Home is Where the Heart Is (Home #1)

by Cheynee Filkov

  Sweat and blood dribbled into her eyes and rolled down her clammy skin as she continued to run. How was she ever going to be able to face her parents like this? There would be questions, questions she wasn’t willing to answer, questions that would break her completely if she had to relive the memories.

  “Isabelle!” Tate bellowed.

  She froze, he’d come after her. Damnit Tate, did you always have to be so dependable? She could not let him see her like this, could not allow this sort of weakness in front of him.

  Fresh tears wet her cheeks and she began to feel anxious and trapped. What was the lesser of two evils?

  She pulled out her phone and checked the time. One in the morning.

  She turned towards Tate then back to her house weighing up her options. With only a moment’s hesitation she ran towards her house, praying her parents were fast asleep.

  With shaking hands she turned her key in the door and barely made it inside before Tate was slapping his hands on the wooden door.

  “Isabelle! Open up this door!”

  “Just go away, Tate,” she rasped.

  “What the hell did he do to you?” he demanded. “You disappear for ages and then when I see you there’s blood on your fucking face and you’re sprinting away from me!”

  “You’re seeing things, I’m just tired and want to go to bed.”

  “Stop treating me like I’m a fucking idiot, we both know you would never just leave me there without saying anything, and I know what I saw.”

  “I… I tried to break up a fight and got caught in the middle,” she lied, speaking through the sobs trying to force their way out. “I knew you would over react and I just wanted to go home.”

  There was a long pause and then a shuffling noise as he slid down the door. Isabelle did the same so that they were back to back with the solid wooden door between them.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Tate said matter of factly.

  Panic gripped her chest again. Tate couldn’t hurt Jason without raising questions that would lead back to her parents and her dad going to prison when he heard and reacted with violence against Jason. No one could know, not here and not ever.

  “Just go home, Tate.”

  “Belle, I love you and I would do anything for you but...”

  “But you won’t do that?” she quipped, resting her pounding head against her knees.

  “Just let me in,” he pleaded. “Let me be there for you and we’ll find a way through this together. I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about, I just want to fix whatever has you spooked.”

  Fix? Because she was broken now, wasn’t she? Already her skin no longer felt like her own, and her mind was warring against her, planting poisonous seeds of blame.

  One day left and then she was leaving, would never have to come back to this place or deal with this if she didn’t want to.

  “I love you too,” she whispered. “I really am tired and just want to go to bed. Can you please just give me a little space?”

  Tate sighed deeply through the door. “Fine, I’ll give you tonight, but we are going to talk about this. Whenever you’re ready, whatever you need – I’m here, ok?”

  Isabelle stayed silent until Tate couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Belle?”

  “OK.”

  “Don’t shut me out,” he begged in a tortured whisper and then he was gone.

  Slowly getting to her feet and trying not to whimper in pain, Isabelle moved through the dark house and found no sign of her parents anywhere. Vaguely she remembered her mum telling her they were staying in the city after her dad’s work farewell party. Thank god.

  Leaving all the lights off and just relying on her phone to guide her, Isabelle slowly made her way to the bathroom. She waited until the door was softly shut before she turned on the light, then frantically turned her phone off before Tate could bombard her with calls.

  Her whole body shook as she worked up the courage to turn around and look in the mirror.

  You can do this, just take a deep breath and then you can work out the damage control.

  Giving herself until three she hesitantly turned around to face her reflection and had to fiercely grip the counter so that she didn’t collapse in a heap.

  A mess of blood and ruined mascara stared back at her with a fat lip, swollen eye and bruises spreading around her neck and face. She wrapped her arms around her chest to try and keep from shattering apart.

  How was she going to hide this from her parents?

  With great effort she pulled her ruined clothes off her aching body, turned the shower on and stepped under the hot jets of water, letting the liquid run over her body, washing away the filth that she felt imbedded in her pores.

  The sobs came one after the other and wracked her entire body until she was lying on the floor, convulsing and biting her fist so she didn’t scream the house down. She could still feel his hands on her, touching her in places she had never given anyone permission to touch before. Turning her head towards the drain, bile rose from her throat and spilled out of her mouth.

  This had to be a nightmare. She was going to wake up any second now and she could laugh about this with Tate tomorrow.

  It had to be a nightmare… because if it wasn’t she had no idea how to bounce back from this, or if it was even possible to move on and put this behind her.

  After about an hour the water started to turn cold. Isabelle slowly climbed to her feet, turned the water off and wrapped the warm fluffy towel around her body. With a few more deep breaths she braced herself for the second glimpse of her reflection.

  Her eye was still swollen and the bruises were still forming, but with the blood washed off she didn’t look like she’d been hit by a truck anymore. In fact, Isabelle was confident that she could pass it off like she tried to break up a fight and got caught in the middle of it all.

