Black Tangled Heart

by Samantha Young

  Jane drew it.

  I felt Skye’s chin rest on my shoulder. “I love how that kid sees me.”

  I smiled.

  “She’s so freaking talented, it’s unreal.” Skye moved away. “That sketch is just the tip of the iceberg.” She returned to my side and pushed her phone in my face. “Her freshman art project.”

  I blinked in surprise at the structure of 3D wooden boxes of various size. They created what appeared to be a city skyline. On every single box was a sketch of a different face. Familiar faces. They wore a variety of expressions, together conveying a plethora of emotions.

  “It’s a cityscape of comedians and comedy actors, and then actors and writers famous for playing more serious roles. She’s drawn them wearing expressions opposite to what they’re known for. The comedians are sad and reflective. The writers are laughing or in love. It’s supposed to be an artistic discussion about how faces get lost in a city, and because of that, we don’t know who people really are until we take time to actually look.”

  My eyebrows hit my hairline and Skye grinned. “She’s fourteen,” she reminded me.

  Sometimes I couldn’t work out Lorna and Jane’s friendship. Jane was mature and introspective for her age. Lorna was ambitious and smart, sure, but she was also more than a little shallow.

  My phone buzzed, drawing my attention from Jane’s artwork. I slumped on the large sectional in the open-plan living room/kitchen and opened the text.

  That’s so cute xx

  I sighed. Was that a no to tomorrow, then?

  My phone buzzed again.

  I can’t 2morro. Dinner with parents’ friends, ugh. Meet me @ school 1 hr early Mon? I’ll make it worth it ;) xx

  Heat flooded my groin at her meaning.

  You got it.

  I threw my phone on the couch, feeling a little better about missing out on getting laid tonight. By all accounts, Julie would be worth the wait.

  Still, I wondered if Bethany was free tomorrow night? I reached for my phone to text her.

  “Texting all your ladies?” Skye teased as she pulled on a light sweater.

  I shrugged.

  She sighed. “Just don’t break any hearts, Jamie. Believe me, you don’t want to be that guy.”

  Annoyed by the insinuation I was that guy, I scowled. “They know the score. I never make any promises.”

  As she grabbed her purse and keys off the coffee table, she eyeballed me in that big-sister way of hers. “I know you’re only sixteen and I don’t want you getting too serious with anyone when you’re this young … but can I ask if there’s a reason you’re not interested in dating just one girl?”

  I did not want to have this conversation.

  Sisters were a killer.

  “Skye,” I groaned.

  “It’s just a question.”

  “Yeah, it’s the kind of question sisters ask each other … not … Guys don’t talk like this.” I gestured between us in aggravation.

  She laughed. “Some guys do. It doesn’t make you less of a guy to have feelings. Or are you just typing random words on that laptop of yours at night?”

  I squirmed at her dig.

  So, okay, I had plenty of fucking feelings that I put into my stories. That was different. Hoping if I answered, she’d go away, I bit out the words, “It’s not that I’m not interested in dating one girl.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” I huffed. “Is that not enough?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m sixteen.” I gestured again, the paperback in my hand flapping around so I lost my place. “I haven’t met her yet. End of story.”

  “Met who yet?”

  Sororicide was a crime, right? “The girl that makes me want to stop screwing around with other girls. Now can we please be done with this conversation?”

  She looked smug. “I knew a writer had to be a secret romantic. But remember, there’s no need to settle down too soon. Keep playing the field for as long as you can, but do it safely. Use protection and don’t be an asshole.” On that annoying note, she sauntered toward the door. “Call for takeout. Remember to ask the girls what they want first.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “And thank you.”

  “You owe me.”

  “I know.”

  I looked up from my book. “And good luck with the meeting tonight.”

  My big sister grinned, gave me a little wave, and breezed out the door.

  Sometimes it was difficult to have a big sister your friends all wanted to have sex with, a big sister who was always in my business, and a big sister who didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

  But secretly, I wouldn’t trade Skye for any other sister in the world.

