Heartbreaker Breaks (A Bittersweet Lottery Love Story) (Tangled Hearts & Broken Vows: Tales of Infidelity Book 1) (16 page)

  “Yeah.” He rolled off of her irritated, stood up and adjusted his clothes. He didn’t look at her, only at the cabin, “Going for a hunt Vee.”

  He walked away as Venetia cried for him and warned him about the boars, the dangers of being away from her. She sobbed when he did not return to her. Her tears streamed down her face until there was no more left to cry. She curled up on the blanket that retained the scent of his body, and fell asleep, her trembling body spent.

...

  “Vee, Vee…” The sound of her name awoke her. Her name was said through labored breath, and at first she did not recognize it.

  “Addie?” On her feet before his name was out of her mouth. She knew he was in danger. She ran through the garden chasing his strained sounds.

  “Addie,” She fell to her knees before him and held his head in her hands, “What…” The sight of him bleeding from his neck silenced her.

  “Vee,” He smiled though his murky eyes, so much like the pond in autumn. “The boar, he was big…”

  “I don’t want to hear about the boar Addie,” She held her hand over the wound on his neck, but knew it was too late to stop the bleeding. The torn out flesh was larger than her hand, “I love you Addie, don’t leave me…”

  “I love you too Vee… but the boar. I killed him with my bow.” His eyes dimmed, and the blood stopped flowing as Venetia cried and cursed the Gods.

  “Addie…” She cried over and over again. But he was gone.

  She stood up, and put her hands in the pocket of her dress, for her body was as cold as his. She felt seeds at the bottom of the pocket. Anemone seeds that she had meant to plant days before her love arrived to her home. She sprinkled them around his body, vowing to never love another, and walked up the road to her home a broken woman, never to recover.

…

  “Miss Venetia…” The voice of the girl who lived with the grounds keeper in the gatehouse called out to her as she walked up the steep hill.

  Venetia turned to her, not believing that she lived in such a world where her Addie would die while such a meaningless girl survived.

  “Miss Venetia… I hope it was all right that I let the boy in. He said he was your nephew, and he looked so much like you…” She smiled in awe of being in her presence. “Are you okay, Miss Venetia?”

  “I’m in tears you insipid creature,” She raised her hand to the sky and snapped her fingers, “And when I cry so do the heavens above.”

  The sky filled with dark clouds thundering, rain poured down on the two of them.

  “Miss Venetia…” She said in shock.

  “Is that all you can say? All of you people… so dull… so lifeless, but you continue to love when that right is denied to me. I curse all of you.” She lowered her arm and screamed out to the valley below her.

  The girl cowered, too frightened to move.

  “The love you all have,” She laughed, and the sound carried across the island. Her sister’s ears perked up more than fifty miles away, “It shall be cursed. It shall be sweet, but so bitter in the end.” She spit out and laughed again.

  “All of its pleasure, no match for its pain. Fickle and false,” Again her laughter filled the island and the land beyond the sea, “The strongest will be weak, the wise made dumb, and the idiots shall speak.”

  The girl sank to her knees, covering her face with her hands.

  “The rich, the poor, all of you, the youngest, the oldest, brave where one of sound mind would fear to tread, deceptive and perverse. Jealousy where there should be trust. I curse all of you.” She laughed one last time, and up the hill she trudged, slamming the door to her home, never to be heard from again.

  Over the years, the villagers would say that they heard sounds of a baby’s tears, and as the years passed the sound of a child playing. But nobody really knew the truth. The stories were always secondhand.

…

  The girl walked back to the gatehouse perplexed by Venetia, not understanding her words. She was not dumb, but the things Venetia had spoken about were so foreign to her, to anyone on the island that it may as well have been a different language.

  She dried herself off, and changed into a fresh dress, and went to the sink to wash the dishes that had piled up. She sang a little song her mother had taught her as a little girl while she scrubbed the plates and looked out the kitchen window to see her boyfriend walking up the path to the home they shared.

  She knew he had been in the village, gathering supplies for the tool shed. She thought of the check-out girl, and her dark hair, and how friendly she was to her boyfriend. An unfamiliar feeling filled her chest, causing emotional discomfort. She threw the plate down into the sink breaking it and ran to the door.

“Where have you been?” She screamed at her shocked boyfriend.

   And so it began.

