Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

“What?” I asked, suddenly really afraid.

Ronan leaned in. “Don’t trust anyone,” he said. “Not that fucking driver. Not even your sister.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” That was laughable. But also tragic. Because he’d set the bait so well, and I wanted to trust him.

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t trust me, either.”

I lifted my hand, stepped back against the wall of the elevator and watched his beautiful face until the doors shut and I was hurtling down to a life I didn’t recognize. Couldn’t trust.

And wasn’t sure I even wanted.

13

The summer I was twelve and Zilla was ten, the house changed. There were strange electric currents all originating from our mother. So Zilla and I spent the summer absolutely wild. The staff attempted to rein us in, make us bathe and feed us meals at the table, but Mom with a negligent wave of her hand, ordained our madness. We practically lived under the willow tree by the pond, returning to the house to get jars of peanut butter and cheese sticks from the fridge. Mom would go days without talking to us or seeing us, and then suddenly we’d be whisked up and taken to the city for dinners at fancy restaurants that had to accommodate us in our grubby summer clothes because of who Mom was. If she noticed how dirty we were, how red from days spent outdoors, our complexions an absolute explosion of freckles, she never said. She said nothing about how small all my clothes were. Or how self-conscious I was of the sudden puffiness of my nipples under my t-shirt.

We, however, noticed how Mom grew thinner and thinner. How she smoked non-stop and seemed to have conversations with people who weren’t there.

Mom had turned off the central air and opened the windows, letting in all the heat and humidity, telling us we needed to actually feel the weather instead of living in zip lock bags. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was really hot in our house. We only knew Dad was home because the air would be back on.

But, on what felt like the hottest day of that summer, after a night the cicadas had kept us up with their noise, I was lying listless and sweating in the living room when Zilla came running past me.

“Come on,” she said and kept running. Through the living room, out the formal dining room, out the sliding doors through the sun room where Mom was sleeping in the shade.

I followed. Of course I followed. I chased my sister across the bright green lawn all the way down to the willow tree at the corner of the property right by the pond.

“What are you doing?” I asked, pushing aside the long snaky branches to find my sister Zilla with two cans of Coke she’d snuck out of the fridge. Mom drank the Coke with rum on nights when Dad was working, which that summer was every night. Sometimes Mom would let us have sips. But whole cans were reserved for special occasions that never seemed to come.

In the house where there were no rules, it was the only rule. The Coke was not for us.

“Oh my gosh, you stole them from the fridge.”

“Stole? We live here too.”

There was an argument to be made against Zilla. And usually I made them. But cold drops of condensation were gliding down the bright red cans, and I was so thirsty. And so tired. And, though I’d never say it out loud, so scared of what was happening in our house.

“No one is going to know,” Zilla said, which really wasn’t true, but for a second I decided to believe her. To let the future worry about itself.

We popped open the tops and drank down half the cans in big, long gulps.

The sugar and the cold and the thrill of it went right to my head. I stood up and kicked off my flip flops and peeled off my shorts.

“What are you doing?” Zilla asked.

“I’m going swimming.”

“Naked?” Zilla cried like it was scandalous and amazing. And it was. I was. We went swimming plenty, but always in our swimsuits. Which hung in the tree we were standing under. It would take nothing to just pull them on. But I wasn’t going to waste a precious minute pulling on last year’s speedo that was too small and left bright red marks on my shoulders and thighs.

“Yep.”

Naked as the day I was born, I pushed out from beneath the willow limbs that swept across the bright purple and white heads of the wild violets and went sprinting to the pond.

At the muddy edge of the black water, I paused. Courage deserting me. There were gardeners. And people around. Mom always said there were snakes in the pond, but that never seemed to bother me when I had my suit on. And then Zilla came sprinting past me into the water. Her naked body an arrow into the deep. She surfaced, hair streaming over her wildly happy face.