Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  My hands fluttered to my lips, my heart bruising with its relentless pounding. “Are you drunk?” I didn’t understand why he’d care that much if he was with Ainsley now.

  “No,” he coughed out, wiping his hand over his mouth and shaking his head. Hard eyes settled on me, disgust and something else swimming in those beautiful green depths. “You ruined it. Just like that”—he laughed, then groaned—“you ruined everything.”

  “What?” I moved closer. Vaguely, I was aware of the front door opening, but Dad didn’t come outside, so I ignored his presence. “Me? You told me we were done. Then you sucked face with someone else.”

  He didn’t talk, just stared at me with that horrible look staining his features and wetting his eyes.

  “Jackson, you’ve broken my heart.”

  “Me? You should’ve trusted me,” he said. “They were watching, and you didn’t know? They’ve always been watching, Willa.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Mom and Heath?” I shook my head. “You don’t get to ask me to trust you when you never, not once gave me a reason to all these weeks, hell, months.”

  His eyelids lowered, and he blew out a breath that deflated his chest. “I was coming for you. I was…” he choked off, clearing his throat. “I was coming for you. I would never fucking leave you.” His eyes opened wide, unveiling clear, iridescent hatred. “Until now.”

  I ran as he climbed into his truck, but I didn’t make it.

  I screamed as he turned it on and pulled out onto the road, but he didn’t hear me.

  I collapsed into a useless, broken pile of flesh and bones on the front lawn when he drove off, but he never turned around.

  Time wasn’t forgiving.

  Time stole everything if you let it.

  Days crawled by, and I barely made it to graduation. In fact, I wouldn’t have bothered if it weren’t for the disappointment and worry that rolled off my father and saddled me with guilt.

  More guilt.

  I was a barely walking, barely talking, barely breathing, guilt clouded idiot who’d gone and messed up everything.

  I hadn’t just messed it up, though. I’d thrown gasoline onto a fire Jackson had been trying to put out.

  Why he’d done what he did stumped me. As predicted, he wouldn’t answer my calls, and he’d blocked me from all forms of his social media.

  Maybe I’d never know for sure, but I could guess when a large check arrived mere weeks after I’d graduated and summer began. A large check from Mom and Heath, along with a small note, congratulating me on the completion of school and a new beginning.

  Right. A beginning where their prized possession would no longer be tainted by his stepsister’s presence in his life.

  Dad hadn’t touched it, and neither had I. “The choice is yours, but I know what I’d do,” he’d said, eyeing the check with clear disdain after taking me out for ice cream on graduation. I wasn’t up for huge meals, so he’d often bring me fries, salads, fruit, and lots of junk food after work.

  I didn’t want the choice because I wanted nothing to do with it. With them.

  But that would mean Dad would take most of the responsibility for my tuition himself.

  “Knockity, knock, knock,” Flo sang, then scrunched her nose in the doorway. “Shit, this place is gross.”

  If she was saying that, someone who kept pet rats in her bedroom, then I really needed to pick up the piles of clothes and food packages already.

  I grunted, sitting up and pushing my hair off my face. A glance at my phone said it was only two in the afternoon. The nights might’ve been unbearable, but I longed for each one. The setting sun was a sign that life went on, and however reluctant I was, it’d carry me with it into a brand-new day.

  It was going to be the longest summer of my life.

  She sat on the bed. “Todd’s been worried, asking about you almost every day.”

  I knew he was. He’d even come by twice, but Dad had sent him away, knowing he wasn’t what I needed. He might not have been what I needed, but I could sure do with his company. Though I wasn’t sure I could stomach it after what I’d done.

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I’ve told him you’re sorry five times now, Willa.” Her red curls bounced as her head shook. “He doesn’t need apologies; he just wants to know how you’re doing.”

  “So lie,” I said, trying to smile. “Tell him I need some time, but I’m okay.” When she frowned, sighing, I urged, “Please, Flo.”

