Secrets of the Harts

23 November 2009
“I’m going back home, for Thanksgiving.”
Dylan slammed the book shut with a loud bang, his anger radiating off him. “Why?”

“The date of the engagement’s been moved forward. Your father expects me home to discuss the…” Luke looked as though he was going to throw up but continued, “…the details.”

“…That is messed up. God, I’m sorry about it.”

Luke didn’t need to be told how ‘messed up’ it was. He had to live through every day of it. And though Dylan had apologized, there was nothing he could do.

There was nothing any of them could do.

25 November 2009

The minute I took a step inside gym, I tried to step back out but realized that Dylan was behind me, blocking the only exit.

“What are you doing?”
“Stopping you from leaving.”

I glared at him, but unfortunately, he seemed entirely unperturbed.

He even had the gall to guide me further into the room and say, barely loud enough for me to hear him over the thumping beats, “You owe me a favour. And you agreed to do this-”
“No I did not! You dragged me here and-”
“-and I’m not going to let you go, unless you say that you’re scared of parties, dollface.”

I pursed my lips. Christina Drake wasn’t scared of parties.

“So…are you scared?”

I could see from the glint in his eyes that he knew he was manipulating me and doing a good job at it too. The problem was that I was completely powerless. There was no explanation why I disliked parties, at least, not while I was Christina.

“I really don’t understand why you got sent here, dollface. You seem like the perfect kid. I mean, you always speak in complete sentences with perfect English, you always do the homework assigned and I’ll bet you’ve never been to a party.”

“Yes, I have!”

He smiled condescendingly. “Parties like this?”

This was Kieran Scott’s party and he had somehow managed to break into the gym, which was quite a feat considering how impressively guarded everything here was. Though it was only the gym, the Troubled Teens didn’t appear to mind.

More than half were dancing, bodies grinding against other bodies. The other half…I could only speculate what was in the punch to make them behave as such.

I turned back to Dylan, sighing. “No. Not parties like this.”

He nodded. But he seemed distracted and said, “Why don’t you get something to drink, dollface? I think I just saw Kieran…should probably go say hi.”

It seemed a little odd that he would let me go so easily after forcing me to attend, but I didn’t question it. Instead, I went off quickly and tried to fight my way out of the gym. Without Dylan though, it was a lot harder to get of the gym, especially with so many grinding bodies in the way.

I’d only wished I had his ability to navigate through the crowd.

Giving up, I went to get a drink.

There was only a large container full of punch and when I took a scoopful of it for my cup, I almost gagged. The smell of alcohol was almost radiating off the punch.

I was really living the American Teenager Experience now.

Shaking my head at the ludicrous thought, I took a mouthful of the punch.
***
“Hey, thanks for your help, man.”

Dylan nodded at the comment. “Everything went well then?”

Kieran surveyed the boy in front of him. There was no reason for him to be…well, almost afraid of Dylan Fuller. After all, he could’ve taken him in a fight; there was no question about it.

But the thing was... he was frightened of Dylan Fuller. The boy radiated something sort of power, the kind that didn’t come from being able to bully others into doing things your way (like the way Kieran did). You somehow felt obliged to do whatever he asked, as though there would be severe consequences for not following his instructions.

You just wouldn’t mess with Dylan Fuller.

“Yeah, sure,” replied Kieran, nonchalantly enough. Or so he thought.

Dylan’s lips twitched, as though he had heard Kieran’s entire internal monologue and found it amusing. “I hope you’ve got someone controlling the number of people entering the gym. Too many people would mean that the administration will find out.”

Kieran’s Adam apple bobbed nervously, but not from the fear of being found out. It was more because of how he hadn’t, actually, thought about that particular problem. “Um, yeah, I’ll get to that.”

Dylan nodded and disappeared into the crowd.

***

When Dylan finally found her, she was completely wiped out.

Firstly, her head was in her arms but she wasn’t falling asleep. Nope. It looked more like she was in pain and was trying to make some sort of headache go away. Additionally, when one of Kieran’s friends nudged her, she lifted her head (with considerable effort) and greeted him with a wide, almost flirtatious smile.

Dollface never looked like that...That is, if she wasn’t completely drunk.

He would’ve found the whole situation extremely amusing, in fact he could already feel a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, if that friend of Kieran’s hadn’t smiled in return and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

She didn’t seem to mind; not with the way she was leaning closer towards him.

But Dylan did mind, because it was obvious to anyone that she was a goner. That guy had probably just thought that because she was so drunk, she would make an easy lay.
And he hated guys like that.

He marched towards dollface and yanked her to her feet. Curling his lip disgustedly at Kieran’s friend, who backed off immediately, he pulled her along with him. They had almost reached the door when she stopped and asked, “What about Luke?”

“He’s not here. He went back home for Thanksgiving, remember?”

She nodded once. “Yes…” And then she giggled. When she was done laughing, her gray eyes softened and she moved closer to him. “You miss him, don’t you?”

“Sure I do, dollface.” He folded his arms.

She leaned in, moving closer to him than she’d ever had in the past weeks, and whispered in his ear, “I miss Owen.”

And then she leaned back, gazed at him softly and kissed him.