Page 64 of Paper Hearts

When the last day of school lets out, I leave for the lake. My mom drives me up but then leaves for a sex toy meeting. I don’t ask questions. I don’t actually care. All I want is to see Arya and Ender.

I spot Ender in the driveway next to his truck, shoulders tense, head hanging.

“Are you okay?” I ask, my arrival known not only by my voice, but also by the crunching of gravel.

I take a step in his direction, and he steps back. No smile, no hug, no happy to see me. I take in his face, the bruise under his eye, his lip split down the middle and the swollen eyelid. He sniffs, coughs and spits blood onto the concrete at his feet. “Does it look like I’m okay?”

Whoa. I blink rapidly at his harshness and his appearance. My eyes slide lower to his white T-shirt that’s ripped at the collar. Blood drips down the front. “I guess not.” I notice the beer in his hand and the cut on his lip. “What happened?”

He sighs, stepping forward, so close I can feel the warmth of his breath mixed with beer. His eyes, they’re almost unrecognizable. Cold. Detached. Unresponsive. “Pissed my old man off.”

“How?”

He inhales a deep breath but tries to hide it. “Never important,” he mumbles, ignoring the question, barely acknowledging my presence. “Did you just get here?”

“Yes.” I touch his shoulder and his body tenses as he spits more blood. “Ender… serious. You’re bleeding. What happened?”

“Jesus.” His jaw clenches, eyebrows bunched together. “Why does it matter?”

“Ender!” Theo hollers from the porch. “Get back in here! I wasn’t done talking to you.”

Ender’s posture changes. His expression freezes, and he steps away from me, closes his eyes and breathes in a sharp breath, attempting to ignore Theo, who’s hell-bent on making him listen for once. “Fuck off,” he says, not loud, but Theo hears him. Moving around me, Ender stands between us.

Theo jabs a finger in Ender’s direction. “Don’t talk to me like that, End. Do you have any idea how disrespectable you’re being?”

“Are you lookin’ for an apology? Why should I apologize? You made me this way.”

Theo’s eyes flash with anger. “I don’t give a shit if you are almost nineteen. You live in my house. You will respect me.”

“Oh, well, shit. Sorry, sir.” Ender snorts, and it’s then I realize then Ender James is two different people. He’s the country boy from Georgia with his mama’s manners, but he’s still a hotheaded hell-raiser who doesn’t hold back.

Theo shoves Ender against the side of his truck with his hands threaded in his shirt. “You little mother—”

“What the fuck are you going to do?” Ender taunts, broken, yet stronger than his father thinks he is. “Hit me again?”

I back up, giving them space when Arya comes outside. She frowns at the scene before her but doesn’t move from her place on the deck.

Theo wants to hit him. I can see it, and Ender knows it. “Go ahead. Do it,” Ender growls, instigating him. “Let her see what you’re really like.”

Lana surfaces from the house. “Theo!” she barks. “Let him go!”

Ender smirks, swiping his hand over his bleeding mouth. “Yeah,Dad, let me go.”

I have a feeling those words have a double meaning.

Theo narrows his eyes on Ender. “You’re a useless piece of shit.”

Ender blinks rapidly and then rearranges his features from defeat to defiance in a blink of an eye. “Thanks for believing in me.”

“I’ll believe in you when you finally do something with your life,” Theo spits. “Besides getting high and fucking around with an underage girl.”

Ender’s eyes shift to mine and then Theo. “Maybe you should do something with your life besides cheating on your fucking wife,” Ender growls at his father. There’s so much hatred in his words I fear there’s no love left inside him for the man in front of him.

Theo smirks, the action so much like his son it’s as if I’m looking at a carbon copy of him. “Until you’re a man, you’ll never know what it’s like to make your wife happy.”

“Happy?” Ender laughs in his face. “You think she’s fucking happy? You don’t even know. She cries every night over the shit you pull with her. She hates you. We all do!”

Theo swallows, his stare intent on Ender. “Not as much as I regret bringing you until this world.”

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