  Maybe she could even pretend like every part of her wasn’t falling apart… that she was not broken, possibly even ruined forever. Maybe when she moved to her new school she could just pretend to be someone else so that she didn’t have to feel the agony of being her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JACE

  The waves rocked him gently as the sun warmed his back. Jace lay on his surf board tuning his best friend’s incessant babbling out while he contemplated just letting the waves carry him away and getting lost in the ocean.

  Would it really be so bad? Drifting away into the open beauty and then just letting go? His legs actually twitched in preparation as he pictured himself kicking away and then sinking into the abyss.

  “Dude, are you even listening to me?” Matt asked impatiently.

  “Nope.”

  “Can you at least try to pretend?”

  “Probably not.”

  Matt sighed deeply as he muttered about Jace being moody today.

  That was a bald faced lie if Jace had ever heard one because he was moody pretty much every day for the last of couple years. He had to give Matt credit, because he had never given up on him, even though Jace had given him about three million opportunities to do just that. This was the true test of friendship though – standing by someone even when they didn’t deserve it.

  “You’re doing it again!”

  Jace sighed and sat up so he could give his attention to Matt. “OK, you’ve got my attention princess. What’s up?”

  “I asked if you were going to take Kimberley to formal.”

  “Why the hell would I do a fool thing like that?” Jace snapped.

  “You guys have been on and off for ages, and you were hung up on her, so...”

  “It’s off and is going to stay that way. Why are we even talking about this, it’s like nine months away.”

  His best friend was a chick, hands down.

  Matt rolled his eyes then. “Dude, you need to start paying better attention to things. The girls have been planning this like it’s their wedding. Me and the boys have already locked down our dates, we�
�re just waiting on you.”

  Frustration filled Jace because, of course, he’d been left out of this too. Wasn’t that always the way? He was the last to be invited to the vanilla parties since no one wanted to deal with the drama that would inevitably follow him. Ignored at school when he even bothered to show up because the teachers had written him off, and banned from family holidays because generally any holidays his mother took were to get away from him.

  “I’ll go alone then,” Jace told him curtly and then began to paddle back to shore.

  His arms were burning by the time he was carrying his board onto the warm sand and jogging towards the logs where they’d stashed their things and where his sister Maia was sun baking.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as soon as she saw his face.

  “Don’t just storm off like that, dude,” Matt puffed as he ran up to them, too winded to sound as cranky as he looked. “I’m sorry, OK? I didn’t know if you would actually care enough to go.”

  “If you really thought that, why bother fucking asking me?”

  They glared at one another for a few moments.

  Maia’s big brown eyes watched them both intently for a moment and then a huge smile spread across her pixie face.

  “Lover’s quarrel?”

  Matt rolled his eyes at her. “Babe, I don’t know how many times we’re going to have to go through this; it’s you that I want.”

  “You spend more time in his room than mine.”

  When Matt looked over to Jace for help, Jace just blew his friend a kiss and shrugged at his sister.

  “What we have is real - sorry Squirt.”

  Maia flicked her long black hair over her shoulder as she threw her head back and laughed.

  “I knew it! Besides stealing my boyfriend, what are your plans tonight?”

  “Tyler is throwing a party,” Matt said. “It could be fun.”

  Maia wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Tyler? Gross, please tell me you’re not serious.”

  They both turned to Jace, Matt with a pleading expression, and Maia clearly showing here disapproval as they waited for his answer.

  Honestly, he couldn’t think of anything he would rather do less. He was well aware of his reputation as a useless stoner who was going nowhere fast, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the title. After being left the man of the house after the drama with his dad, it was getting harder to pretend that it didn’t kill him every time he came home smelling like a brewery and his Mum couldn’t even muster the energy to yell at him.

  “Jace? Hello? Did you hear me?” Maia called.

  Jace looked up and shrugged. He would hate himself for this tomorrow but honestly, where else was he going to go?

  Disappointment flashed in Maia’s eyes before she flipped her sunglasses back down like a shield and turned away.

  “I hope you have fun.”

  “I intend to.”

  Practised liars, the both of them.

  “We’re going to get some lunch babe, you want anything?” Matt asked as he leant down to brush his lips against her forehead, then cheek and finally her lips until a small smile began to form.

  “No, I’m going to head home soon and have lunch with Mum. She mentioned something about a removalist truck arriving next door so I wanted to check it out.”

  “Hoping it’s a new dude and you can upgrade me?”

  “No, I’m hoping they’re a contract killer and I never have to get my hands dirty when you and Jace inevitably piss me off.”

  Jace looked away after Matt pulled his cranky sister onto his lap and began peppering kisses over every inch of skin he could find, which was a lot since she was dressed in only a string bikini.

  His chest constricted painfully like it always did when he was around the two of them. They were a constant reminder of the emptiness he felt in his chest and everything missing in his worthless life.

  “I’m hungry,” he grunted in exasperation after five minutes of their nonsense. “Either get yourself a room or get off my sister so we can eat.”