About the Author

Paloma Meir lives with her family by the beach in Los Angeles. When she's not taking long walks she likes to writes sordid and tortured stories of people in love. You can find out more about her on her blog www.palomameir.com. She loves her family, writing books, reading books, dresses and Twitter.

Subscribe to Paloma Meir’s Newsletter for free review copies, new release information and prizes. We promise never to spam your email account.

http://eepurl.com/bpXoUf

An excerpt from
A Girl's Story by Paloma Meir

I must have been nine. She sat on her school bus seat alone, staring out the window. Her hair was white, the sun lighting it up, a sleep bump in the back. Her dark eyes took up half of her face. She was probably a year younger than me, and one of the last girls to be wearing a dress to school. The dress was red with tiny white flowers and a yoked top. She would have surprised I knew what a yoke was, but I did. The dress was short enough to show her pale knobby knees. Black patent leather shoes on her feet when the other girls wore sneakers.

   She was always alone. She would eat lunch at the cafeteria tables, the last one on the bench, eating her sandwich, picking out what she didn’t like and putting it in her napkin to throw away later. She never looked up and nobody ever spoke to her.

   I wondered what she thought about? What did she see as she stared out the bus window? I wanted to know. I played kickball with my friends after lunch and there she would sit on the bench not far from me reading a picture book with frogs on the cover. She never looked around, or noticed our game. Sometimes the balls would come dangerously close to her head. She would shift her position; that was it. No yelling out to be more careful, nothing like that.

   I always had lots of friends, everybody did. It was easy. We all liked the same things, kickball, throwing food at each other, wrestling. Not her though, always alone.  I wondered how she could stand it. I tried one day to not talk to anyone, to sit silently away from others. I lasted maybe an hour.

  I started to sit next to her on the bus. She never noticed. Sometimes if her book bag or lunch was on the seat she would move it onto her lap. That was it though. Her eyes out the window, what did she see? I looked out the window with her.

  The trees, was she looking at the trees? I saw the them through her eyes. The winding branches, the knotty stumps. The shapes, was she looking at the shapes? Was it the colors? Sitting next to her I saw the colors changed over the days.

   My knees would knock into hers when the bus would run over bump. She would move them away from mine, still not seeing who was sitting next to her. My friends would talk over their seats to me, the noise of our conversations didn’t disturb her peace, but I ignored them anyway on the drive to school telling them I was sleepy. I wanted her to have her quiet time even though she had far too much of it.

  I don’t know why it happened, but she started dressing like the other girls, the uniform of jean and t-shirts. She still wore her shiny black shoes, but I knew that would change soon. I knew I would miss them when they were gone. Her white hair grew in fuller, the sleep bump not being able to form in the new thickness. I missed her knobby white knees.

  The girls on the bus, not all of them, more the leaders of the girls, the girls in my grade I had known my whole life, started picking on her. I didn’t quite get it at first. It started off slowly, and she didn’t turn around to acknowledge them, which probably egged them on. I wanted to stop them from bothering this deer of a girl. A slight figure who could be knocked down by a strong wind. I knew it wasn’t my battle. This was the girl battle; to jump in would have made it worse.

  They seemed to think she was gay, a homo in their words. We had all been taught tolerance, their choice of words were ugly. She was a wisp of a thing.  I wondered if she understood what they were saying. I wondered if she even heard them. They would lose interest after a few minutes of their taunts. I was relieved.

  I don’t know what happened, and I never asked her when I got to know her and love her but one day it escalated badly. The girls screamed “lesbo” out the window as she was getting on the bus. Her tiny doe eyed face looked up to the source of the taunts, a look of terror in her wide eyes as if hearing their ugliness for the first time. Her eyes met mine for a moment without any recognition of having ever seen me before.

  She took off up the street running with the speed of a deer she looked so much like. The driver got off the bus and went after her. She was tiny. It must have alarmed him having her run off like that. She wasn’t the kind of girl you want going off alone.

  In the confusion of the moment, I jumped off the bus and hid behind a bush, waited for the driver to get back on and drive off. It felt like forever. I worried I would lose track of her. I had to make sure she got home okay or wherever she was going. Finally the driver got back on the bus and drove off.