  Snorting and shaking my head at her, I cracked open my book and tried to forget that she’d cock-blocked me tonight.

  A little while later, my belly grumbled. It was tempting to just order a pizza without asking Lorna and Jane what they wanted, but Lorna would complain all night if I did. It would be worth the effort to climb the stairs and ask them just to avoid her whining.

  I couldn’t hear the music anymore, not until I had almost reached Lorna’s bedroom door. They’d turned it down so they could talk. Knowing how much talking Lorna and Jane did was one reason I didn’t want a girlfriend. I wasn’t sure I was the kind of guy who could put up with someone chattering at me nonstop.

  “It’s rule number two,” I heard Lorna snap.

  Her bitchy tone made me halt. I didn’t want to talk to her when she was in a mood. I loved my little sister, but most days, I did not like her. I didn’t care if that made me an asshole. Skye told me repeatedly that Lorna would grow out of her bratty shit and turn into a cool person I might one day call friend. Yeah, right.

  “That’s not rule number two,” Jane replied in her quiet voice, steel in her words. Her tone surprised me.

  “It is so,” Lorna argued. “We’re supposed to support what the other likes and have each other’s back.”

  “We’re also supposed to support what the other doesn’t like. I don’t like Greta. She’s a bully. I don’t have time for bullies.” Jane didn’t raise her voice, but there was that steel again.

  About to knock and interrupt, I stopped when Lorna snapped, “It’s just a party. And I’m sick of not being included in anything because you’re a baby!”

  I scowled. Jesus, my little sister was a pill.

  “I’m not a baby.” I heard a tremor in Jane’s voice. “I just don’t need to befriend the kind of people who bitch about each other behind their backs and wouldn’t know what the word loyalty meant, even if Gucci brought out a bag with the word printed on it. I don’t need to be popular to be happy. I’m not a sheep.”

  My eyebrows rose. Who was this kid?

  “Are you calling me a sheep?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  I kind of wanted to high-five Jane Doe right then.

  “At least I’m not an orphan loser! No one but me wants you, Jane. Think about that before you say anything else you might regret.”

  Anger churned in my gut. Lorna McKenna, mistress of manipulation. And she was only fourteen.

  A creak of the floorboards alerted me too late and the door flew open. Jane charged out, almost colliding with me. I reached out to steady her and felt my annoyance with my sister grow tenfold. There were tears on Jane’s flushed cheeks.

  Great.

  A crying teenage girl. Let me count the ways I loathed being in this kind of situation.

  Jane swiped at the tear tracks and then jerked out of my hold, hurrying past and down the hall.

  It occurred to me that her apartment complex was a half-hour walk from here. Skye would kill me if I let the kid walk home alone.

  I could kill Lorna.

  With an aggravated sigh, I stuck my head into Lorna’s room and saw her sitting on her bed, glaring at the wall, two bright red spots of anger on her cheeks.

  She had the bigger of the smaller tw
o bedrooms after throwing a fit when Skye wouldn’t let her have the master suite. Skye was paying the rent. The master bedroom was hers. Made sense to me. Try telling Lorna that. How a kid who grew up like we did could be so spoiled, I had no idea. I just gave in and took the smallest room in the house. Even though Skye was happy to fight for me to have the larger one since I was older.

  “I’m going to see that Jane gets home okay.”

  Her gaze flew to me. “What?”

  I seethed. “I’m walking Jane home. You leave this house while I’m gone, and I’ll make your life a fucking misery until I go to college.” I reached in and slammed her door shut.

  Hurrying down the stairs after Jane, I thought about grabbing my car keys and giving the kid a ride home, but I needed the walk to cool off before I returned to my little sister.

  Outside, I found Jane hurrying down our sidewalk.

  “Jane, wait up,” I called after her.

  She whirled in surprise, her long, dark hair flaring around her shoulders. She waited for me.

  As I approached her, the last of the sun caught in her hazel-green eyes, and it hit me out of nowhere—like a lightning bolt or a Mack Truck or some other cliché—Lorna’s best friend was kind of beautiful.

