Chapter 3 #2
“Yes, dick. She’s here,” I replied. A flicker of unease crossed Molly’s face at my rudeness, but I held up a hand to express that it was fine.
Hudson and I always bounced off each other, almost like I imagined a proper brother and sister would.
I liked it; it gave me a sense of normality in a house full of hormonal men.
“Less of the name-calling, Baby Sawyer,” he scolded, tacking on their annoying nickname for me.
“Time to go, English.” Hudson fisted the door again.
He could have just walked in; the doors didn’t lock, but I knew he wouldn’t.
The boys had always stuck to that one rule.
Ma had warned that if any of them ever came into my room without my permission that she’d hand them their balls.
My privacy whilst living with four large, manly boys had always been protected.
Even when we fought, Phoenix had never barged into my bedroom.
Molly chuckled. He called her English for obvious reasons; we’d all gotten used to that now.
“Don’t tell Hudson about the kiss,” I whispered, knowing that she wouldn’t; just like she wouldn’t tell me what her boyfriend knew about Phoenix’s past either.
We hadn’t known each other that long, but I trusted Molly implicitly.
She’d also seen the physical scars on my body, so I told her what made me an orphan after a few short weeks of knowing her.
The girl had never blabbed a word to anyone.
Not even Hudson. Although I had a vague feeling he knew anyway. He’d seen my shoulder.
She started to fan out her hair and pinched her cheeks, beautifying herself for her man. It should have been pathetic, but she made it look sweet. “Of course I won’t say anything.”
“Thanks, Mols.” Another thump against the door. Keep your panties on already!
“I'd better go before he beats down the door. Keep me posted, and remember what I said.”
Returning her smile, I allowed her to pull me in for a hug. “Good luck with the test.” And then she left.
I didn’t open my door to extend our goodbye; the chance of seeing her sucking face with my foster brother was too probable. They were usually all over each other. The sexual pull between the two of them made you feel pregnant just by watching them.
Remember what I said. Molly’s words swam back. He cares about you.
Yeah, well, he had a funny way of showing it.
When we were kids, I had spilled my guts to Phoenix. He knew all the gory details of my life, the issues from my past, before we had met. As I mentioned, he didn’t know the new ones I had inherited when he’d left me with the Jacksons and the Barker twins.
As I said, I liked to help myself to shit that wasn’t mine.
My twisted addiction started with the simplest thing: hiding something from my foster sister, Daisy. I remember the pleasure I felt from witnessing her looking for it. As the months rolled by, that craving I had to take stuff got stronger.
Stealing was the one thing that gave me a sense of control and a feeling of power.
And when I mentioned that it was a trait I had inherited, I wasn’t lying. My father had been a criminal before he killed himself and my mother.
Dad had been a top accountant for a prestigious law firm in the city.
After years of faithful service, he was busted for having taken some money that didn’t belong to him.
He’d been forced into that position to stop us losing our home.
Due to a bad investment, unbeknownst to his family, my father was going bankrupt.
So, he embezzled some money from work and got caught.
I remember him explaining the situation to both my mother and me. He had been in bits. There had been shouting with mom threatening to leave him and take me with her. Stuff in the house was smashed. Life in that house had always been loud.
It was ugly, but not as ugly as what came next.
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. My father was arrested until his lawyer managed to get him bailed, and he was told that he wasn’t allowed to leave the country until his appearance in court.
Then he went crazy.
The following weekend, he went out, got drunk, and came back to the house in the early hours. And then he started to put his plan into action.
Whilst his family was fast asleep in bed, his two dogs, Zach and King, were kennelled, and our horses stabled. My father set fire to our entire estate, the house, the outbuildings, everything.
I’d been told weeks later by my father’s lawyer that it was captured on CCTV.
Horrific scenes that I had never had access to and would never want to watch anyway.
I imagined there would be details about it in my file from the foster agency.
Something I wouldn’t have access to until I turned eighteen.
