Home is Where the Heart Is (Home #1) (12 page)

Clearly she was getting sick, it was the only explanation.

She was thrown out of her head by her phone buzzing again.  She used to love how persistent and driven Tate was, but now it was getting beyond a joke.

A beautiful slender wrist moved past Isabelle, pulling her phone out from the pillow and drawing back before she even knew what was happening.

“Hello ‘Tate love heart’, how can I help you?” Maia asked cheerfully.

Isabelle nearly died, watching in morbid fascination when Maia’s eyebrows drew together and she turned away, walking a few paces.

“Maia, I’m her new neighbour. Don’t worry; we’re taking good care of your girl.”

Another pause.

“She’s doing great, a little sad maybe but I can only assume that’s from missing you guys.”

Please let this be a dream. Or a hallucination. Hell, she’d even take a drug induced coma at this point.

Maia spun around suddenly, her eyes blazing as she stared at Isabelle. “I see, well she has been super busy settling in…no, I can see where you’re coming from…right. Well, I don’t really know what to say except it was nice sort of meeting you and I’ll let Isabelle know you called. Yep, will do, bye.”

Silently Maia pressed end and then handed Isabelle back her phone. She took it wordlessly as she tried to go into damage control. Her past was not meant to blend at all with this new life she wanted to build for herself, she needed to find a way to justify everything Tate had just said… even though she wasn’t entirely sure what they had talked about.

“Stop before you hurt yourself,” Maia told her kindly, settling herself next to Isabelle on the bed.

“I’m sorry?” Isabelle blurted.

She really had to learn to pay better attention.

“You’re trying to come up with an excuse, right? Jace has the same look when he gets home late and Mum catches him. I can assume that since you’re ‘pig headedly ignoring your best friend in the whole world’ - those were his words by the way, not mine, that you’ve got something going on and it’s more than just a disagreement.”
She felt too exposed having Maia name exactly what was going on. What was it with the Scown twins and seeing into a person’s soul? No one had ever taken such an interest in her before in her old town… except for Tate of course. And look where that got him.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Isabelle blurted, feeling like it was the only point that mattered.

Maia nodded. “So, you did something and can’t handle someone so close to you knowing?”

Damn, she was good.

“How do you do that?” Isabelle asked in wonder.

Maia shrugged. “My brother has a myriad of issues that he works to conceal from me, but I’ve learnt all the tricks.”

“I don’t want to get into it,” Isabelle said a little more firmly than she meant to, knowing that Maia was only trying to be a friend.

Emotional intimacy it seemed, was a trigger for her bitchiness.

Maia shrugged, completely nonplussed. “I never asked you to, I just came over to see how you’re feeling after last night.”

Isabelle smiled softly. “Jace said you’d be over to interrogate me.”

Maia grunted in frustration. “Jace would be wrong. If I were interrogating you I would be demanding answers and not just asking.”

Isabelle flinched; she was in no shape for a question and answer session.  Thankfully, it seemed that Maia understood because her face softened and she leant against Isabelle in a casual display of support.

“So, you met Kimberley,” Maia said carefully.

“What delightful taste in women Jace has.”

Maia chuckled. “She wasn’t always so bad; I mean she was always a bit unstable but never to that extent.”

“Were they serious?”

Isabelle hated herself for asking, but she had to know.

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” Maia said in a sigh. “It’s not an easy answer with those two. They’ve been on and off for the last two years and they went through a lot of bad stuff together which I guess bonded them. But they didn’t have a relationship built on love, trust and loyalty. So I guess it was serious, but in all the wrong ways.”

“Wow, thank you,” Isabelle said gratefully, feeling oddly out of sorts with how candid everyone seemed to be in this place.

“For what?”

“Being so honest with me when you didn’t have to.”

Maia rested a hand on Isabelle’s arm. “I’m not being nice.”

Isabelle eyed her warily, not sure where this conversation was going.

“What do you mean?”

Maia rose from the bed, strolled over to the balcony doors and threw open the drapes, just staring out across at the adjacent balcony.

“I love my brother,” she said finally. “More than words could ever say, and I want him to be happy. He’s had a hard life. Our father, he wasn’t… well, he just wasn’t any sort of nice to Jace.”

Isabelle shuffled back, hoping it would give her some distance from this conversation but knowing it was futile.

Maia turned to her, those beautiful eyes sad.             

“I know you probably don’t want to hear all this but I need you to. I need you to understand that Jace deserves the best and never gets it. He is worthy of so much love even if he’s convinced himself otherwise and I will do anything to help him get that.”

“I don’t know how that involves me,” Isabelle said slowly.

“I don’t know that it does yet,” Maia admitted. “But there’s no denying that he’s drawn to you in ways I didn’t even know he was capable of, and for that reason you terrify me.”

Isabelle curled her arms around her body. “Me?”

“Yes,” Maia sighed. “You have the potential to completely destroy him. I can see it in the way he stares at you and I would never try to turn you away when you could possibly save him from himself. I just want to ask, no beg you really, to please don’t hurt him if you can help it.”

She felt like she’d been slapped. Never in her life had she felt so guilty for something she hadn’t even done, or angry at the assumption.

She opened her mouth to retort that she was broken and perhaps her brother best stay away so
she
doesn’t get ruined completely, but Maia beat her to it, wrapping skinny arms around her neck.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to upset you but I just can’t lose him, I won’t.”