  The thought caught me off guard as I drew to a halt in front of her.

  Only a year ago, Jane Doe had been an awkward little thing. Big eyes, big ears, big mouth. She’d looked like a cartoon character.

  But now, I saw she’d lost the roundness of youth in the angles of her cheeks and jaw, and she’d grown into her features.

  She’d really, really grown into herself.

  Jane Doe was on her way to being a knockout.

  Huh.

  I shook myself out of the stupor this revelation caused.

  “I’m walking you home.” I touched Jane’s elbow and began to walk.

  Thankfully, she fell into step beside me without argument—I didn’t want to spend half an hour convincing her she needed me to walk her home.

  I slowed my long strides when I realized she was struggling to keep up.

  A cool breeze caused goose bumps to sprinkle across my arms. I should have brought a hoodie with me. Mid-October in LA was still warm, but the evenings were cool. Not cold, just enough where jeans were better than shorts, hoodies were better than T-shirts. Still, Jane didn’t shiver in her summer dress, so if a fourteen-year-old Californian could hack the breeze, so could a guy who grew up on the East Coast.

  Glancing down at the top of her dark head, I took in her downcast expression and once again cursed my little sister. I sighed. “Don’t listen to Lorna, okay. She just doesn’t like to not get her own way.”

  Frankly, I didn’t know Jane had it in her to stand up to Lorna.

  “I know.” Jane looked up at me with those pretty eyes. “But she’s been mean a lot lately, and there’s only so much a person can take.”

  Now, I was a guy, and guys liked to think we were above petty shit, but I’d seen enough jealousy between my friends, even between the ones I’d grown up with in Boston, to know what could sour a friendship. Maybe Lorna wasn’t happy her shy, awkward little friend was growing into a cute, talented artist that boys would start noticing soon. If they hadn’t already.

  “Good for you. Sticking up for yourself.” I felt awkward saying it. But I didn’t know what else to say. Jane and I had exchanged perhaps twenty words between us in the last year.

  “Everyone thinks I’m a pushover. Even Lorna.” She looked up at me and then glanced away as soon as our eyes met. “I’m not.”

  I realized a while ago that I made the kid nervous. She rarely met my eyes if we were in the same room.

  There wasn’t a lot I could do about that.

  We walked down the gentle slope of the quiet street on clean sidewalks, passing Spanish Revival homes with palm trees in nearly every garden. It was a world away from Dorchester.

  “Are you writing anything new?” Jane suddenly blurted out.

  I almost stumbled.

  My eyes narrowed.

  Lorna, I’m going to kill you.

  “Um … not that … I mean, I didn’t know …” Jane squeezed her eyes closed and some of my anger dissipated at her cute floundering.

  Aggravated, but not at her, I waved her off. “It’s fine.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  I shrugged, like I didn’t care when I goddamn did.

  We continued in silence.

  Until …

  “I read that book. The Richard Matheson one. I Am Legend.”

  This time when our eyes met, she held my gaze. Realizing she’d tracked down the book from the poster in my room, I smirked. Had little Jane Doe been paying attention to me? “Yeah? What did you think?”

  “It was good. Exciting. Sad too.” She sighed, and I heard a tremble in it, betraying her nervousness. I almost felt bad for her, but there was a part of me that thought maybe I liked that she was this hyperaware of me. “I read Stir of Echoes after it. I enjoyed that one too.”

  “I didn’t think you read books like that.”

  “I’ll read anything that’s good.”

  That made me smile. “Yeah,” I agreed.

  When we fell into a longer silence, I considered that maybe Jane had used up all her courage for one night. Usually, I’d stay silent. But there was something about her presence, a quiet stillness that I liked. It made me curious about her.

  “Why didn’t you call your foster parents to come get you? You know you shouldn’t be walking this far on your own at night.”

  Jane bit her lip. “I’m sorry if I’ve put you out.”

  “I didn’t say that. And it doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t like to bother them.”