  I ran up the street in her direction. I didn’t see her. I stopped at what I thought was her house. I didn’t think she would have gone back home. I didn’t know why I thought this but I was sure about it. I looked up at the trees thinking maybe she climbed up to the top. Not there, I ran up the street. She was fast, but I was faster. I caught sight of her rounding the bend of the sharp turn on our canyon road. Her sneakers were brand new, white, they glowed in the morning fog. I thought of yelling after her. I didn’t knowing if that would scare her more. I stopped running, slowing my pace to a quick walk, not wanting to step on anything that would make a noise. At the top of the street I saw her looking into the window of a house that appeared abandoned. Apparently not, she ran from the window and crossed the street to another house that looked vacant.

  She looked through the window, and I guess decided the house was empty. Around the back she ran to an overgrown ivy-covered gate and climbed over it with a speed and dexterity I could never hope for, the benefit of being a string of a girl. I waited until she had gone over and I couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore before following her. I climbed over as quietly as possible not wanting to drive her further away. I wondered what I would say when and if I ever caught up with her.

  I tiptoed down the tile-covered path to an open and unruly backyard overlooking the deep canyon. She sat in the center, her book bag and lunch spread out around her, staring off into the canyon, past the trees. Silent as she always was. I watched, for how long I don’t know. Eventually she lay down on the overgrown grass and took a nap. I walked over to her. She was asleep, her skin even more pale in the peace of slumber.

  I knew I had to leave. I had to go back home and make up a story about missing the bus and get a ride to school from my parents. I picked a flower, a dandelion, lay it next to her and walked home wondering why I had done this.

An excerpt from
Overdone (The Loss Reason) by Paloma Meir

  “Danny time to wake–up. I need to go home and change. Will you drive me to the airport? My flight leaves at 4:00.” She stood beside the bed dressed in her clothes from the night before. Her long hair hung in loose waves down her back. I pulled her back down to the bed and kissed her.

  “You don’t need to go back. There are services that will pack up your things and ship them back.” She looked at me with a smile on her face and confusion in her eyes.

  “I’m not coming back Danny. Madrid is my home.” She leaned down to kiss me again. I shook my head away.

  “I’m missing something. What was last night?”

  “A night I will remember forever.” She ran her finger down my chest, still with the smile on her face.

  “You’re staying here Zelda. You told me last night, I don’t know, maybe 100 times that you loved me.” I said with a little more intensity than I meant to use.

  “Of course I love you. I’ll always love you. Love doesn’t die.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on in your head but you love me now. Forget forever. Now.” I took her finger off my chest and held it in my hand. I needed to get her attention, put some sense in her head.

  “Paolo and I are thinking of getting married.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Why would you come here and do this if you were only going to go away and marry him?” I didn’t know if it was from the beer the night before or her insane worldview but I felt nauseous.

  “Paolo and I have an understanding. Don’t be so American.”

  “I am American. How many times have you called me your American boy? By the way Ms. European Princess you grew-up up the street from me. You lived on pizza for half your life. You’re American. How many men do you do this with? Who are you Zelda?” She flinched at the word princess. I was so mad that I didn’t care.

  “I don’t do it. It’s Paolo. Well one time when I went to meet Theodora in Barcelona. I have to tell you the story... You’ll think it’s funny.” Why would she think I would think that’s funny?

  “It’s only Paolo. You mean that old man you’ve been with for the past five years? The man older than your mother? You’ve always lived in your head. Listen to me Zelda. Hear me. Paolo is an asshole who doesn’t respect you.” I banged the wall behind me with the full force of my fist, scaring her for a moment. Again I didn’t care. “Why did you come back to me?”

  “He’s a year younger than my mother. You don’t understand. It’s the way things are done there. I’m sorry. Your mom told me you’re a wild one now. I didn’t think that you would reattach to me. I miss you so much sometimes.” Her eyes filled with tears. I pulled her close to me and hugged her because I fucking loved her.

  “You miss me because you’re meant to be with me.” I kissed her forehead and ran my hand through her tangled hair.

  “We don’t want the same things. I don’t want to live in Malibu. This isn’t my city. We had our time.” I didn’t want to think about what may or may not have been true about what she had said. All I knew was I didn’t want her to go.

  I laid her back to the bed, this time gently and made love to her one last time knowing this was it. If she came back I wouldn’t see her. There was no reason for me to ever go to Spain in my life. There were 47 other countries in Europe if I ever had a desire to travel to that part of the world.

  She was quiet as I said over and over again I loved her and didn’t want to be without her.

  “Can I tell you about Barcelona? Would that be all right? You’ll like the story Danny.” She asked as we lay curled up against one another finished. Her arm warmly stretched across my chest where it belonged.