Page 96 of Paper Hearts

WHEN MY SISTERS RUINED MY BIRTHDAY

I’m in my junior year of college now. Eddie is wild as ever. She talks. Kinda of. It’s more like demands and she expects us to listen. I guess you can’t really blame the poor kid. She’s being raised by a bunch of women and people who are utterly obsessed with her. It’s created a spoiled brat in many ways.

Ender joined the Navy. Arya looks it up with the help of Greer, who’s also in the Navy. Ender’s stationed in Coronado, California. Arya swears to me she doesn’t tell Greer about Eddie, and I believe her. Part of me is tempted to track him down. Write a letter, anything. I think about telling him about Eddie, but every time I sit down to write that letter, I chicken out. He left, and part of me wants to shield her from that part of my life.

Arya’s still dating Roman. He’s graduated from college, no longer playing baseball, and is a volunteer fire fighter now. I think it’s a pretty cool job, until he ties Arya up, gets a call and leaves her there. I have the unfortunate day of seeing my best friend buck-ass naked.

I take Eddie to get a pedicure for the first time and she has them paint her nails black. It’s her favorite color. I smile, knowing she’s more like Ender than most realize. She stares at kids who have dads and I mentally prepare myself for that conversation.

She loves music and baseball. Watches it for hours at a time, and if you turn it off, she scowls so deep all I see is her daddy’s face. For her second birthday, I buy her a baseball mitt and a bat. Arya takes the bat away after she’s hit one too many times in the head with it.

I turn twenty-one and for my birthday, all my sisters come out to Athens to celebrate. It’s the first time since the summer I met Ender that all my sisters have been together in the same place at the same time. Mom watches Eddie for the night and the six of us head to the college bars near campus.

It’s nice to have my sisters around, but get them all together and shit gets real. Becca and Brenna never get along, and marriage hasn’t tamed either one of them.

Arya and I are taking bets to see which one decks the other by the end of the night.

The night is going good until secrets are revealed. You knew they would be, didn’t you?

I know based on Becca’s comments that she and Ender messed around. I’m not stupid, but I also was too afraid to get details.

“So Ender doesn’t know anything about Eddie?” Becca asks curiously, slurping her third Cosmopolitan.

“Nope,” I tell her. “Nobody can get a hold of him.”

“He’s in the Navy. Can’t be that hard,” Becca points out, and I wouldn’t put it past her to track him down and spill the beans about Eddie. I really wouldn’t.

“Why do you care where he is or what he knows about Eddie?” Harper asks, her voice louder than necessary. “Trying for a double header?”

My head whips around, confused and quite frankly a little disgusted. I stare at the two of them blankly, trying to comprehend what the hell that means.

“Did you mess around with Ender too?” Hazel asks Becca, half paying attention, half shaking her ass to the song playing in the bar. I haven’t seen Hazel in years. She’s not married but has two boys with a professional football player for the Cardinals. But to think about her with Ender too, fuck that.

Arya’s wide eyes move to mine. “I’m getting another drink. Want one?”

“Bring the fucking bottle,” I grumble, glaring at my sisters.

Like I said, I knew Ender had messed around with Becca, but Hazel too? Is that why she and Chandler broke up?

My mood goes to shit, and I start slamming beers. Seems like a good idea to me.

“He’s just another boy, Hads. And not even a good one,” Harper adds, as if this is going to make me feel better.

Not a good one? Maybe because he had a shitty fucking example from Theo. Regardless, my heart and everyone around me—my sisters included—told me to walk away back then. Any other time I would have listened. Should have listened. But I didn’t. Instead I lived for the summer in many ways, and that got me here, writing in a book to remember the past and raising a daughter on my own.

“So let me guess, you fucked him?” I ask Becca, barely able to make out her frame across from me. And I wait for the retaliation of my words, but they don’t come. Instead, she acts like I pointed a gun at her.

“No, I never did.” Becca shakes her head, eyes closed as if she can barely look at me. “It never got that far with us.”

Even knowing Ender didn’t sleep with her, it still stings remembering he did in fact kiss her right in front of me.

Becca and I have never got along, and I can’t tell you why that is. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me as much that I know something happened between Ender and Hazel, because that was before anything but a friendship had been established between us. Yeah, it wasn’t what I wanted, and I’m upset he’s the reason she and Chandler broke off their engagement, but it hurts more to hear it from Becca that something went down between the two of them. She knew I liked him.

I feel the heat rising from my chest to my ears, and it isn’t all from the alcohol. “Jesus,” I moan, peeling my coat off to cool myself down. “Did he mess around with our entire family? What about Mom, please tell me that didn’t happen?”

“Hads, he only messed around with Hazel and Becca.” Harper giggles. “And Inevertouched him. I knew you had a thing for him.” Tossing her straw from her Malibu and Coke at Hazel, she frowns. “Hazel didn’t realize, and Becca, well we all know she wants all guys to worship her, so she tried.” Harper snorts, her drink at her lips. “And from what she told me, he said no.”

He said no?

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