Key to My Heart: An Anthology of Sweet Romance

by Alice La Roux

  Published by Books on the Beach Anthologies

  This book is a work of fiction, names of characters, some places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or stored in a database in any form, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This book shall not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.

  All proceeds from this anthology will be donated to charity

  Copyright © 2019 by the authors: Alice La Roux, C L Norton, Catherine Green, Eleanor Lloyd-Jones, Jennah Thornhill, K.A Knight, K.M. Lowe, KT Kitchin, Lauren Connors, Lizzie James, Louisa Line, Paula Acton, Rebecca Barber, Sienna Grant, Stacey Broadbent, TA Andrews, T.L Wainwright and Taylor Porter

  Edited by Eleanor Lloyd-Jones at Schmidt Author Services

  Formatted by Rachael Tonks at Affordable Formatting

  Cover Design by Kathryn Dee at KatDeezigns

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter One

  Summer 1990

  The radio announces that this is going to be the hottest August on record, and I sigh, forehead already slick. Mum whistles and says that it’s impressive since the records go all the way back to 1659, and my father laughs. I ignore them both and continue glaring out the window, watching swathes of greens and yellows pass us by as we drive through the rapeseed fields. I’d wanted to stay in London this summer with my friends, but instead I’m sweating in the back of our purple Volvo, next to my little sister Jenny, on our way to Pembrokeshire, in Wales, for five weeks.

  I am going to be eighteen in October, yet they still treat me like a child. They still drag me on these stupid family holidays, even though our family has been falling apart for a long time. I look across at Jenny. She is still clueless at the age of eight: she doesn’t know what divorce means. This holiday is a last ditch attempt for my parents’ marriage. I just don’t understand why we have to be dragged into it. Back in London, my friends, Tom and Ben, are spending the summer going to the movies, hanging out at skateparks and watching concerts, while I’m going to be in Wales. With sheep.

  “Jack, we’re almost there. Do you remember the last time we came here?” my mum asks, sounding happier than she has in months.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice flat. I ignore her reminiscing over the summer spent at the beach collecting shells while Jen was only a baby and my father, Michael, was still faithful, instead focusing on my new Game Boy— a bribe gift from my father. I can’t even bear to look at him lately, but he isn’t buying my love. I won’t allow it. My anger won’t allow it.

  Once we pull up outside the tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere, I grab my denim jacket and my cassette player, and I storm out of the car.

  “Jack, where are you going?” my mum calls after me with a sigh. I know my behaviour makes her sad, but I can’t act like everything is fine. I’m not like her: I refuse to plaster a false smile on my face.

  “I need to stretch my legs,” I shout over my shoulder as I follow a footpath down towards the beach. We are staying at my gran’s cottage. It became my mum's a few years ago, and I’ve been here numerous times as a kid, and even though it has been a while since we've been here, it is like my body remembers as I clamber through the sand dunes.

  “Are you going to help unpack?” I hear her voice carry on the gentle breeze behind me.

  His voice cuts in, and I ball my fists.

  “Just leave him, Denise.”

  I walk until I can’t hear them any longer, until I can’t see the house, until it’s like they don’t exist. I click my music on, and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” fills my head, feeding the feelings that have been building inside me. I’m on a sandy, grass verge hill, overlooking the beach as the sun sinks below the water. There’s no one and nothing for miles. I don’t know how much time passes, but it gets darker. I can’t think clearly. Everything is clouded with my rage. How could Michael do this? An affair with his secretary; how fucking original.

  I pick up a pebble and throw it. I don’t want to be here.

  How can my mother still want to stay with him? He isn’t tearing her heart out and leaving: Michael is dragging it out—taking it piece by piece. It makes me sick. Why couldn’t she see what was going to happen? He is selfish, and she is a fool.

  “Oi, what idiot is throwing stones?” A loud voice cuts through my bitter thoughts and my music, followed by the strangest looking girl I’ve ever seen.

  Chapter Two

  Everything looks different in the dark: the water looks calmer. The moonlight kisses the tips of the waves before they crash on the shore. I feel more peaceful as this girl stands before me, hands on her hips. She has hair so blonde it’s almost white, and her nose is pointed and slightly upturned—not in a way that makes her face look ugly, but more like a pixie. Big blue eyes fill her face—it’s like looking at the ocean, filled with swirls of grey, indigo, periwinkle, and cobalt. Thick, black lashes frame them, giving her an intensity beyond her age. She looks about sixteen, but the seriousness in her face makes her appear older.

  “Why are you throwing shit at me?” she demands. “Oh, never mind, just shove off.”

  “Shove off?” I repeat. I thought the Welsh were supposed to be friendly. They’ve always been welcoming when we’ve come here before, but this girl is plain rude.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Yeah, are you deaf or just stupid? This is my beach.”

  “Your beach?” I am beginning to sound like a parrot now, so I straighten as I stand. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s a public beach.”

