This has all been done for me. This is my very own bedroom, right here, ready and waiting for me in the Hemsworth’s home. Not my home, theirs.
“He always knew you would end up here someday,” she says quietly.
My hands are running across every low surface I can reach in shock. I need to touch it, feel it, and I need to believe I’m really seeing this.
“I don’t know what to say,” I choke, my voice strangled in my throat.
“Just say you’ll never leave.”
I perch myself down on the bed as slowly as I can, looking up to see her eyes filled with tears. I’m not sure how to even begin expressing how much love I have for this girl, but what comes out doesn’t seem enough at all.
“I won’t leave. I’ll never go back,”
Her sad eyes meet mine from across the room. “Happy birthday, Izzy.”
A small smile creeps upon my face at the same time as a solitary tear falls down my cheek. “You’ve just given me the best birthday present I could ever have got.”
“I know.” She smiles back. “Believe me. I know.”
*******
My seventeenth birthday proves to be more than just a birthday to me. Most people are born the day they arrive in this world. They take their first breath, open their eyes, take in their surroundings and then they scream. It’s the same for most. The moment they are held in their parent’s arms is the moment they truly begin to live.
Not me.
I was born on the 4th February, 1999 in so many different ways.
In the morning, I went from being a girl to a woman. I lost my innocence in a way not many others have lost theirs before. Then I went home and lost my youth. My parents have turned their backs on me and I have happily walked away, and even though that walk was painful, it was also freeing. My wings have spread and finally, I feel like I am soaring.
The moment Dandy realises I’m in his home to stay will remain one of my favourite memories for all eternity. Not a single word passes his lips as I walk down the stairs, into the kitchen and sit down for dinner. A quick glance at his biological daughter, a swift nod of her head and a smile and he knows exactly what is going on.
In this moment, I love him more than I’ve ever loved him before. No questions are asked, no demands to go to the hospital, no looking at me like I’m an injured puppy, just a quiet look of respect thrown my way before we all sit down to eat… as a family… like families should.
I am a Hemsworth now.
And I dare anyone to suggest otherwise to any of us.
The days that follow pass us by in the blink of an eye. I’m trying to keep myself to myself as I adjust to life without fear. Paris’ dad hasn’t made any reference to the incident or my obvious injuries. I’m assuming he knows I know myself well enough to call for help should I need him, but I know I won’t. I just have to ride out the healing stage and that’s when I really will begin to enjoy my newfound freedom.
I’m certainly not in for an easy ride whilst living here, though. The chores chart in the kitchen proves that. My name has sat beneath Paris’ on that thing since the morning after I officially moved in. We have a rota system for cleaning, laundry, washing cars, gardening and even cooking. My best friend moans about the jobs she has to do every single day. Not me. I relish them. They provide a sense of normality that I’ve never had before. It’s impossible to explain how much joy I get from seeing the proud faces of my new parents once I’ve completed a task without even being asked to do it.
Paris thinks I’m brown-nosing. I wish I could explain to her how much I’m not, but instead I just laugh it off as much as I can, enjoying the fact that I can push and shove her around and she can’t retaliate while I’m still living in this half broken body.
Luckily for me, my birthday fell on the weekend before the half-term holidays. I’ve not had to cross paths with Matt since I left his house soon after we had sex. I’m not sure how I’m going to even begin to deal with that when we go back in two days, but, for some reason, I feel more confident in my ability to deal with almost anything since living in this house. The way this couple of adults instil both Paris and I with such confidence and encouragement... it's impossible to describe. I finally understand why my best friend has always been the way she is and why she fears nothing or no-one that stands in her way.
Maybe if I stay here with them long enough, if I’m allowed to stay here until we someday leave for university, I just might end up that way, too.
Suddenly, the future that lies before me seems a whole lot brighter than the one I saw less than a week ago. It almost feels like nothing can ruin this high that I’m riding at the moment. The freedom, the joy, the support, the comfort, the love and the energy I’m being shown is addictive.
The only pain I suffer now is one I’m not sure will ever truly go away, no matter how much I try to beat it, and that’s the feeling of disappointment. Because, even though I told them not to, I thought they might try to look for me and convince me to come home. I thought one of them would care enough to at least make sure I have a roof over my head or that I am safe.
But I’ve heard nothing. Not one single thing, which means one of two things: my parents never truly loved me and leaving was as much of a relief to them as it was to me. Or…
Mr. Hemsworth has warned them off for good.
If my instincts are right, I have a feeling it means both.
Nine
15th April, 1999
“Kiss me here.” I point to my neck.
His lips hover over my skin, his warm breath causing goose-bumps to ripple across my body before he lands his mouth against me with nothing but tenderness.
“Good.” I half smile. “Now here.”
Matt moves his lips to my temple, working his way around every sensitive spot on my face before falling back down to my other shoulder as the backs of his hands trail down my arms torturously slowly.
“Hmm,” I moan and close my eyes.
“My dick's aching against my jeans, Moffy.”
“Sshh,” I say quietly, my tongue trailing across my bottom lip. “You want to get this right, don't you?”
His grunt of annoyance tells me how nervous he is.
Shuffling around on the beanbag in the tree house, I somehow straighten my back and try to focus on the task in hand rather than how good Matt's mouth feels on me.
“Don't assume just because you can be blunt with me about sex that the other girls out there are going to like it,” I warn him.
“I know that. Believe me; I know you're not like the others.”
Pushing against his shoulders, I open my eyes and raise a brow in question.
“You know what I fucking mean,” he grumbles, falling back on his arse in a defeated heap as his hand fists his hair in frustration.
I feel bad for him, really bad, actually. I don't know what to say to make it any easier. Tonight's going to be tough and of course he's going to be as nervous as hell, but what he wants me to do about it, I'm just not sure anymore.
“Katy Palmer is just another girl. Stop putting her on a pedestal and freaking yourself out,” I say softly, shuffling closer to hold his hand in his lap. Despite wanting to dislike him, I've actually grown pretty fond of Matt Cooper.
His eyes lock with mine, “She's the most popular girl in our school. If I fuck this date up, she could ruin me.”
“And you don't think she's thinking the same? Matt, come on. You hold all the cards, here. She'll be shitting bricks right now.”
“She's slept with half our school.”
I can't help but roll my eyes. “So?”
“I've only ever slept with you,” he says quietly.
I don't know why that makes me smile so much. If only people knew that I was the girl to have taken Matt's innocence… repeatedly. We've become friends with benefits for the last four months without ever intending to be this way. There isn't much we haven't done, except for making love. We've stayed away from all the mushy stuff as much as w
e can. I don't need the hassle right now and, quite frankly, neither does he.
“Just because you haven't had as many partners doesn't mean you haven't had more experience. We're seventeen, Matt, and we've tried half the Karma Sutra,” I laugh.
His face turns serious and I know he isn't in the mood for playing. “I've heard she's a screamer.”
“Ooo…” I cringe, pulling my eyes tight together.
“Yeah.”
“And I'm not,” I say for him, already knowing what he's thinking.
“Nope.” He smiles to himself while picking at an invisible piece of thread on his trousers. “But I like that about you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, because I know every reaction you have is real. The soft moans you don't realise you make in my ear, the way your breath catches in your throat when I touch you in a way I know you like.” He smirks as my hand instantly reaches out to bat his shoulder to try and hide the obvious blush on my cheeks.
“I couldn't ever fake it. I'm no actress.”
“You're just you, Moffy.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
His fingers brush against the heat on one cheek before straying to my hair and tucking it behind my ear. “It's a beautiful thing.”
The silence around us seems to thicken. It’s awkward where it’s never been awkward before. I’m not sure how to break it without saying something I know I will regret, so instead, I just smile flatly at him, not wanting him to see how much those four words just meant to me. Not because I’m in love with him or want us to be together. No, it’s more than that. Someone other than Paris, for the first time in my life, has just pointed out that me being me is a beautiful thing.
And I’ll hold onto that moment forever.
“Thank you,” I eventually whisper, my breath hitching without intention as he stares back at me. Oh, shit! It wasn’t meant to do that.
A small frown creases his brows as his eyes search mine. The gaze between us both is intense. It’s never been like this before and I know I need to do or say something quickly.
“You should go. You only have an hour to go before you have to meet Katy, and you still need to go home and change.” I swallow as slowly as I can, desperate for it not to be heard in the quiet of this sanctuary of mine. “And shower. Wash me off you. If she smells another woman’s perfume, you’re done for.”
“Go,” he breathes as he quickly releases the side of my face before dropping his hand onto his lap and clearing his throat. “Yes. I need to go. Fuck. See what happens when we start talking?” His laugh is off, kind of squeaky, like mine gets when I know I’ve almost just put my foot in it.
I want to let him know that it’s okay and I’m fine. We’re just friends. I don’t feel used by him or dislike our arrangement. How can I when it was all my idea in the first place? But I can’t say anything. The guilt on his face is making me stare back at him.
“Get out of here, loser,” I chuckle, quickly jumping to my feet, dusting off my knees and making my way over to the ladder at the end of the room. “Go get your prize.”
“I’ll do my best.” He smiles to himself, his head still turned down away from me.
As my feet hit the top rung and I grip the edge of the floor to descend, I can’t help but whistle over at him until he looks up at me. “Matt…”
“Yeah?”
“If Katy Palmer has a single brain cell in her pretty red head, she will know she’s on to a good thing already. Don’t sweat it. You got this. Just be you and you can’t go wrong.”
He huffs out a small laugh before dropping his head again. “Thanks, Moffy.”
“And if she doesn’t have a brain cell, which wouldn’t surprise me, just toss the pebbles at my window after midnight and I’ll come sort you out.” His head shoots up as he starts to laugh out loud right about the same time I shoot him a wink, blow him a kiss and make my way out of the tree house.
My battered converse crunch against the overgrown weeds as I throw myself down to the ground, shove my hands in my pocket and start to make my way back home. My mind races with possible scenarios for Matt’s date tonight, nine out of ten of them ending with him and Katy Palmer walking off into the sunset to find a hole to fall down so they can shag like rabbits and live happily ever after together. Yet, there’s another scenario I can’t seem to ignore. It plays out over and over again in my head, forcing me to smile like a love sick puppy as I walk out into the open field and kick my feet against the long blades of grass. It’s the one I hope doesn’t happen for his sake, but selfishly hope happens for mine.
Making my way through the back garden gate to my home with Paris, I pause outside the back step and glance at the floor around me. Leaning down, I scoop up a hand full of decorative stones from Dandy’s fancy flower garden and drop them on the side of the pathway, my eyes quickly looking up to my room with excitement.
Not that I’m expecting him to turn up or anything.
Just… you know… in case he does.
Ten
1st April, 2000
He’s been dating her for almost a year. They’re the most popular couple in the whole of our school. Everybody adores them to the point of worshipping the ground their feet walk upon. Their parents holiday together and couldn’t be happier about the Palmer-Cooper union. Their dads golf together every other weekend.
It’s all so perfect.
But in every fairy tale there’s a villain, and that villain just so happens to be me.
Neither of us could stop it even if we wanted to. We are now a bad habit for each other. Some people smoke, others drink and some take drugs. My addiction is him and his is me. I’m his dirty little secret, the one he casts glances at across the classroom while the girl who sits beside him files her nails and bores him to death with tales of a-line dresses versus pleated skirts. I’m the girl he goes to when he feels like he can’t talk to anyone else. I know everything about him - all his hopes, his fears, and his dreams - yet the reality of the situation is this: I’m just not from the same world as him. We can never be together because our lives just don’t fit. We don’t fit.
Paris hates him because she sees it when she looks at me, the desire to have more. She thinks he uses me and wants to have both his cake and eat it. No matter how many times I tell her this arrangement was all my idea, she refuses to believe it. Maybe there’s a small hidden side of me even she doesn’t know.
I’ve not slept with anyone else in fourteen months. I don’t need to. I get mine and that's enough. I don’t date. I don’t go out much unless there’s some house party that Paris is dragging me along to. I’m always mindful not to take the piss out of the two people who have given me a second chance at life. But the truth is, Matt is the one thing that’s keeping my mind off the fact that one of those people is currently struggling to cling onto his life. Whenever I sleep with Matt, I lose myself in something other than worrying about my Dandy. I'm doing the same thing I chastised her for doing all those months ago. I’m the ultimate hypocrite, so I try to make up for my behaviour in other areas of my life.
I go to school every day, I’m never off sick, all my homework is handed in on time and I study hard… really hard. My abilities to absorb and learn do not come naturally. It’s a concerted effort every day to battle on and be something more than I already am. A quiet determination runs through me to be more than my parents ever thought I could be.
And it’s that very same fire that is currently fuelling my need to get through this five thousand word history essay that’s due in tomorrow. My head throbs with left-wing versus right-wing, Stalin versus Trotsky, primitive farming versus revolutionary arms factories. Gah! I just want to breathe.
“Fuck you, Stalin,” I mutter quietly at the dining table, not even aware that anyone else is in the room around me until I feel his hand upon my shoulder.
“I didn’t hear that.”
My whole body tenses, but not in the same way it would have done had I lived at home w
ith my actual parents. This time it tenses to hold in the laughter. It is one thing to be caught out, but it’s a whole other thing to be caught out and disrespect him by laughing about it.
Mr. Hemsworth slides out a chair beside me and slowly eases himself down into it, one arm resting on the table while the other wraps around my shoulder, allowing him to lean over and quietly read some of the text from my notebook aloud.
“You spelt that wrong.” He points to the word that should say mediocre, but actually says mediogre. “I know Stalin was a tyrant but I don’t think he was an actual ogre. Although, it would explain a lot, I suppose.”
I laugh softly, quickly erasing the error with a blob of Tippex, before blowing on the sheet of paper to help it dry sooner. “Thanks, Dandy.”
His hand squeezes the base of my neck gently and I can’t help but notice how much he doesn’t even smell like himself anymore as he pulls me down to kiss the top of my head. He used to have a special scent about him - one I can’t even begin to describe without making him sound like he worked in a bakery by day and rolled around in fields of lavender at night. But it was there and it was him. Now it’s gone and all I can smell is the clinical medicines that run through his veins and the endless amounts of pills he has to swallow every damn day.
“Where’s your wingman?” he asks quietly.
My eyes flicker up to him before I look back down, hovering the pen back over the paper. “She had extra tutoring with Mrs Cracknell, after school.”
Izzy Moffit's Road to Wonderland (Road to Wonderland Series Book 1) Page 7