  She nodded once. “Fine.”

  “How’s Green?”

  She bit down on her lips. “Over. He’s headed to Ohio after all.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing she was attending Edmond Ross. “It seemed like you liked this one.”

  She laughed, kicking off her pink Converse and crossing her legs. “I did, but life happens, right?”

  I peered down at the dirty tissues littering my bedding. “Yeah.” Pulling the scrunchie off my wrist, I began to pull my hair up onto my head.

  “So I heard something. At this party I was at last night.”

  I quit fussing with my hair at the caution tugging her lips, the freckles over her cheeks shifting as she wriggled them.

  The scrunchie fell to the bed, my hair to my back, and I demanded more than asked, “Heard what?”

  She seemed to steel herself, her cheeks puffing as she exhaled and grabbed my hand. “He’s going to Texas, Wil.”

  “Jackson,” I said, not feeling the warmth of her hand, only seeing the remorse in her blue eyes when she nodded.

  Of course, he was.

  And I had no one to blame but myself.

  Unforgiving are the memories

  that find you in your sleep

  they won’t bother waking you

  especially if you weep.

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  Willa

  I was coming for you. I would never fucking leave you.

  I woke sweating and panting from the same dream that visited at least once a week, no matter how much time had passed. Skin damp and prickling, tears lacing my cheeks, I pushed the patchwork duvet off and stumbled into the bathroom.

  The hot water failed to rid the ice cresting my skin, and after washing my hair, I stood beneath the spray with my head tilted forward. It rolled down my neck and chest, and I remained upright thanks to my hands braced against the wall.

  The sun was still half asleep, its bronze and gold slow to chase away the dark that could be seen through the tiny window above my head. A bird flapped by, followed by a flock.

  Dressed in a red button-down dress, I slipped my feet into my white Converse, then threw my damp hair forward to gather it into a ponytail.

  A few strands escaped to fall around my face. When out, the brown tresses bobbed around my shoulders in unruly waves. I didn’t miss my long hair. I didn’t miss a lot of things about that time, and the things I did miss only poked at the bruise that refused to heal, so when I’d turned twenty-one, I said goodbye.

  That was the time I’d also quit using Todd so completely and had said yes to taking a chance on him.

  “You don’t want this,” he’d seethed, his chest heaving and his eyes filled with hurt. “I’ve waited, Willa. I’ve waited two whole fucking years and then some.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said for the hundredth time. “Don’t,” I said when he backed up toward my dormitory door. “Please,” I’d rasped, breath failing me. “You can’t leave me.”

  I had no idea where the vulnerability had come from. Not when I’d been nothing but a shell since the summer that stole my soul.

  But it showed up and snuck out, and it made him stop.

  With his brows low and his shoulders rising and falling, Todd stared at the ground, groaning. “I’m in love with you, Willa. I’ve been in love with you for years, and I…”

  My knotted throat made it hard to ask, “You what?”

  He shook his head, lifting his defeated eyes to mine. “I deserve more.”
/>   Time stole moments from me as we stared at one another. “Todd,” I said, at a loss. He was right. I’d known that for a long time, and it was time I stopped being such a selfish bitch.

  But I didn’t want to. Pain sliced through me anew, cold and swift, as I struggled to speak. So I didn’t. I merely nodded, ducking my head to hide what was happening inside me.

  Then he was gone, and I was nothing but a slave to a handler called heartbreak. All over again. You didn’t need to be in love with someone for them to break your heart. Or who knows, maybe I had been, perhaps just not enough.

  I wasn’t sure it would ever be enough, so that was why I didn’t fight.

  Hours passed, and still, I laid there, in the very same spot he’d left me on my bed. Tears had created sticky streaks on my face, and every so often, a new round would wash them away.

  Rinse and repeat.

  A pounding echoed through my skull, but I ignored it.

