“Today. I’m ten.” She turns to face me, smiling.
“Happy Birthday.” I put my hand out. “Would you like one of my cookies? I don’t have a cake, sorry.” I ask her. She looks in my hand with an even bigger smile.
“Oh, I love cookies, white chocolate ones are the best. My mom makes the best ones.” She stops talking, takes a bite of the cookie, and sits back down, leaning against the tree. I look up at my tree, then back down to her. “I’ll have to bring some with me tomorrow.” She opens her book and starts reading again, before looking back up at me.
“Have you read it?” she asks. I shake my head. “I started it when I got here. I can read it to you; you haven’t missed much.” And before I can stop her, she starts reading the book to me.
I sit back and listen to this new girl read a book while I eat my cookie. She flips her head to mine a few times to see if I’m still listening, and her pigtails swing as she does, which makes me laugh every time.
Present Time
“Hayden, your shot.” I hear Declan behind me as I stare at the tree house in the garden. “Hayden.” I hear him again, and I push the memory of her to the back of my head. I turn around to look at the pool table.
Lining up my shot, I hit the white ball, knowing my head isn’t in the place to be playing pool. We have a few days left of winter break, then it’s back to college. It’s the last place I want to be. The only thing helping me through it is knowing I have five months until I can finally get out of there and get to work in the family business. Well, the clinic anyway, I’m already working in the other part. I still have to go through law school, but I can continue working at the clinic.
“You good man?” Miles asks me, but I line up my next shot, ignoring the question.
“You guys want to go to Skyline before we go back to school?” Mason asks and looks over at Lileah and Trixie walking into thepool room. “It was the best Christmas present we ever got. Cain gave us four free passes to go to the sixth floor at the club, no questions asked. Come on, we have to use it.” Mason takes his shot, and Miles and I both answer him that we’re game.
Declan is with Trixie, so there’s no point in giving him the sixth floor free pass as he won’t use it anyway. Instead, Cain got him parts for his car. I haven’t seen D that happy about something in a long time.
Declan laughs when Trixie signs to him, and the three of us look between each other. She can talk and says a few words to us, but she's still very closed off.
“Ask them, I’m sure Mason will be happy to give you full details of it,” Declan jokes, and I turn back around and continue looking at the treehouse.
10 years old
Olivia is here every day with her dad. She sits in front of my tree house, talking. She talks a lot. But it’s my tree house, and I want to sit in there and get away from my brothers. Yet I can’t tell her that. She’s new, but I haven’t seen her at school.
“Hayden.” She quickly gets up as I get closer to her. “I have to tell you about what’s been happening in my book.” She waves her hand, urging me to hurry up, and I smile. She’s always so happy, smiling all the time. I wonder if she’s ever been angry. “I know I’ve been reading it to you every day, but last night Dad said the teacher was happy with my work, so he’s letting me stay up a little later so I can read.” I shake my head a little because she’s going to be talking for so long, she thinks I’m listening to her tell me about some boy called Harry, but I’m not. At the moment, the only thing going on in my head is, I wonder if I can kill my brother in Fortnite.
Present Time
I turn around when I hear both Miles and Mason laughing, and Lileah telling them they’re being idiots.
“I don’t know why you don’t tell her,” Lileah snaps at Declan.
“And you know what the sixth floor is?” Miles asks her, and I shake my head because this conversation is still happening. Lileah places her hand on her hip and tilts her head. The four of us look at each other. How the hell does she know what the sixth floor is?
“You’re bluffing,” I’m the next to talk, but the way she’s smiling as she turns to face me, I know she’s not.
“The sixth floor is a sex floor, anything goes. Threesomes, orgies, I can continue…”
“How the fuck do you know about the sixth floor. There's no way Cain would let you in there.” Mason is the first one to snap at her, but all she does is smile and wink at Trixie as she walks away from us.
“Wait the hell up!” I shout at her as I throw my cue on the pool table and walk into the sitting room. “You want to explain yourself?” I shout at her, and my dad shouts at us to lower our voices. “You might want to raise yours and ask our sister how she knows about the sixth floor,” I tell him, and before I can even finish the sentence, Dad is up on his feet, looking at Lileah.
“Lileah—
“Don’t shout at her. I told her.” Everyone turns to Mom, and she smiles just like Lileah’s. “She asked, because you four kept talking about it, so I told her. I told her she can’t go on the floor yet?—
“Yet! Never!” It should be Dad shouting, but both Mason and I beat him to it. “She is never to be on the floor.” My eyes lock with Lileah, and she starts laughing.
“Well, if you four stop talking about it in front of her, she wouldn’t have asked. Now stop with this conversation and let's have dinner.” Mom walks away toward the kitchen, and I keep my eyes on Lileah, who is still smiling at me.
I know she thinks I’m being an overprotective brother, but I have a good reason for it. Because there's no way I'll let anything happen to her, I wasn’t there the last time, and it has fucked up my life, I won’t let it happen again. So, I’ll be watching her like a hawk whenever a boy talks to her.
Two