  She scoffs. “It’s mine. My spirit belongs here.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just look at her. She’s wearing a white blouse with ties at the neckline and small red flowers embroidered on the sleeve. Her skirt is just black ruffles. I really don’t know how to describe it other than ruffles upon ruffles, like some bad prom dress. A silver glint catches my eyes, and I realise she’s got a belt on, with small metal disks that jangle as she moves. She looks cute, if not strange, in this gypsy-esque way. I look away, but not before I notice her feet are bare. She is a gypsy. Or maybe even a hippie?

  “Okay...I was just leaving anyway,” I say coolly.

  She steps forward and grabs my arm. “Wait, I don’t suppose you’ve got any food on you? I haven’t been home yet today.”

  I look at her, my head tilted. I can see her slender frame through the muslin fabric. I check my pockets and find a Twirl Jenny gave me earlier, but in the evening heat, it’s melted into one solid lump.

  “Sorry, it’s melted.”

  She shrugs and snatches it from my hand. “Makes no difference; still tastes the same, doesn’t it?” She carefully opens the packet and nibbles at the chocolate, slowly. Who the heck is she? And why’s she out here in the dark?

  Once she’s done, she holds out her hand to me. “I’m Willow Blake, by the way.”

  She looks like a Willow, the name suiting her almost wispy way.

  I shake her tiny, cold hand. “I’m Jack. Jack Evans.”

  The grin she gives me is infectious, and I can’t help but smile back. Wasn’t I just leaving? There’s something about her as I find myself sitting back down in the dunes next to
her.

  “So, are you just here for the summer?” she asks, watching me with those big eyes.

  “How did you know?”

  She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Your accent isn’t exactly Welsh. You don’t roll your rrrrrr’s enough.”

  “Oh.” I chuckle. “You don’t exactly sound native either.”

  “My family travel around with business, but this is where I call home most of the time.” As she says that, she digs her fingers into the sand like she is trying to plant herself in the ground.

  “Why? You could go anywhere, but you want to be here. It’s a dump. I mean, there’s not even a Woolies,” I spit out, with more venom than I intended. It’s not her fault I’m here. It’s his.

  She just raises a brow at me, ignoring my anger. “Woolies?”

  “Woolworths. I always buy my sister, Jenny, a pick n’ mix from there on a Saturday.”

  “No... but there is this great little sweet shop in town inside the Offie. I’ll show you sometime.”

  We lay back, looking at the stars for a while, saying nothing. Her fingers are almost in reaching distance of mine, I can feel the warmth her skin gives off, but I avoid touching her. The moon hides behind some clouds, and she uses this as a reason to sit up, breaking the calm that washed over me while I was with her.

  She gives me a small smile and stands again. “I need to be getting back. See you around Jack.”

  With a small wave, she disappears amongst the dunes and out into the dark. There’s this odd feeling as I watch her go, like I don’t want her to leave. She was a strange comfort to the angry storm that was building inside. But she is just a stranger, and I need to head back, too: my broken family is waiting for me.

  Chapter Three

  “Jack, will you pass the burgers please?” my mum asks as she pokes at the barbeque with her tongs.

  I do it without saying a word. We’ve been here for three days already, and she’s still acting like everything is okay, which it isn’t. I hear her crying through my wall at night. I see her red eyes in the morning as she plasters a fake smile on. As for Michael, he’s just there, like an ever-present vacuum, sucking all the life out of the room. The only reason I agreed to come on the barbeque at the beach was because the house was becoming too stifling, with him in the armchair in the corner, with his neatly folded newspapers, leeching the atmosphere dry.

  Jenny’s having a whale of a time, and for a moment, I wish I was younger too—carefree and oblivious to what is really going on. She’s off further down the beach with her bucket and net, rockpooling for crabs. I push play on my cassette player and lay back on my towel, ignoring everyone as I try to work on my tan. My mate, Ben, reckons he saw an article in his sister’s Just Seventeen magazine about how guys with tans are hotter. I figure there’s no harm in working on that theory, ready for when I go back to college. Ten minutes later, a shadow comes across me, sending a chill through my body. Opening my eyes to see what is blocking my light, I am only mildly surprised to see Willow standing next to me, a grin on her face and a net in her hand. Today she is wearing a black, string bikini under a white oversized shirt. It is one of the most pointless things I have ever seen as I can still make out every line of her slender frame. She wears a beaded anklet around her left foot and several bangles on both wrists, while her white hair is piled up on top of her head and secured with a single jewelled chopstick.

  “Hey Jack.”

  “Willow,” I say nonchalantly as I sit up, aware that my parents are watching us like hawks.

  Seconds later, Jenny runs up and slides one of her hands into Willow’s, holding out her bucket with the other.

  “Jack, look at all the crabs Willow helped me catch. Isn’t she amazing?” she gushes as she looks up at the gypsy. “You never caught this many for me.”

  I glare at my sister as she pokes her tongue out at me.

  “Willow, was it? Would you like to join us for some lunch?” my mother calls over, the twinkle in her eye a sure sign of trouble.

  “No she doesn’t—” I say.

