Belonging to Lust

Zaiyia and Anneliese stayed up awhile longer into the night so they could have themselves a serious girl’s talk, and get to know more about each other. Anneliese mostly talked about the crazy things she got herself into as a kid around the time that Heath was trying to raise her and Maverick. Zaiyia enjoyed hearing stories about Heath and what he was like when he was younger. She found herself wanting to hear more and more as she committed every tale to memory.

“I feel so bad that he had to raise you guys alone all by himself. Did he really have no one else to guide him and tell him what to do?” Zayia asked Anneliese before stuffing her mouth with a handful of potato chips from a small orange bowl from the kitchen.

Anneliese nodded from where she laid on her stomach at the end of the bed, nibbling on her own handful of chips in thought. “Well I mean he received a few suggestions from the mothers and fathers in our neighborhood, but no he never had anyone really sit down with him and give him the kind of help he needed to raise us at the time. Even with how young I was, I could tell Heath was still struggling over the loss of our parents, but whenever he was around us he always made sure to never allow that weakness to show. I think he just wanted us to see him as our strong older brother that would comfort us when we needed him and would protect us from whatever danger that’s out there in the real world. After losing our parents we needed something to fall back on to keep us safe, and that was Heath.”

Zaiyia gave her a sympathetic nod from where she sat cross legged on her bed. “Yeah, you’re lucky you guys had each other to lean on. Not everyone in this world is as fortunate.”

Anneliese nodded in agreement before changing the subject. “What about you? What stories do you have to tell?”

Now that the questions were being flipped and pointing towards Zaiyia, she was forced to give Anneliese some made up stories of her past, with just a tiny pinch of truth to them. She knew she was going to feel bad for having to lie to her because Anneliese had trusted her enough to be open with her about her own past and was expecting the same return, but Zaiyia knew the guilt would eventually go away, and that lying would become easier for her to do. “Well uh, what’s there to say? I lived with my aunt in a…poor neighborhood. She was very strict about a lot of the things I did back then, which just made her look like the biggest hypocrite in my eyes because she did exactly the same thing when I was her age. Anyway, I had a few friends nearby, but we weren’t ever that close enough to tell each other secrets. It was hard to be close to anyone in my neighborhood because a lot of the girls weren’t the kind of loyal girls that you can just tell everything to, and expect them to keep it to themselves. All of them had big mouths and got into a lot of fights for it. There were some cute boys around, but they weren’t mentally mature enough to take a relationship seriously, so I never bothered to waste my time with them. School was pretty normal, I guess. Other than that, my life was pretty boring back then.”

Anneliese opened her mouth to ask her something when the sound of the staircase creaking intercepted her. They both looked over their shoulder to see Heath coming up the stairs without a shirt on. Zaiyia gasped in surprise and anticipation, which caused a small broken piece of potato chip to fly down her throat, and choke her. Covering her mouth, Zaiyia let out a cough or two and successfully got the chip to pass before any of the siblings could take notice to her choking.

“Hey big brother, what’s up?” Anneliese welcomes him with a wave of her hand.

Heath shrugged and took a seat on Zaiyia’s chair by the side of her bed. “Oh you know, this and that. Don’t mind me butting in on your girl talk or anything.”

“Let me guess, you couldn’t sleep?” Anneliese asked him with a perfectly raised eyebrow.

Heath shrugged it off. “I’m not all that tired yet so I figured your woman’s rantings would help put me to sleep.”

“Oh whatever you!” Anneliese laughed, throwing a small pillow at him which he caught with one hand.

Not wishing to continue on right back to talking about herself, Zaiyia changed the subject back towards Anneliese. “So, Mrs. Hopper, how did you meet Mr. Hopper?”

“Oh, god.” Heath sighed, rolling his eyes at the memories.

Anneliese sent her bother a glare before replying to Zaiyia’s question. “I met my husband when I was 17 years old and he was 22. We both went to some cookout gathering that was held in this big beautiful park by one of Heath’s co-workers. Heath could tell that I liked Colin and practically engraved it into my skull that he didn’t approve of my attraction towards him because of our age difference.”