Isabelle hesitantly put her arms around Maia, her anger fading as she realised it wasn’t anything personal. This was just a sister who had seen her brother go through hell and wasn’t sure she could watch idly anymore.

Maia had nothing to worry about though. Isabelle wasn’t entirely sure she would ever get over her aversion to male touch and she liked Jace enough to want to spare him from her issues.

“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to me,” she told Maia flatly.

Something in her voice must have startled Maia, because she pulled away and gazed into Isabelle’s eyes, a slow horror spreading across her face.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Maia whispered, her cheeks pink with shame.

Isabelle shook her head, trying to keep it casual and shift the conversation forward before she did something stupid, like tell Maia her own sorry little tale.

“Have I been blacklisted by the whole school yet?”

Maia looked like she wanted to say more but then changed her mind and plastered a smile on her face.

“You definitely made an impression, but if anything you’ve just made everyone even more determined to get to know you and have you around. Especially the guys, you caused quite a stir!”

Isabelle felt a blush creeping on her cheeks. That was almost as bad as being blacklisted; she hated attention.

“And your little showdown with Kimberley ended in your favour. Once you left, Ben actually got mad and he
never
gets mad! He told her that she better leave before he decided to take out the trash. People actually cheered!”
Isabelle felt a stab in her heart. She didn’t love getting punched in the face by some girl she’d never met or done anything to, but she hated the idea that she was the cause of humiliation and pain for someone who just didn’t know how to let go of the one they loved.

“I don’t want that to happen again,” Isabelle said quietly.

“Trust me, she will never get close enough to touch you again, I promise you,” Maia swore.

“No,” Isabelle said louder this time. “For people to yell and humiliate her like that, I don’t want that to happen again, ok?”

Maia stared at her, her mouth actually opened slightly. She was looking at Isabelle like she was from a different planet.

Isabelle looked away quickly, feeling uncomfortable under that stunning gaze.

“I was wrong,” Maia finally said.

Isabelle looked up then. “About what?”

“You could never hurt anyone,” she said firmly sliding off the bed and pulling Isabelle with her. “Now enough of this - go and have a shower coz we’re going out.”

Isabelle felt exhausted already.

“Where to now?” she whined.

Maia smiled indulgently. “The faster you get ready, the faster you’ll know.”

Isabelle made no effort to hide her groan as she trudged to her bathroom, shutting the door not so gently behind her.
All she really felt like doing was curling up in a ball, watching ridiculously cheesy chick flicks and stuffing her face with excess amounts of calories. She yanked her shorts off, stepped out of her swimmer bottoms and then tossed her bikini over her head, dropping them messily on the floor.

She glanced at the mirror and flinched a little at her face. There was a new purplish bruise on her left cheek, joining the party with all the other fading bruises. Probably not a good sign that her first night out since
the incident
and she got smacked again. Seriously, what was it about her that made people want to hurt her?

Forcing herself away from the mirror she started the shower, stepped into the hot jets of water then slid down the wall resting her head on her knees as the water ran all over her body. She was so beyond exhausted she honestly had no idea how she even got up lately. Hell, even consciousness seemed like the greatest effort in the world.

Loud banging on the door had her jump so high she felt like she may have bruised her tail bone when she settled back down.

“You’re wasting the day,” Maia called impatiently. “Two minutes and then I want you out.”

“You’re so annoying,” Isabelle snapped before she could stop herself.

Luckily Maia didn’t seem to mind and instead pounded on the door twice more to emphasize her point.

Isabelle covered her face with her hands and sighed deeply from the pit of her stomach.

Thank God she was an only child.

*

As it turned out, the mystery location Maia had chosen was actually a shopping centre, most likely the only good one in the small town as it was absolutely packed.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Maia asked, her face alight with excitement.

Honestly? She wasn’t the biggest fan of shopping and hated crowds, especially with a battered face, but Maia was trying to make her feel welcome and the gesture itself made it worth braving the pitying glances.

“It’s great,” Isabelle said with a smile, praying it looked convincing.

Maia rolled her eyes. “You are the worst liar ever; remind me to play against you in poker. I know it just looks like a dumb mall but I figured we could go shopping for a perfect back to school outfit,
and
I brought back up.”

Isabelle’s heart sped up.
Please don’t be Jace. Please don’t be Jace
.

Maia smirked, clearly reading Isabelle’s thoughts.

“Come on, they’ll be waiting,” she tugged on Isabelle’s arm and lead the way to the food court.

Isabelle kept her head down as they walked, relying on Maia to guide her to their destination. She hated feeling like everyone was staring at her, even though they probably weren’t, and she was worried about how to act when she saw Jace. She had, after all, kissed him last night when she’d only known him a couple of days.

“Maia! Isabelle!”

Isabelle snapped her head up as relief washed through her whole body. It wasn’t Jace waiting for them after all but Maia’s best friend Giselle who she’d met briefly last night, along with two other girls she recognised but couldn’t for the life of her remember their names.

“Gigi!”

Maia let go of Isabelle and wrapped her arms around Giselle, the warmth in their embrace making Isabelle envious.

“Isabelle, right?” a husky voice asked.

Isabelle turned to a tall brunette with kind brown eyes.

“I’m Kerry - I don’t think we had a chance to get properly introduced last night. This is Kandi Thong.”

She indicated beside her to the Thai girl with the most incredible caramel skin.

“You had to give my full name didn’t you, bitch? Don’t judge me too harshly on my name,” Kandi said with a grimace. “My parents were clearly on drugs in the birthing suite.”