Chapter 17
JACE
“What?” he asks again, this time in disbelief, his head snapping up so fast at my words that I’d wince in sympathy at the pain that must have caused if not for the fact my entire body feels like an electric current is coursing through it right now.
“I know where she is, Charlie. I know where Bonnie is,” I say slowly, blinking as my eyes mist, my mind latching onto one of my fondest, albeit slightly embarassing, memories.
Lying on my back, I pretend to be asleep as I wait for the sound of Bonnie’s soft snores to fill the room. Looking at the alarm clock on my bedside, I check the time again as it gets closer and closer to midnight.
As soon as the light under the bedroom door went out, it didn’t take long for the soft pitter patter of Bonnie’s footsteps to sound as she crept down the hallway.
When she opened my door, she didn’t say a word, simply closed it behind her before crossing the room in the dark and crawled in between Charlie and me.
It's a common occurrence; she often sneaks in saying she’s had a bad dream when I know it’s a lie, but I seem to sleep better when she’s in the room, and Charlie has never complained, so we don't call her out on it.
When I finally hear her snoring away, I climb out of the bed, making sure I don’t wake her and I put my shoes on, then nudge Charlie awake so we can get on with our plan.
He doesn’t wake easily; I end up having to put a few pillows down on the floor and pull him off of the bed for him to wake. He glares up at me, blinking the sleep from his eyes and I smirk, quickly shushing him before he can go off at me for it and wake Bonnie up.
“It’s time,” I whisper excitedly, tossing his shoes to him before slowly opening my bedroom window and climbing out, Charlie quickly following behind me.
“What’s the plan if we get caught?” he whisper shouts as we cross the yard, and I pull myself up onto the fence. He may sound like he’s being a chicken shit, but he doesn’t hesitate to jump up onto the fence and smirk at me when he makes it over before I do.
“We aren’t going to get caught. Besides, Mr and Mrs Henderson are old. They’ve been asleep for hours.” I roll my eyes, jumping down into their yard and landing on the soft grass beside him.
“Aren’t they like our parents’ age?”
“Yeah, duh. Old.” I pull out the pair of scissors that I wedged through the small crack in the fence earlier and we head to the other side of the Henderson’s yard.
“They’re huge!” he smiles, and I snicker before we both start hunting for the best ones to give Bonnie.
“I told you. Mrs Henderson grows them for some competition or something. She’s a real stickler for them.
Yelled at me the other week when I jumped the fence to grab our footy because it landed in her ‘prized roses.’” I put my hand on my hips, turning my chin up as I mimic the way she told me off, snickering and laughing with Charlie.
One by one, we cut the best-looking roses, placing them down carefully in a small pile to give to Bonnie for her birthday. She’s gonna love it. She’s always stopping to pick flowers when we walk home from school.
It’s gonna be epic. I can’t wait to see her face.
Spotting an extra big one at the top of the bush, I hold onto Charlie for balance and reach up as far as I can go, trying to reach the stem with the scissors.
“What are you doing?” the question scares the crap out of me, and I lose balance, falling into the rose bush and pulling Charlie in with me.
“Ow!” he whisper shouts, and I hiss when I try to climb out, causing several thorns to dig into my hands.
“What did you do that for?” I spit out, glaring at Bonnie who stands there with her hands over her mouth and her shoulders shaking as she tries not to laugh her arse off at us.
My lips twitch when her eyes start to water with how hard she’s trying not to laugh, and despite the pain of the thorns cutting into me, I can’t stay mad at her.
“They’re for you…happy birthday,” I mumble, letting out a groan when I shift and feel a thorn cut into my butt, but the look she gives us makes it worth it.
“Awww,” she coos, her nose buried in the flower as she smells it, her eyes filling with a mischievous glint.
"Are you picking me flowers? Or am I supposed to pick you guys?” she asks, gasping dramatically as she puts both hands on her cheeks.
“Oh my God, you’re my flowers,” she teases, and I let out a groan.
“Help me up!” Charlie pleads.
“In a second, I’m enjoying this.”
“Bonnie!” we both whisper shout.
“Fiiiine,” she lets out dramatically before reading into the bush to grab Charlie’s hand and pull shim out. “Look! I picked a rose! Shall I pick another?” She’s enjoying this a little too much, but her giggles have me smiling.
“What are you kids doing?” the shout has all three of us freezing before Charlie reaches into the bush and the two of them quickly yank me out.
“Go go go,” I whisper shout, shoving them in the direction of our shared fence, forgetting about the pile of cut roses on the grass. We make it to the fence right as the back light comes on and Charlie and I give Bonnie a boost up so she can get over.
I hear the lock on the backdoor click and look at Charlie with wide eyes. Together we take a few steps back from the fence before running and jumping, climbing over just as the backdoor opens.
Staying low, we race around the side of the house to my window and quickly pile inside, shutting the blinds and ducking out of the way so our shadows don’t give us away.
“My roses!” Eyeing each other, we burst out laughing as we hear Mrs Henderson cry out.
Footsteps in the hallway cut us off and cause the three of us to panic, looking around for somewhere to hide, but freeze when the light turns on and Mum walks in with a knowing smile on her face and hands on her hips.
Busted.
“Just what are the three of you up to? And it wouldn’t have anything to do with Mrs Henderson having a heart attack over her precious roses next door, would it?”
“I plead the fifth,” I state, remembering the guy on the cop show we watched last week at Charlie’s say that so he wouldn’t get in trouble.
“Wrong country,” she responds with a smirk on her face, and I frown.
“Huh?” I ask, confused. That’s not the response he got on the show. “Are you mad?”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?” her tone is light, but my eyes narrow, not trusting the look in her eyes. “Besides, I’m about to get the last laugh,” she declares, holding up a pair of tweezers.