After ensuring the fire would consume the Manor, garages, and stables, my father, a proud shotgun owner, shot Zach and King and then turned the gun on himself.
My mother, who used to take sleeping tablets, perished in the fire, as did the horses in the stables. Only part of the house remained standing after the fire brigade extinguished the flames.
It was the end of that part of my life, like all the chapters before I was ten, were wiped away.
I remember flashes of that night, the panic I felt when I woke up and saw the smoke under my door.
It was thick and acrid. I’d kept my body low, having learned all about fire safety from school.
The first thought that drove me was to get to my mother’s room, but that part of the house was already engulfed, and half the roof was missing.
I remember seeing the flames licking up into the dark sky, like devils' tongues.
My room was the closest to the staircase, so I managed to climb down, with fire all around me.
As I got to the ground floor, I remember hearing sirens in the distance and trying to scream for help, but no words left my mouth, just a painful croak. The air had been so hot.
The last thing I remember from that night is making it to the front door, in my pajamas, drawing clean air into my lungs. A crunching sound followed by a fizz, and that was it. Nothing.
I woke up in the hospital after surgery, lying on my side with gauze covering the top left section of my back and shoulder. There were tubes everywhere and beeping. It was terrifying. I knew my mother was gone before the policewoman told me.
After a few days in recovery, more police came and asked me what I remembered, which was very little. And then a doctor explained how I’d sustained my injuries. A burning balustrade that held up part of the archway to our front door had fallen on me. Had it hit my skull, I wouldn’t have survived.
The tragedy made the news. Social services, the law, and my father’s old legal team did everything they could to keep the media away from me. It was like a circus, and I had hated it. Not being allowed to grieve in peace was hard.
Eventually, Mr. Brookes, our family lawyer, arranged for a Court Petition to change my name.
I was once Hailey Anne Radcliffe, the sole survivor of the tragedy at Radcliffe Manor. I was rushed into the hospital as Hailey and left as Harper. Crazy right?
And that was that, as I said, those chapters had been erased.
As far as I was concerned, I was glad my given name was lost in the fire that day.
My father chose it after his late mother, who had sadly passed away years earlier.
And that’s why I was cast into the system.
I had no other living family members. Just friends, who turned their backs on us the day they found out what my father had done.
I was lucky to be alive. Was I? I had heard those six words spoken so many times during my recovery. But the only time I had agreed with them was when I met Phoenix at Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s house.
And now look. What had happened to us?
You grew up. You are no longer children. And… he let you down.
Moving away from the door, I walked over to my closet.
Pushing the hangers back, I leaned in to look at the box of trinkets I’d taken from school that week: a couple of phones and an Apple Watch.
Remorse knifed through me as I looked at the pink strap and how small it was.
It must have been for the wrist of someone younger at school, probably a freshman. And I was a junior.
It had been sitting on the bench in the girls’ locker rooms, basically begging to be taken. Whoever it used to belong to needed to take better care of their stuff.
Swallowing, I traced my finger across one of the cell phones. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to stop.
I shoved my pitying thoughts from my mind and walked over to the mirror. A confident Harper stared back at me, that facade I had created to protect myself from harm.
Standing five feet barefoot, my build was slender. I had pink skin, smattered with freckles. Girls now drew freckles on their faces at school, but I hated mine. To me, they were hideous, just more blemishes on my pale skin to add to my scars.
I turned, watching my reflection as I pulled off my hoodie. Twisting my neck slightly, I looked at the burn damage, which took up part of one shoulder blade. From the front, I looked perfectly normal, but from the back, I looked like a freak. My scars made me feel vulnerable, and I hated that.
I ran my fingers over the slightly bubbled texture. It didn’t hurt to touch it anymore, and I had some feeling there now. Occasionally, my shoulder would stiffen up and ache, but that was about it.
When I showed Phoenix, he said I shouldn’t hide it as it was part of who I am. He’d called me beautiful and unique.