Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  Clones of each other basically.

  They had rich brown hair like Phoenix, only it fell to their middle back and looked like there were random dreads here and there. It was a very cool look, but surprising on girls as young as them. Then I remembered his hippie parents and maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

  “Is, uh, Phoenix here?” I asked them.

  They shared a conspiratorial look with each other, turned to face the staircase and shouted, “Phoenix!” at the same time. When he didn’t answer immediately, they shouted his name again.

  “Girls!” Their mother laughed from the couch. “Go get him! He probably has his music on.”

  She pulled herself up from the couch and ambled over to me. Her long hair matched her daughters, only it was completely dreaded and woven with long ribbons and beads. Her face was completely bare of makeup, but she looked younger that way.

  “Hey, honey,” she grinned at me. “You’re a friend of Phoenix?”

  “I am,” I smiled at her. “We went to school together.”

  “Come on in, he just got home.” She opened the screen door and I stepped inside. Phoenix’s dad waved at me from the couch. A little boy, that could only be Buzzard, was tucked into his side.

  Before I could introduce myself further, Phoenix bounded down the stairs as loudly as humanly possible. He stopped halfway, put his hands on either side of the banister and jumped down the rest of the steps.

  I braced myself just in time for him to crash into me. He threw his arms around me and picked me up in a tight bear hug.

  “The Ginga Ninja!” he shouted in my ear.

  “Hey, kid,” I murmured against his chest. “How ya been?”

  He pulled back and looked down at me. His intelligent eyes moved over my face and down my body. I watched him pass approval over me, as if he expected a drug problem or some kind of physical deformity.

  His eyes melted into compassion and his voice gentled when he said, “I’m good, Ives. You okay?”

  “Can we talk actually?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t hesitate; he turned me around by the shoulders and pushed me up the stairs. To his parents he said, “I’m taking a girl to my room. Nobody bother me.”

  “Be safe!” yelled his father.

  “Use a condom!” shouted his mother.

  I felt my face flame with embarrassment. I shot a look at Phoenix over my shoulder and he rolled his eyes.

  “I told you,” he mumbled. “At least they didn’t offer you a hit off their community bong.”

  I laughed and it turned into something more. I reached the top of the steps and had to brace myself against the wall because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t make a sound or catch my breath.

  It felt so good. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed like this or let myself find something funny. I had been melancholy and depressed for as long as I had been alive, but this was something to laugh at.

  The feeling bubbled through me and consumed my body whole. Phoenix continued to guide me to his room where I collapsed on the edge of his bed and wiped away tears.

  “It’s not that funny!” he chided on a grin.

  “It’s super funny,” I argued.

  It took me another minute to get myself under control. Phoenix sunk down next to me and rested his elbows on his lanky knees. He looked just like I remembered him plus a few days of stubble.

  “What happened to you, Ivy?” He’d lost all of the good humor from a few minutes ago. I hated the notes of sadness in his voice… the tone of betrayal. I hadn’t even said goodbye to Phoenix last fall.

  “I’m in trouble,” I said honestly. “I need a place to crash for the night. I was hoping you wouldn’t turn me away?”

  “Of course you can stay here. That’s never a question. But I want to know what happened. Where did you go? Where have you been? Why did you take my bro’s heart and toss it into a blender? You murdered his soul, Ivy. I need some kind of explanation.”

  “Geez, Phoenix.” I rubbed my sweaty palms on the maxi skirt I’d been wearing for way too long. Sitting on this bed and not feeling the constant surge of anxiety I’d suffered from for the last forty-eight hours, I suddenly realized how tired I was. The plane here had been long and exhausting and ever since my feet landed on Nebraska soil again, there had been one thing after another.

  I needed sleep.

  But I also owed Phoenix at least part of an explanation. I couldn’t tell him everything, but I could give him enough answers to ease his curiosity.

  “I come from a really bad home,” I started on a sigh. “Like really bad, Phoenix. Like nothing you’ve ever heard of before.”

  “You were abused?” He snapped upright, his fists clenched on his thighs.

  “Yes.” The word fell from my mouth as a heavy rock, landing in the space between us. I wanted to take it back, swallow it down and bury it forever. That was hard for me to admit to someone else, to someone like Phoenix, who complained about his own home life, but who also had it pretty good in comparison. “I was abused.”

  “How, Ivy? Physically? Verbally? Emotionally…?” His voice trailed off and I heard his final question left unspoken: Sexually?

  “Yes,” I answered. “All of those.”

  He grimaced, a fierce sound scraping from his chest. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I did,” I whispered. “I told Ryder.”

  He was quiet for a few moments until he said, “That explains a lot actually.”

  “Yeah, well, I had an opportunity to get out, to escape and I took it. I know I left Ryder behind. I know I destroyed whatever was between us. But I had to get out, Phoenix. I had to leave. I could not stay when there was a chance the life I lived was going to kill me.” I thought about that for a second and then clarified, “No, not a chance. I knew the life I lived was going to kill me. Without a doubt.”

  “You’re making it very difficult for me to take Ryder’s side, Ives. You should have said something sooner. We would have helped you. Hell, my parents would have let you move in with us.”