  Then, a second later, I heard, “Damn it, Willa.” Rough hands lifted me from the bed, and I could smell bourbon on the breath that coasted across my face in a harsh exhale. Todd cupped my cheeks and brushed my hair away.

  “You’re back,” I tried to say, but my voice didn’t work.

  He caught it, his face crinkling with concern, dark eyes filled with too many emotions to name. “I’m back.”

  “Why?” It was all I could think to say.

  He dropped his forehead to mine, whispering, “Because I’m fucked up. You’ve fucked me right up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He reared back, moaning. “Stop saying you’re fucking sorry, Willa. Jesus Christ.” Standing from the bed, he paced the small space, laughing roughly. “You know what I did tonight?”

  I frowned.

  “I went to a bar, had a drink, and caught up with Elain from physics. I thought about fucking her.”

  Elain was blond with huge boobs and small blue eyes. Elain reminded me of Ainsley.

  Speechless and winded, I tried to tame the dizziness that took hold.

  Todd laughed. “She showed me to her car in the back of the lot, and I couldn’t even get in the damn thing before I was backing up and apologizing.”

  Relief swept in, warm and welcome. Until he pinned me beneath the accusation in his eyes.

  “You’ve fucked me. You’ve completely messed me up, Willa, and I wanted out, but I couldn’t fucking do it.”

  Faced with the idea of losing him, with the sickening image of him and Elain, I held my arms out. “Come here.”

  He shook his head.

  “Todd,” I said. “You belong with me, and I need you. Come here.”

  He fell over me like a blanket, my back hitting the bed as his mouth hit mine. “You don’t need to say you love me,” he whispered, undoing his fly and pulling at my panties. “You don’t need to lie to me, but please, just commit to me.”

  “There’s never been anyone but you, not for a long time.” I gripped his face. “You know that.”

  His eyes closed briefly, then he sat back to push down his jeans and rid me of my panties. “Be mine. Not just to fuck, Willa. Be mine in every way you can.”

  I wasn’t positive I could do that, but I was sure I couldn’t survive without him. “Todd, you do deserve better.” My voice was tear-strained.

  He sniffed, falling over me and wiping at my cheeks. “Do you want me to have better?”

  “No,” I said instantly.

  “Good,” he rumbled, then fucked me with his fingers while his mouth slid over mine, “because there’s nothing better than this.”

  Heartbreak was capable of many things, I’d discovered, but most of all, it had the power to rid you of morality, granting you enough desperation to become a selfish coward.

  When we graduated, I finally broke the toxic co-dependent spell and ended things with Todd. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since, but I heard he was still in med school and back to playing the field.

  After coating my lashes in a layer of mascara and dabbing some concealer beneath my sleep-starved eyes, I grabbed my purse and rushed through my one-bedroom apartment.

  Old but with a classic beauty I appreciated, the apartment was dressed in every color I loved. Yellow throw cushions lined the secondhand brown cracked leather couches my dad had bought online. A purple and gold patterned rug lay beneath a chipped oak coffee table that had once been painted a solid white. A small flat screen hung from the wall, and beneath it were three rows of wooden bookcases, each one filled to the brim with books, knickknacks, a photo of me, Daphne, and Peggy at one end, and one of me and Flo at the other.

  In the middle sat my favorite picture of me and Todd.

  He was smiling at the camera, rain splattering his graduation cap, and I was smiling up at him, my eyes shut and my hand trying to keep my own cap in place while the wind attempted to steal it.

  The rain had this uncanny way of showing up when I most needed sunshine.

  Grabbing my keys from the coffee table, I brushed my fingers over the photo, wishing I could’ve given him so much more. That I could’ve given him what he’d given me.

  It was past time I admitted to myself that perhaps I did love him. It was a love that’d grown steady over the course of years. A love that’d survived many insecurities, many arguments, and ultimately, time.

  While that love didn’t threaten to send me up in flames the same way love had done to me before, it did threaten me all the same, and so it needed to die.