  Matt reluctantly pulled himself away with a final kiss and trudged after Jace as if he were being marched to his death, like the dramatic little shit that he was.

  “You’re going to see her in an hour, stop being a pussy.”

  “If you actually loved someone you would be a bit more sympathetic.”

  Ouch. The words stung even though Matt wasn’t trying to be cruel. Yet another reminder of all he was incapable of feeling.

  Seeing the look on Jace’s face, Matt grabbed his arm to stop him from walking.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

  Jace shrugged him off and kept walking so he didn’t have to deal with Matt’s brown pitying eyes, or the rawness in his chest at the truth of the words. He just wanted to get lunch and then pass out for a couple hours before he got to the party and could soar towards oblivion.

  *

  Hours later the sun had set and the party was in full swing, which basically meant that everyone was drunk, having sex or on some kind of chemically induced high.

  As much as he hated going to these things and pretending to relate to these people who just had no damn clue that there was a depth and darkness in him no one could touch, he couldn’t deny that there were some perks to being dragged along.

  Jace smiled lazily as he handed the joint back and let his head fall back on the couch.

  Numb. Was there any better feeling in the world? A reprieve from guilt, shame, anger, anxiety and self-loathing.

  His smiled broadened. This was his favourite part of being dragged to parties. The carefree buzz that filled his head every time he took a drag; the feeling of being freed as all his worries drifted away in a puff of smoke.

  “Hey baby,” a sultry voice murmured.

  A weight pressed on his knees and he looked down to find his Ex, Kimberley, smiling at him as she sat on his lap.

  He fought against every urge to roll his eyes. “Not now, I’m buzzing.”

  “I can make you feel even better,” she whispered into his ear as her hand trailed across his pant line.

  “No.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He sat up and just looked at her. Her red hair was a tangled mess as it stuck to her chest

  and face, her brown eyes were blood shot and lazy. Her thin frame was emaciated

  with only a few scraps of clothing covering her, and she was giving off intense waves of ‘fuck you’.

  He couldn’t believe he had ever thought she was beautiful. He tried to blink away the haze and focus on her features. He supposed he could still see how she could be classified as pretty. But honestly, the way her foundation was wearing on her skin, her red lips cracked, and cheeks smeared with a truck full of bronzer, she was doing everything she could to ruin it.

  He finally pointed to a group of guys in the corner. “Try there, they’ve been eyeing you all night.”

  She dug her nails into his hip and he could feel the clouds dispersing and the blinding reality crashing through his high.

  “I’m not leaving until I get what I want,” she hissed.

  The blinding rage that seemed to come on so quickly and without warning penetrated his mellow defence and he pushed her off him roughly.

  “Then I’ll leave. You’ve killed my buzz any way.”

  “Don’t walk away from me, I’m not done yet!”

  He half turned and shrugged at her. “But we are, remember? Didn’t you say I wasn’t worth your time? That you needed to find someone that wasn’t broken?”

  Her anger faded and she softened. “Jace, I was wrong… I was…”

  “You were right,” he said bluntly. “Tell Matt I bailed.”

  Without waiting for a response he breezed out of the door into the crisp air and stumbled his way down the street.

  It was eerie how quiet it was around him. There were no animals making any noise, no television sets playing, not even people up this late and socialising. It was li
ke walking through a dead, empty town. Which was pretty fitting, seeing as that was how he felt most of the time.

  Fuck Kimberley. With every step he took he became more and more aware of the feelings he had been pushing deep down. He was starting to feel the slap of reality beating at him, and the spectrum of emotions he had done all he could to suppress rearing their ugly head.

  It was too hard. Making his Mum proud, picking up the pieces his Dad left, maintaining a social life, and being a good student. It was all too much and he was breaking under all of the pressure. He was failing everything and he just couldn’t seem to make it right no matter how hard he tried.

  He stared up at the sky, noticing how bright the stars were next to the pearly full moon. Maybe he could grab a change of clothes and head to the beach for a swim to finish off what he’d started earlier that day.

  He approached his front door cautiously, and gave his jacket a sniff before attempting to do anything further. Ah shit - there was no way his mum was going to buy that he walked passed a smoker this time, and he was sure his breath wasn’t minty fresh either.

  He checked his watch. Two a.m. There was a pretty good chance she hadn’t bothered to wait up but he wasn’t sure if he could risk it. He knew she wouldn’t punish him and that was the problem. He was too much of a coward to face her sad, disappointed eyes and the silence that would follow.

  With a deep breath he headed around the side and began to climb the drain pipe up to his balcony that lead from his room. With his buzz gone, he only slipped once, and made it up with minimal noise.

  If he was lucky, his Mum wouldn’t even stir and he could try and clean himself up before crashing. All thoughts tonight of going back to the beach for the final swim were eliminated by his weariness….maybe another time.

  Jace was just about to open the doors and head inside when he felt it; that sense of being watched.

  He spun around suddenly and found a shadow watching him from the balcony next door.