  I shook my head to let him know that it was impossible, but his words sunk into me with a sweetness I wasn’t used to. “My family would have never let me leave. They would have come for me. When I say I escaped, I mean, I left the country. I got as far away from this place as I could.”

  “Wow,” he whistled. “You’re not kidding?”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  He pressed his hands together and dropped them between his knees. His shoulders slumped with a defeat I knew was born from his genuine spirit. He just now realized how helpless I truly was and how helpless he was to save me.

  “So Ryder?” He pressed. Apparently he wasn’t going to let me get away with any secrets. “He was in his accident the same night you left. Was that uh... connected?”

  In a small voice, I admitted, “My godfather did that to him.”

  Phoenix’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I know,” I whispered. “I was protecting him, Phoenix. I know he won’t ever look at it like that, but I was. I… I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening to him.”

  Phoenix shook his head, visibly trying to gather his thoughts. “I don’t think that’s what he wanted, Ivy. Ryder didn’t seem… scared.”

  The lingering accusation filtered through the room. It hurt. It hurt me more than my self-deprecating thoughts ever had. I didn’t want Phoenix to say so easily what I had known for so long.

  “Can we not talk about him right now?” I whispered. “I heard the song. I get it.”

  Phoenix pressed his lips together and nodded his head, an outward sign that he would leave Ryder out of this.

  “So why’d you come back? Is it safe now?”

  I had been asking myself that same question all night. “No. It’s probably worse.”

  “Then why are you here, Ivy? I’m worried about you.”

  “I heard that Ryder was in tr
ouble,” I admitted. “I heard that Exie and Sloane might be in trouble too. I told you my family was bad news. They are. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went after everyone who knows me just to get to me.”

  “Ryder’s fine,” he answered immediately. “We’ve been playing a lot of shows lately. We’re in a summer soccer league. As far as I know, he’s fine.”

  I breathed out and some of the aching around my heart dissipated. At least there was that.

  “What about Ex? Have you talked to her lately?” I knew he hadn’t before he said anything. After what Thalia had told me, I was pretty sure she’d disappeared in the thick of the night.

  But I wanted to hear what Phoenix had to say about it, just in case there were pieces he’d picked up that Thalia hadn’t bothered to share.

  Since, you know, she was a back-stabbing, horrible witch that had probably already put in the call to Nix.

  Phoenix’s shoulders slumped. He stared at his hands as he answered, “I haven’t heard from her in almost as long as I haven’t heard from you. She, uh, moved or something. At least that was what her last text said. She moved out of state.”

  My voice was quiet when I asked, “Do you believe her?”

  “It was so weird, you know? All of a sudden you were gone. You didn’t show up for school or hang out at the hospital with the rest of us while we waited for Ryder to get better. You were just gone. Nobody seemed to know where you went, even Ryder. But… I don’t know, we all thought maybe it was the addiction again. Kenna thought that was what happened to you before. You just left. Ryder was so beat up. He stayed at the hospital for a week. And then his recovery… Uh, yeah. Exie had been weird for a while already. Distant and, I don’t know, sad. I know her sister died and she was rightfully upset about that, but there was more. She was scared too. I tried to reach out to her, but she shut me out. Then, right before Ryder got out of the hospital, she texted that she was moving to California and I would never see her again.”

  “She said California?”

  “Yeah.”

  I didn’t think Exie really went to California, but it was an interesting response. Growing up, Exie, Sloane and I would always plan these elaborate escapes. We would look at maps of the US or of the world and try to figure out where we would be safest. Exie would always joke that we should go to California because that’s where Malibu Barbie belonged.

  I chewed on my lip, wondering if that was some kind of clue. Would she have known to pass something through Phoenix? I was already gone. She couldn’t know if I was ever coming back.

  “This is heavy,” Phoenix sighed.

  I yawned my response. I looked at the clock and blinked at the numbers. It was just past ten. It had been a very long day.

  “You tired, Ives?” he asked gently.

  “So tired.”

  “Take my bed then. I can crash with Buzz. He’s got a bunk bed.”

  “No, you don’t have to do that.”

  Phoenix threw me one of his huge grins, diffusing some of the uneasy tension that had filled the room. “He’ll love it. He’s been begging for a sleepover all summer.”

  “Thanks, Phoenix. I don’t know what I would have done tonight without you.”

  “That’s what friends are for, Ninja. I’ll always be here when you need me.”

  “Even after what I did to Ryder?”

  He leaned forward until he was in my space and I could feel the heat from his body and feel the rumble of his words. “You’re my friend too, Ivy. I was as worried about you as I was him. But I’m glad you’re mostly all right. I’m glad you weren’t sent back to rehab.”

  I swallowed through emotion I couldn’t stop. “It was never rehab, Phoenix. I never had an addiction of any kind.”

  “Your crazy ass family again?”

  I nodded and he pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m glad you left. No matter how hard it was for you, for me, for Ryder… I’m glad you got out and at least had a bit of peace. You deserve more. You deserve a lifetime of it.”

  “Thank you.” Tears slipped from the corner of my eyes. I tried to wipe them away before he could see them, but I didn’t think I fooled him.