How she knew she would need them, beats me but my eyes widen at the sight, and I instantly take a step back, shaking my head.
“Nuh-ah, no way.” The last time I fell into a prickly bush, she picked the little spikes out one by one. It took forever and hurt like hell. Not to mention Bonnie laughed at me the entire time.
“Yes way, now come on.”
“Ow,” I hiss out as Mum pulls the last thorn from my leg, and I scratch at the skin seeing Charlie do the same.
“Now, is that all of them?” Mum asks, and Charlie and I quickly nod our heads, but she just gives us a knowing look, and I groan, wincing before looking at Bonnie who is enjoying every second of this.
“Bonnie, time for bed please,” Mum says softly, giving me a look of understanding and I give a small, relieved breath.
“Aww, but I want to see,” Bonnie whines and I panic a little. I don’t like hearing that sound from her and I can never seem to tell her no, but I really don’t want her to watch as Mum pulls thorns from my butt cheeks.
Mum doesn’t say anything, just crosses her arms and gives Bonnie 'The Look. “Ugh, fine.” Bonnie pouts but relents, walking over to us with a wicked smile on her face.
My cheek tingles when she quickly presses a kiss on it, thanking me for her birthday present before doing the same with Charlie then skips to the door. Pausing just before she walks out, she looks back at us and smiles. “Goodnight, Roses,” she singsongs, giggling the entire way back to her room.
“Great, that ain’t going away anytime soon,” I mutter under my breath but a throat clearing pulls my attention back to Mum and I wait for the lecture. The last time Bonnie was caught sleeping in my room with us we got in trouble, her dad saying it was ‘inappropriate’, whatever that means.
But Mum doesn’t say anything, she just shakes her head before nodding to the bed. “Come on, lie back down.”
“Do I have to?” I groan out. This is embarrassing!
“It’s your own fault for sneaking out to steal some of Mrs Henderson’s roses.” Sulking the entire time, I stomp my way over to the bed, lying down on my stomach to go first.
“Was it worth it?” Mum asks as she pulls out the first thorn and I wince.
“Yes,” we both say at the same time, and I smile, thinking about the huge smile on Bonnie’s face when she realised the roses were for her. Mum chuckles before plucking out the next thorn.
“You know,” she says after removing the last thorn from Charlie’s butt and sets the tweezers down on the bedside table next to the pile of thorns. “Your father used to do the same thing when we were your age.” She looks away, a soft smile stretching across her face as she recalls my dad.
“Yeah?” I press her gently when she doesn’t continue the story. She doesn’t talk about Dad all that much. She loved him so much and whenever she talks about him, I can tell she misses him a lot. I hate seeing her upset almost as much as I hate seeing Bonnie upset, so I stopped asking her about him.
“Yeah, he used to sneak in through my window and bring me flowers or mulberries-”
“What are mulberries?” Charlie asks, and I nod my head because I want to know too.
“They’re kind of like blackberries, only they grow in a big tree.
There used to be one down by the river where we grew up.
We used to go there all the time and pick them off the tree and eat them.
Then your dad would complain about the little crabs under the rocks nipping his toes because he never wore his shoes. ”
Mum sighs, and out of the corner of my eye I spot Bonnie’s head peak around the doorframe as she listens, but I don’t dob her in.
I wink and she covers her mouth to hide her giggle before lying down and using her arms as a pillow as we listen to Mum tell the story about how her and my dad fell in love as kids.
“What are you doing out of bed, missy?” Bonnie squeals and lets out a loud giggle as Grant scoops her into his arms. “What’s this?” he laughs when he steps into view and sees we’re all awake. Bonnie whispers something in his ear and he throws his head back laughing from his stomach.
Mum smiles up at him fondly then she scoops the thorns into her hand and chucks them in the bin she brought over before she crosses the room. Placing a hand on Grant’s chest, she looks up at him and he leans down to kiss her.
Bonnie and I both scrunch up our noses and they both laugh at our reactions. “Alright everyone, it is way too early for us to be awake.” Grant looks at the window pointedly where Mrs Henderson is still crying out about her roses before he lifts a brow and shakes his head, saying goodnight.
Mum turns the light off before closing the door and Charlie and I lean back, listening as they make their way to Bonnie’s room. “Do I have to go to bed?” she asks, and I smile.
“Even birthday girls have to sleep. Come on princess, in you pop.” I listen as Grant and Mum coax her back into bed before their footsteps sound down the hallway, getting louder until they pass my bedroom and head for theirs.
A few minutes later I hear the soft creak of Bonnie’s door and smile into the dark as her light footsteps echo until she pops her head in my room, wedging herself through the smallest gap and climbs back in between Charlie and I.
“Happy birthday, Bee,” Charlie whispers and I close my eyes, finally starting to drift off with a smile.
I smile, the memory fading but the feeling it leaves behind doesn't. I have replayed every single second of every single memory I have of Bonnie, and that one is by far one of my favourites.
At the time, it was embarassing as fuck.
I didn't want Bonnie to see us get thorns picked out of our arse, what twelve-year-old would?
But now? I would do anything to go back and have those extra few minutes with her.
She teased us about it for weeks and while we acted annoyed about it, the truth was we loved the sound of her giggles and laughter her teasing brought.
“I know exactly where she is,” I repeat, a little in awe. I can hardly believe it; this entire time, she was in my mum’s hometown. What if she chose that town thinking we would look for her there, only we never did? Why didn’t we think to check there?
We suck at this.
Scrambling for my phone, I load up the site and decide to create an account. I know we agreed not to comment on any of the posts going in, but she needs to know we finally pulled our heads out of our arses and figured it out.
She needs to know that we’re coming for her.