  He’d been my haven, and not a small amount of risk came with admitting you were at someone’s mercy.

  I’d learned the hard way what giving yourself so freely to someone could do.

  It destroyed lives.

  Long after the flames had finished dancing and the ash was settling into dust, it still wreaked havoc on all those involved.

  Swallowing, I wiped a tear from my cheek, backing away from the memories.

  My hand skimmed the knitted gray afghan that hung over the arm of the recliner on my way through the open space. One of the few items I’d taken from Dad’s place.

  The old floorboards creaked, no doubt alerting those downstairs that I was on my way.

  It was no easy thing, being your own boss, but the people I worked with helped make it easier.

  Locking and pulling the door shut behind me, I wound down the old metal staircase and into the small foyer below.

  Shivers assaulted as I stepped out onto the street, where above my head hung a rusted corrugated metal sign swinging above the neighboring blue door to my apartment. On the sign, the name Dimples was painted in cursive blue script with two smiling cupcakes on either side.

  “What should I name it?” I’d asked, standing beside my dad and Todd out on the street as we’d gazed at the empty building, still swiping away tears.

  “Dimples,” Todd whispered, his hand squeezing mine. “Do you need—”

  “Dimples,” I’d said, blinking at him, the tears drying and a small laugh erupting in their wake. “That’s it.”

  Todd frowned, but after staring at me for prolonged seconds, he then grinned. “Really?”

  I’d known then what I needed to do, and I could think of nothing better than to honor him in that way.

  In one of the only ways I could.

  I nodded, squeezing his hand before turning to Dad, who’d been plucking weeds from the empty green planter boxes. “What do you think, Dad?”

  “I think it’s yours, so you can do whatever the hell you want.”

  Mine.

  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be able to take something like this on. That I’d be able to make a dream like this happen. Not with the student loans and the lack of savings and job experience.

  But I didn’t make it happen.

  Dad had surprised me when Todd and I had been at his place for dinner, handing me an envelope, stating it was my graduation present since I never let him pay for college.

  I’d burst into tears when I’d pulled out the deed
to the building that sat tucked away in a busy old corner of town.

  I told myself I had twelve months to start turning a profit, and although Dad told me not to worry about it, he still had faith I could.

  Five months after we’d opened the doors, I was already beginning to do that, and I’d put a nice chunk of change aside to repay Dad and tackle the student loans.

  The corroded bell above the door chimed as I pushed it open and stepped into warmth and the scent of Flo’s vanilla frosting.

  Where the exterior was run down, a white painted brick building with planter boxes housing gardenias hanging from the windows, the inside was renovated with some leftover old rustic charm.

  Behind rows of glass casing sat half of today’s wares. Cupcakes, brownies, muffins, lunch rolls, and loaves of bread. All that was missing were the pies, which were due in the oven in the next thirty minutes.

  “Did you leave the trash in last night? Or was that me?” Flo asked, tugging off a pair of gloves while I tucked my purse beside the microwave.

  “Good morning to you, too.” Flo was Dimples’s manager, and though it’d taken her months to learn how to bake, I now couldn’t live without her. She’d remained in the cove after college, under the guise of wanting to be there for her sick great aunt. The aunt she apparently loathed and was saying goodbye to tomorrow.

  “Mornings are never good; we’ve been over this.”

  I smirked. She knew I disagreed. Mornings signified hope. It was when the sun reached its highest peak for the day that I began to feel my energy wane, and long buried memories would eventually sneak in.

  Thanks to Todd and a therapist Dad had recommended I see during my junior year of college, I’d gotten better at controlling what ruled my thoughts and what I allowed to visit. I had a feeling that was why the dreams—I refused to call them nightmares for it gave them too much power—still stole me at least once a week.

  Virginia, my therapist, had said that as with all things, time would help with that. Then she’d winked and said, “And maybe a glass or two of red before bed.”