mini sandwiches I’d prepared, I headed outside and almost dropped everything once I saw the tent.

  Standing beside it, Jackson rubbed the back of his neck. “It was a little mucky from not being used, so I had to spruce it up.”

  Fairy lights were strung like garland from the front of the canvassed roof to the fence, and flickers of light glowed from inside. The sun was setting, yet Jackson had created this little world of light for our very own.

  Moving closer, I barely noticed when he took all the food from me, and I bent low, opening the tent flaps.

  Our sleeping bags, mine pink with fairies and his green with spaceships, sat over a huge blow up mattress, and beside it, on an upside-down milk crate that was covered with a white cloth, was a Mason jar filled with fireflies.

  “How?” I asked, nearing it and reaching out to run my fingers over the glass.

  “I’m a pro, that’s how. Did you grab any drinks?” When I didn’t answer, he huffed and walked out, presumably to go get them himself.

  The fairy lights were in here, too, I realized, looking up to see a row hanging from the ceiling, snaking through tiny holes at either end of the tent.

  Jackson returned with two bottles of water and cans of orange pop. He cracked open a can and plonked the rest, and himself, down on the ground near the door where he’d set the food. “Cool, huh?”

  I blinked, then lowered to the mattress. It bounced in time with my heart. “It’s amazing.”

  We ate while he regaled me with tales of how he and Dash had snuck away to set off fireworks during the dance on Friday night.

  After he opened the laptop, we settled on the bed to watch Moulin Rouge. He hated it, but it was my birthday, and he knew I adored it.

  Jackson was staring absently at the screen with an arm tucked behind his head.

  The Mason jar, on the side table he’d constructed, was still aglow with the fluttering bugs inside. The flickers of light cast dancing black shapes over the interior of the tent, and my eyelids grew heavy as I watched them.

  Jackson bumped my elbow with his. “Not interested in ‘Come What May’ tonight?”

  I slouched down onto my back, puffing out a sigh. “Ainsley likes you.”

  “I know.”

  I forced a smile. “You went to the dance with her, but you left her to mess around with fireworks?” I hadn’t gone. Brendan Peters had asked me, but my cheeks had burned so hot under his nervous gaze, and thanks to Jackson’s presence a few lockers down, that all I could do was shake my head.

  Jackson had watched him walk off down the hall, his brows furrowed, then eyed me before turning back to his friends.

  “She might like me, but I don’t like her.”

  “That’s mean,” I said, turning to face him.

  He leaned forward and shut the computer down, placing it on the ground before dropping onto his back. “I don’t dislike her. I just don’t like, like her.” He cleared his throat, turning his head slightly. “You know?”

  I studied his green eyes, the lashes that surrounded them fanning out like dark feathers, and the tiny, faded freckle that nestled the corner of his right eye. “I get it.”

  Tucking his arm behind his head again, he yawned.

  “Who do you like then?” Ainsley was pretty, with her blond hair and blue eyes. If he didn’t like her, then did he even like anyone? All the girls were crushing on the boys, and the boys were making idiots of themselves over the girls.

  His harsh exhale rolled his lips and brushed my cheek. With his teeth scraping over his bottom lip, he smiled, wane and reproachful. “Someone I shouldn’t.”

  Something hard and heavy fell into my stomach and slowed my breathing. I couldn’t keep from frowning if I tried
, and so I didn’t. “Who?” I demanded.

  Laughing, he settled his eyes on mine, bright in the dark and bobbing over my face. His smile drooped as he took a piece of my hair and twirled it around his finger. “You don’t need to know, Bug.”

  I needed to know more than I needed air to breathe, and it was killing me just the same. My lungs were tight, shrinking, and my exhales short.

  “Hey,” he said, concern marring his brow as his finger released my hair. Warmth hit my skin, startling my eyes to his studying ones, while his hand curved around my cheek. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” I didn’t realize I had been.

  “Your eyes are wet. Wait…” He bent closer, questions filling his own. “Willa, you…” He didn’t finish, just stared for five unbearable beats.

  Then he moved, his unsaid words fading into a kiss that would break a thousand rules and promises for years to come.

  I gasped against his lips. His warm, gentle lips. Then I pulled away, my breathing more erratic than before. “Jack.”

  He swallowed loudly, his throat rippling, and shut his eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  And then I was leaning forward, my lips searching and finding his, sweet and soft as butter.

  His hands wrapped tight around my face as we both carefully pressed and retreated, only to go back again and again, each time more urgent than the last.

  Between breaths, he murmured, “Is this your first kiss?” I nodded, and he mumbled, “Me too.”

  Shock stiffened my limbs, my mouth, but it melted when his bottom lip meshed between mine, and my tongue poked out to touch it.

  A groaning sound flooded my ears, and stars burst behind my closed eyes. I fell to my side, his legs intertwined with mine, and his tongue caressed the seam of my lips, asking for entry.

  It was warm, wet, and tickled against my hesitant one, but after minutes, or maybe hours, kissing felt as easy as talking to him did.

  For that was what we were doing, speaking a different language. A language that tasted of disaster and sin but felt like promise and perfection.

  A wrong so wrong that it couldn’t be anything other than just right.

  The night crawled on, the stars glittering above a world we’d manufactured to harbor a secret that would follow us into every dawn thereafter, yet our mouths refused to part, and our heartbeats refused to slow.