Heart Starter by Michelle Hercules
Heart Starter © 2021 by Michelle Hercules
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
SADIE
I blinkmy eyes open and don’t know where I am at first. Then I hear a faint and constant beeping sound, which draws my attention to the machine to my right. It’s monitoring my heartbeat. Fragments of memory rush through my brain, and then I remember being at the pub with my teammates after we won the championship game.
There were some wankers at the pub, drunk out of their minds. They followed Anika and me when we left, and then… fuck. The flash of a steely blade, the white-hot pain in my side.
“Sadie, darling. You’re awake.” My mother moves into my line of vision, face scrunched in worry, making the lines on her forehead deepen.
“Apparently. I could be dreaming though,” I croak.
“Even heavily sedated, her sarcasm is intact. She’ll live, Mum,” my brother Dominic pipes up from somewhere in the room.
“Piss off, Dom,” I grit out and try to sit up. A sharp sting flares in my side. “Bloody hell.”
“Sadie, you can’t move. You’ll open your stitches.”
Mum fiddles with the bed’s control panel, raising the back until I’m in a comfortable sitting position.
“How is Anika?” I ask.
Her gaze narrows, getting darker with anger. Mum is usually a mellow person; she rarely gets aggravated, but when she does, you’d better pray you’re not the one in her path of wrath.
“Distraught, naturally. She came to visit you yesterday. Brought you those flowers.” Mum points at the vase with white lilies, my favorite.
“And the motherfuckers who attacked us?”
“In custody.”
A wave of relief washes over me. “Good.”
“Yes. But what were you thinking, Sadie? Jumping in front of someone carrying a knife? You could have been killed.”
Anger bubbles up my throat. “What was I supposed to do? Stand aside and let them stab my best friend instead?”
Something like remorse flashes in my mother’s eyes. She steps back, and then Dominic walks over to take her place next to the bed.
“Come on, Mum. Let Sadie rest before you lay on the guilt-trip,” he says with an easygoing smile, but his eyes are serious.
I must have scared them to death. The knowledge makes me feel guilty, but I don’t regret my actions.
“I called your father,” she tells me, and in a flash, I’m as rigid as a board.
“Why?”
“Sadie.” Her tone is reproachable. “He loves you. You really ought to let go of your resentment.”
I clench my teeth so hard it hurts my molars.
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to come see you.”
“What? No way.” The heart monitor starts beeping faster, picking up on my distress.
“I told him there’s no need,” