by Ella Fields
Serenading Heartbreak
Copyright © 2019 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
EPIGRAPH
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
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
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
STAY CONNECTED
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY ELLA FIELDS
For the ones who picked me up when I fell.
He arrived wrapped in warning,
of which I’d never heed.
Every shade of gray,
sunshine and rain-drenched days.
A love that visited
and never stayed.
Again and again and again.
Hearts are such unpredictable things,
you can never control to whom they might sing.
As if he were surprised by the flare of light on his journey through the ground, a worm, swimming through the soil, paused.
My lips wiggled, twitching my nose. With my gloved hand, I shifted the brown soil, being mindful of the worm, before dropping the peony seeds I’d gotten for my fifteenth birthday into the small crevice. Moving the dirt from the tiny mound, I recovered the patch and speared my spade into the soft earth.
“Heads up, Steve!”
My head rose in time to see a shirt sailing through the blue sky. It landed beside me, shaking the grass. I peeled off my gloves and fell back on my butt as my brother walked up the drive.
Trailing him on a banged up BMX bike was a boy I didn’t recognize.
With my hand cupping my brow to block the sun, I feigned disgust to hide my curiosity. “I can smell your stench from here, Henny.”
Hendrix’s lip curled at the use of the nickname I’d dubbed him with as kids. A sign not to call him that in front of company. One I often felt inclined to ignore.
I tilted my head, eyeing the boy with a thick mop of dirty blond hair. “Who are you?”
“That’s Everett.” Hendrix answered for him. “He lives across the street. Just moved here.”
Ignoring my brother, I kept my eyes trained on Everett as he flicked some of his shaggy hair from his face, revealing green eyes. Hard eyes. Like twin emerald jewel stones. The likes of which I’d never seen on a boy before. “Hi.” I offered a smile with the greeting.
Those eyes narrowed on my face for a beat, and then, slowly, he jerked his head in some semblance of a nod.
“I’m Stevie, not Steve,” I said.
Hendrix tossed his skateboard against the front steps, heading for the door.
Everett glanced at my brother, then at his bike, then at me, unsure. “You’re both named after rock stars?”
Still smiling, I nodded. “Our parents’ fault, not ours.”
His lips twitched; it wasn’t a smile but a brief display of amusement. “Right.” He went to turn his bike around.
Rising from the grass, I dusted the dirt from my cutoffs.
“You coming?” Hendrix called from the door.
Everett paused at the end of our drive with his brows scrunched. “Where?”
“Uh, inside.” Hendrix laughed. “Duh.”
The screen door slapped shut behind him, and I gestured for Everett to follow as I moved toward it. “You can leave your bike on the grass if you like.”
He nodded, and I waited for him to follow, some part of me knowing he probably wouldn’t otherwise.
Inside, he kicked off his worn skate shoes. Intense eyes bounced off the faded yellow walls, taking in the pictures and the knickknacks that cluttered the hall table—a key dish, textbooks, a small sloth statue, and treble clef book ends with four books sandwiched between them.
“When did you guys move in?” I asked, turning the faucet on once we’d reached the kitchen and washing my hands.
Body stiff, he was still peering around, eyes aglow with curiosity.
“Everett?”
“Hmm?” He met my gaze, blinking, then shook his head. “Oh, about two weeks ago.”
I dried my hands, then fetched the juice and three glasses. “Where’d you come from?”
“Few hours north.”
Pouring us drinks, I frowned. The clipped words brooked no room for further prodding, so I slid his orange juice over the countertop and took a sip of my own.
It took him a second, but he stepped forward, nodding his thanks before draining half the glass.
“Here it is.” Hendrix entered the small dining area outside our kitchen. “You ever play?” He slapped his acoustic guitar, grinning, his braces glinting in the afternoon light that bathed the dining room.
“No.” Setting his empty glass down, Everett took a cautious step forward. “That’s yours?”
“Yeah, man. Got it last Christmas. I’ll show you some.”
I watched, my back pressed into the counter, as Everett stared at the guitar, then shrugged. “You play. I’ll probably just fuck it up.”
My eyes bulged at how freely he’d cussed, all the while my chest clenched at his words.
Hendrix’s smile grew as if he’d found the best type of new friend. Then he was bounding into the living room, muttering about Bob Dylan and other beginner songs.
Everett didn’t follow. Instead, he stared after him with shifting feet. There was a hole around the big toe of one of his dirt-stained socks.
“You should give it a try,” I encouraged. “It’s fun.”
“You play?” He slid his gaze back to where I was still standing.
It was heavy, that stare, and I wasn’t sure if he knew, or if maybe it was just me. Fighting the urge to train my eyes elsewhere, I shook my head and tucked some of my blond hair behind my ear. “No. I kept trying for a while, but I can’t seem to get the hang of it. Hendrix can play any guitar.” When he said nothing but continued to look at me with his lip between his teeth, I rambled on, “Some people have a knack for it, I guess. I’m just not one of them.”
His teeth released his lip. “You’ve got a clover stuck to your butt.”
Thankfully, he disappeared before he could see my cheeks catch fire.
I brushed the clover from my cutoffs and stared at its crumpled form on the kitchen tiles. How did he notice it when my back was turned… My entire face burned as I remembered he’d followed me inside.
I was about to drag myself to my room when the music stopped, and muffled voices reached me.
Time passed, maybe five minutes or maybe ten, as I listened to Everett fumble over chords in the living room. Dragging my eyes from the clover, I forced my feet to move to the dining table.
Laughter, then Everett’s curses followed by more laughter, bounced off the walls. They kept me company while I started a game of cards on Dad’s computer, and as the rays dripping over the linoleum floor changed from luminous gold to a burnt orange, a familiar tune drifted down the hall. It was clumsy in the hands of a beginner, but I recognized it all the same.
Reshuffling my deck, I bit back a smile.
Sometime later, Everett emerged with something I hadn’t seen since meeting him on our drive. Something so beautiful, it would continue to haunt me years later no matter what I did to erase it.
A smile.
“I guess I’ve got a knack for it, Clover.” His bottom teeth were a little crooked, hugging each other tightly. His top teeth were perfect, save for a tiny chip on the right front tooth. Barely perceptible, unless you stared a beat too long.
I always stared a beat too long.
Bouncing as the bus flew over a speed hump, I grabbed the seat in front of me. My gaze, unwilling to roam too far from him, no matter how much I tried, was stuck on Everett.
He was a grade above me, so I didn’t see much of him at school. But what I did see was almost the same as what I was staring at then. A stone-still boy who looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. As though his surroundings bored him to the point of semi-consciousness.
Clad in ripped jeans and scuffed boots, he sat behind the driver. From my vantage point in the middle of the bus next to Adela, who was furiously scribbling away in that fluffy pink journal of hers, I glanced at the back of the bus.
Penny and her crew sat in the back with a couple of guys from the football team, laughing and tossing gum wrappers at one another. Though they might’ve looked entertained, Penny and her friends’ eyes kept darting to the front of the bus.
To Everett.
I turned back, sighing as I pressed the side of my forehead to the cool glass.
“What’s up?” Adela asked, still writing.
“Nothing.”
“Uh-huh,” she dragged out. “Sure.”
“Your stop.”
The bus pulled over, and a tiny shriek left her as she scrambled to grab her things, shoving the pen between her teeth as she slung her bag over her shoulder and waved.
I laughed, then waved from the window as she dropped her bag to the sidewalk. The other kids walked around her while she took her time putting her journal and pen away.
The doors shut, the bus jerked forward, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from drifting back to the boy at the front.
Only this time, he was staring at me.
I startled, and my lips parted, air falling through them until I forced them to curl into a smile.
His lips shifted, just barely, then he resumed his staring match with the front windshield.
Hendrix had been hanging out with Everett outside of school more, mainly at the skate park. Sometimes, I’d catch them riding home before dinner, and sometimes, I’d hear them in his room, playing Hendrix’s guitar. He wasn’t bad, considering he only played once or twice a week.
The bus lurched and sputtered to three more stops before finally reaching Gardenia Close. I grabbed my bag from between my feet, swinging through the seats as the bus slowed.
Everett got up just as I reached the front and clung tight to the metal pole.
His emerald eyes narrowed.
I offered another small smile, then cleared my throat and threw myself down the stairs as soon as the bus stopped, and the doors smacked open.
As I walked down the street, the soft crunch of Everett’s boots sounded behind me, just as they did on every other day. Something about that day felt different, though, as if I was more aware of every little detail in the world. The crisp breeze that swept in off the sea, and the orange hue of the afternoon sun warming my face and arms.
The steps of worn boots and… the smell of cigarette smoke.
Coming to a stop, I looked over my shoulder, about to ask him why he was smoking, but he was already taking quick strides to his house across the street.
No cars were parked out front, but the driveway was still stained with car fluids from the previous tenants. The grass was a little too long. Weeds sprouted between the cracks in the brick drive and the small, mostly empty, garden beds.
Everett climbed the small hill of the front yard and opened the door, the cigarette still between his fingers as he disappeared through it.
I kicked at some rocks on the concrete sidewalk, then turned and headed inside.
I had homework to do, as well as a load of dirty clothes I told Mom I’d start. Hendrix had not long ago begun soccer again, and Mom and Dad were a little uneasy about having me home alone after school since they didn’t finish work until five.
Sick of hanging out at Mom’s work while I waited for her to finish, I promised them I’d be fine, and that they’d see just how much they could trust me after one week.
They’d looked at me with not a small amount of wariness but had eventually folded. I tried not to grumble about the fact they thought Hendrix was more mature just because he was older than me by sixteen months.
Hendrix was often the furthest thing from mature.
I stuffed the clothes from the hamper into the machine, not bothering to separate the colors from the whites like Dad preferred. I never did on my days to wash, and he never seemed to notice. I had no intentions of wasting my life fussing over items of clothing, thank you. They were to be purchased, comfortable, and worn, then washed and dried. No frills and no fuss.
Digging a bruise-free apple out of the fruit bowl, I chomped on it as I unpacked my bag, setting my math homework on the dining table with my favorite pack of crayons.
Then I put some music on.
That was the thing about living in a house with fellow music lovers and musicians. Rarely did one ever get to listen to their preference for too long, unless we retired to our rooms or used headphones.
Between the end and start of a new song, a knock sounded on the door.
I tossed what remained of my apple into the trash, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand on my way down the hall.
Everett stood on the other side of the door, blinking slowly and trying to hide a tiny gash on his bottom lip that hadn’t been there before by scratching at his long nose.
“What happened?”
He ignored my question. “Hendrix here?”
“He’s at soccer practice.” I felt a pang in my bottom lip when he stepped back and rubbed a thumb over the cut. “He didn’t tell you?”
His golden brows tugged in, and he nodded. “He did, guess I forgot.”
I swallowed, unsure of what to do. I knew he needed a place to be at the very least. “Wanna wait for him here?”
He blew out a breath, looking back at his house, then nodded again, brushing past me to head inside.
In the kitchen, I grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, and while wrapping them in a layer of paper towel, I tried again. “What happened to your lip?”
“Fuck,” he hissed, slumping into a seat at the dining table. “Nothing.” Within seconds, his fingers were drumming to the beat of “Gimme Shelter” by the Stones. “Just… mind your business, Clover.”
I knew he’d tacked on the odd nickname to help soften the raspy blow, but it didn’t work. A wave of ice still blew over my skin—pricking, crawling, chilling.
I carried the peas to the table and retook my seat. “At least put this on it.”
I didn’t wait for his
reaction or even look at him before I picked up my crayon and resumed the mind-numbing task of long division.
The music played on, Everett’s fingers tapping committedly as he held the ice pack to his mouth with his other hand. Eventually, he spoke. His quiet, rough voice almost inaudible. “You do math in crayon?”
I flipped the page, tapping the tip of the florescent pink on the paper as I stared at the equation. “Yup.”
“Why?”
Dropping the crayon, I rested my chin on my hand and met his curious stare. “Because I want to.”
“That’s not a reason.”
My brows jumped, and I held back a smile. “Whatever.” I grabbed the crayon and finished the page, feeling his attention hot on my head the whole time.
He waited until I finished to ask again. “So… why use the crayons?”
“God,” I groaned. “Is this payback for asking about your lip? Why do you care so much?”
“No.” He tipped a shoulder, sitting back in his seat. “I just wanna know because of how six-year-old it is.”
“That sentence makes no sense.”
“Sure, it does,” he said, lip curling. He winced as it split, a droplet of blood bubbling to the surface. He smeared it away with the side of his hand. “Fuck, Clover. Just answer me.”
“I don’t know,” I snapped, irritated as to why it was so important he get an answer. “It just… I guess it makes me happy while doing something that makes me unhappy.”
Satisfaction remodeled his features. Hard was now soft, sharp cheekbones rising and his teeth flashing with his grin. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I closed my book. “Go play Hendrix’s acoustic or something.”
He did, standing from the table and leaving me to get started on my English reading.
Words blurred into gray blobs, my ability to focus sufficiently stolen.
Clumsy strumming echoed from the living room, and then a riff I didn’t recognize slowly stitched together.
I ditched my book, pushing back from the table and walking toward the sound as if it was tugging at something inside me, forcing me closer with every note.
Everett had his eyes downcast, fixed on his moving fingers as his body began to sway with their skill. After another minute, he stopped, jotted something down in a notebook on the coffee table, then went to start again. Before he did, he said, “Need something, Clover?”