  Bother them? She was their foster kid. Her job was to bother them. “They’re paid to look after you, right?” I knew right away it was the wrong thing to say. Guilt pricked me, seeing her face fall. “That’s not what I—”

  “It’s fine. I just … I don’t want to rock the boat. There’re only four more years until I’m eighteen, and I want to stay with them until then. I don’t want to move again.”

  “How long have you been with them?”

  “Almost four years.”

  I frowned. “Who were you with before that?”

  She shrugged. “A few families.”

  “And the Greens are the nicest of them all?” My friend, Lip, back in Dorchester, was a foster kid. He’d spent most of his life with a good woman called Maggie. Her asshole husband was lazy, and Maggie was constantly preoccupied with the five other kids they fostered, so Lip got away with a lot of bad shit.

  Jane hesitated, and I felt a strange lurch in my chest. “Yeah.”

  “What’s the hesitation about?”

  “They just … they’re fine. They’re not around much, but they make sure I have everything I need, and they don’t yell at me or … anything else.”

  “Anything else? Has someone done ‘anything else’ to you?” Why was I suddenly so aggravated?

  Jane looked up at me, and the small smile and knowing look in her eyes made me feel like a naive little kid. “Jamie, the system is kind of flawed. Too many kids in care, not enough social workers, and definitely not enough foster parents. I’ve had it both ways. Good and bad.”

  For a moment, I forgot I was talking to a fourteen-year-old and not a grown-up. The world weariness in her eyes made me feel shitty. Growing up how I did meant growing up fast. But, I realized, growing up alone like Jane had made her grow up fast too. It didn’t seem fair. “I’m sorry.”

  She was quiet a while, and then she took in a deep breath, as if preparing herself for something. She then blurted out, “You seem different. Less angry.”

  Yeah, I think Jane Doe had been paying attention to me. I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “You used to be kind of …”

  “Kind of what?”

  Jane’s lips twitched, and she flicked me an amused look be
fore staring ahead. “Moody.”

  I had a feeling that wasn’t the word she was looking for. And I was still a moody bastard. “Yeah, well, so would you be if your dad took off, leaving you with the kind of mom I had, and bad mom or not, she died anyway.” I frowned, wondering why I’d said that.

  This time when she looked at me, Jane held my gaze in a way that unnerved me. There was a wisdom in her eyes that made me feel weirdly younger than she was. “Can I tell you something? Something I haven’t told even Lorna.”

  I nodded, knowing whatever it was, it was important. I didn’t know why she wanted to tell me, and I didn’t know why I wanted to know whatever it was, but I did.

  “I got adopted as a baby.”

  What?

  Seeing my confusion, she nodded, her expression so sad, it made my pulse speed up. “Marissa and Calvin Higgins adopted me when I was nine months old. My name was Margot Higgins.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They couldn’t have kids. The only family they had was Calvin’s mom. She didn’t like Marissa. She didn’t like me. She didn’t like anyone that Calvin loved more than her. I didn’t realize that then.” She gave me a sad smirk. “It’s all the things you piece together when you’re older, you know. All the memories that make sense when you’re not a kid anymore.”

  “Jane … I don’t …” How could she be adopted and then end up back in foster care?

  “They loved me,” she whispered mournfully. “They were Mom and Dad. I was seven when it happened. Car crash. I was at school. They car-shared to work. After they died, that’s when I found out they’d adopted me. That they weren’t my real mom and dad.”

  I felt my stomach sink for her.

  “I used to dance.” She was lost in her thoughts now. “Ballet. But it’s expensive, and I moved from foster parent to foster parent. Paying for ballet lessons wasn’t even a remote possibility. For a while, it’s all I could draw. Ballerinas. Sometimes I still do. Anytime I see a dancer, it reminds me that my life could have been different.” She gave a sad laugh. “But it’s not. It is what it is, and we make the most of what we have. Still, I like to dream about that life. Marissa, my mom, she’d promised when I was a little older, she’d take me to see my first real performance. I’ve still never been to the ballet.”