“You’re damn right I didn’t approve.” Heath muttered loud enough for the ladies to hear.

Anneliese ignored him and continued on with her story. “I was in my rebellious stage where I wanted to ‘break away from my family, and live my own life’ kind of thing. I wanted to be with Colin right then and there, with him being 22 and me being 17. Colin wanted to be with me too and he was actually the first one to admit his feelings for me before I could. Despite how much he cared about me, he also wanted me to wait until I was legally an adult before I go running away from my family like an emotional teenager to be with him. He wanted me to take my time growing up, and enjoy it before I would have to start supporting myself on my own. Like I said before, I wasn’t willing to wait, and eagerly persuaded him to be my boyfriend right that second.”

“So, you two were secretly going out even though you were considered underage and he could’ve gone to jail?” Zaiyia asked her, finding the whole thing kind of romantic because it was came off as a forbidden love between two individuals.

Anneliese nodded. “Yeah, we absolutely did, for a while at least. I didn’t honestly care about the law at that age, all I cared about was being with him and being happy together. I think he did too because he took the risk and never once complained about it. We were as happy as can be…until my idiot brother found out. He showed up one day at Colin’s job and waited for him outside just so he could threaten to kill him with his bare hands around his lunch break if he didn’t leave me alone. Unfortunately, it worked and Colin broke up with me right after school that afternoon.”

Zaiyia gasped and covered her mouth in shock, completely enthralled in Anneliese’s love story. “Oh my god, no he didn’t! How did you take it? Were you okay?”

“Of course I wasn’t okay! That idiot broke my heart because of what my stupid brother had to go ahead and say to him without my knowledge. At first, I couldn’t stop crying over it, and then afterwards all I felt was anger towards Colin for just dumping me like that after all that we’ve been through. All I could think about was how he could just break up with me so easily? How could he leave me like everything we made together meant absolutely nothing to him in the end? How could he let go so easily”

Zaiyia couldn’t agree more with her. “Well the next thing you better say is that he ain’t getting off that easily because I’ll you what, I wouldn’t have taken any of his crap at all. But enough about me, what did you end up having to do to change his mind?”

“Well after yelling at Heath, I packed up all my crap and moved out of the house. I expected that I would have to force my way into Colin’s place or else I’d be sleeping on his porch all night long until he decided to let me in, but when I got over there he didn’t try and fight me to keep me away. He let me stay the night but of course made sure that I was sleeping in separate rooms. But one of the things he loved about me, was my stubbornness, and I wasn’t about to let him have his way in picking which room I would be forced to sleep in.”

Heath let out a groan. “Oh come on, Anneliese, really?! You forced yourself into his bed?”

Anneliese rolled her eyes at his behavior. “Heath, I was in love with him at 17, for god’s sake. What the hell did you expect? Anyway Zaiyia, he drove me home the very next day, which surprised my big idiot brother over there because he thought Colin would have dragged me across the sea to continue on with our forbidden love affair.”

“Okay so what happened after your husband returned you back home to your family? Was that the end of your relationship until you became of age?” Zaiyia asked impatiently because the suspense was killing her.

“Yeah, kind of. Colin made the impression that he was done with me for good and that he was moving on with his life. I’m guessing Heath believed it because he stopped asking me about him after a short while, but in reality Colin and I continued to date behind his back.” Anneliese revealed, bursting into giggles behind her hand.

Zaiyia raised her eyebrows in surprise that she was admitting to that in front of her brother. Wondering if he already knew about it, she shifted her eyes from his giggling sister to him out of curiosity. She was surprised to find his eyes were already on her, and it looked like he had been staring for quite some time. Her lips parted as she stared back into his green penetrating eyes with her own. She felt like he was searching for something within her by the way he was looking at her, as if he needed some kind of answer to quench his curiosity and was deciding to look for it through her. Just as soon as she caught him looking, he decided to stare off outside her window instead, before finally getting up off her couch.

“Well, it looks like you ladies did the trick. See you two in the morning.” Heath mumbled tiredly as he headed for the stairs to go to bed.

“Screw you, Heath, and good night to you too.” Anneliese called after him.