  But at the same time, she replies, “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

  My father shoots me a look, clearly embarrassed by my rudeness.

  She kneels down next to me, the sand creating this ripple effect around her. I say nothing as she exchanges pleasantries with my family, the falseness of the situation starting to get to me the longer she stays perched on the edge of my towel.

  “So Jack, how do you know Willow?”

  Everyone turns to look at me, and I squirm a little.

  “I don’t; she just scrounged some food off me like she is now.” I toss the words out carelessly. I don’t want my parents to get the wrong idea—even if I’ve barely been able to tear my eyes from her for the last forty minutes. She keeps drawing my gaze like a magnet. There’s something about her that almost soothes me, just by looking at her. Willow looks away, but I don’t understand why. I spoke the truth. We were strangers.

  “You didn’t have to be quite so rude,” she says finally before standing, thanking my parents for the lunch and telling Jenny she’ll see her around. With that, she leaves, angry footprints trailing behind her across the beach. My mother shakes her head at me as Michael huffs.

  Willow is a spec on the horizon, almost at the water’s edge, when I finally snap and jump up to go after her.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I shout as I get closer to her, but she ignores me and keeps walking, the water swirling around her ankles.

  Jogging, I catch up to her and spin her around. “Willow, stop. I’m sorry.”

  She gives me a shrug. “I like you, Jack, but you just made me feel like crap. In front of your parents.”

  “I don’t know why I did that…” I say quietly. It’s true. I don’t know why I was rude to her. She’s never done anything to me.

  Sighing, she replies, “Because you’re so angry at the world, you can’t see what’s in front of you.”

  It’s like something inside snaps as I grab her and pull her into an embrace, our mouths meeting. Her small arms snake around my waist, and as she deepens the kiss, it’s like she’s calming the rage that burns inside me while simultaneously starting her own fire.

  After a minute or so, we break apart, and she gives me a head tilt and a small smile, “I didn’t mean me…”

  Chapter Four

  “Why are you so angry at your parents for bringing you here? This is better than London any day, and the air is better for you,” Willow says as she sits in the grass, making a daisy chain.

  “We’ve been over this. It is not better than London: there’s nothing here!” I retort, tossing some flowers her way. We’ve fallen into an odd pattern where we spend every afternoon together just wandering around the countryside or beaches. And every day, she tries to sell me the same old thing.

  “There’s history, and beauty and positive energy. It’s good for the soul.” Her eyes always look older and sadder when she tries to impart this wisdom on me.

  “Good for the soul? Pfft. I don’t have a soul.” I chuckle, picking at the grass. She laughs back, placing her daisy crown on her head like some sort of fairy queen.

  “It’s just all a last ditch attempt to show my dad what he’s losing if he leaves us.”

  “Do you think he’ll really leave?” she asks, her voice quiet. I can’t stand the pity, so I lean forward and silence her with a quick kiss. We do that a lot too.

  “When are you going to invite me to see where you live?” I say, changing the subject.

  “It’s a house. What’s there to see?” She avoids looking at me, and I feel a little uneasy, like she’s hiding something from me. She rarely mentions her family, just that they’re away a lot of the time, leaving her free to do as she wants. That sounds ideal to me, but she always wears this sadness when she says it.

  She gets up and pulls me to my feet. “C’mon, let's go to the beach.”

  The beach is rammed again today, the hottest summer
still on-going, but we head to a cove near to where we first met because it’s always quieter there. I watch as she carefully looks at the pebbles, combing her fingers through the rocky sand as if she is searching for something specific. After a few moments of silence, Willow finally plucks out a black stone. It is smooth and almost perfectly round.

  “What’re you doing?” I ask as she puts it in her small bag.

  “I like to collect the black ones. I have a jar of them at home.”

  “Why just those ones?” I ask, scanning around by my feet. I’ve noticed that Willow has a way of sucking me into whatever she is doing; she never asks me to, but I do it because I want to.

  “Because they’re different. Like me.” Her hand threads through mine, and we grin at each other as we walk along, looking for specs of black amongst the coloured pebbles. “I’m not like the rest of my family: I’m the black sheep. Or the black pebble…” She laughs at her silly joke and says nothing more.

  When I finally head back to the house that night, I’m in a good mood, something that Michael always manages to kill with one look of his surly face. He’s already pulled me aside and told me that I’m spending too much time wrapped up in Willow. What a fucking hypocrite. Mum shushed him, and told me that Willow was a lovely girl and she was just glad I was enjoying myself. A summer romance, she’d called it, but I don’t think she realises how quickly Willow is becoming the highlight of my day.

  Tonight is no different as we sit down to dinner with my father frowning at me from the head of the table. My mother has made chicken dippers with potato waffles and beans for tea tonight, Jenny’s favourite, with my favourite, mint Vienetta, for dessert.

  “I’ve decided that for the rest of the week we’re going to do things together as a family,” he announces as he puts some leaflets down beside my mother. I quickly look over at the brochures; they’re all day trips almost an hour away.