  After a few more minutes, he pulled away and stood up. He walked to his door and then turned around to instruct, “Feel free to borrow clothes or whatever if you need them and there’s toothpaste in the bathroom. Help yourself to whatever you need.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Ivy. Sleep tight.”

  He left me alone and I collapsed back against his pillow. I yanked my purse off my shoulder that I hadn’t even bothered to remove for the last several hours and nestled into the bed. I convinced myself I would lie there for just a few minutes until I gathered enough energy to deal with teeth and pajamas and whatever.

  But that never happened.

  A few minutes turned into me passing out just like I was.

  I woke up sometime early in the morning. The sunlight streamed into the room and warmed my cool skin. I rubbed my tongue over my furry teeth and bemoaned my bad decision not to brush them the night before.

  I opened my eyes, deciding to do just that before I snuck out of Phoenix’s house, and lost any ability to think or plan or brush.

  Ryder stood over me with arms crossed and waiting.

  I had the childish urge to pull the pillow over my head and pretend he wasn’t there. I didn’t though. I was so much more mature and closed my eyes and pretended to fall back asleep instead.

  “Ivy,” he growled. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Six

  With the most polite voice I could muster, I opened my eyes and said, “Ryder, what a surprise to see you. How did you know I was here?” My gaze swung to the door where Phoenix hovered uncertainly. I unleashed my worst glare on him.

  Traitor.

  He threw his hands up, “What did you want me to do, Ivy? You’re in trouble.”

  “Call someone who cares,” I mumbled.

  In the next second, Ryder was in front of me. Like right in front of me. He dropped to a squat and his angry face invaded my personal space. “You think I don’t care?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Why don’t you sing me a song about how you really feel?”

  “Goddamn, Red. Do you need some coffee? Should we postpone this chat until you’ve had enough caffeine to clear your hazy mind and remember who left who? Or do you have a reason to be angry with me? Because I would love to hear it if you do. I’ll even get you my guitar and you can sing me a song.” His eyes glittered with the knowledge of what it would mean for me to sing.

  It was safe to say a good night’s sleep had not softened Ryder’s stance on my return.

  “I need to brush my teeth.” I slid over so I could stand up without bumping into Ryder. He stood up too and didn’t exactly leave my space.

  “Need a toothbrush?” Phoenix asked.

  I nabbed my purse and patted it. “I’ve got one. Where’s the bathroom?”

  Phoenix stepped back and pointed down the hall. I followed his finger and escaped as quickly as I could. Once the door was shut, I went straight to work on making myself not look like a train wreck.

  I flinched as I took in my smudged mascara and ratty hair. Knowing my breath was two steps from toxic, I couldn’t help but feel the burn of embarrassment that Ryder had been forced to witness this side of me.

  If I had all this Siren power and yet I couldn’t wake up looking absolutely perfect, then what was the point?

  I brushed my teeth, then my hair and changed into the second outfit I’d packed in my purse- another long maxi skirt, this one royal blue with black stripes, and a black tank top. I threw my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head and swiped some mascara and lip gloss on again after washing my face.

  Much better.

  Ryder had been right about the coffee though. I needed something strongly caffeinated and so sweet it would make my eyes twitch.

  I took a moment to lean on the vanity
and pull myself together. I thought about slipping out the window, but that seemed cowardly. I was trying to be braver.

  Also, I didn’t want to break my neck trying to jump to the ground from Phoenix’s second floor window. A spinal cord injury would be highly counterproductive.

  I opened the door and prepared for whatever was to come. I couldn’t even imagine what Ryder was doing here or why he wanted to talk. He’d made himself perfectly clear last night.

  I quietly walked back into the room and whatever conversation Phoenix and Ryder were currently in the middle of halted. They both looked at me. Phoenix’s gaze held enough compassion and empathy to make me feel warm and squishy inside.

  Ryder’s gaze, however, made me feel the opposite of warm and squishy.

  “So what is it you guys want to talk about?” I broke the silence first.

  “I’ll just, uh, give you two some privacy,” Phoenix declared and then disappeared into the hall, closing the door behind him.

  Ryder leaned against the far wall, his attention never leaving me. His arms were crossed over his chest and his jaw ticked from how tightly he clenched his teeth.

  I felt the power of his silver gaze rocket through me. He left me dizzy with the effect of it, disoriented and hot. He could express so much with just a look. He had no idea what he did to me or how deeply his words hurt.

  “We need to talk,” he reiterated, breaking the building pressure.

  “You said that. I thought we talked enough last night. At least you said enough for the both of us.”

  He flinched and admitted, “You caught me off guard last night. I might have overreacted.”

  “Ryder you wrote a song basically about what a stone cold bitch I am. Your band knew it. You guys practiced it.”

  His lips twitched and he ran a hand through his hair, “Yeah, well, it’s been a year, Ivy. I’ve had a lot of time to stew.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I expected him to tell me he was over me or that he had spent the last year hating me. I did not expect him to say “stew.” I didn’t know if that was worse or better, but something about it lessened the blow he had delivered with his mean song.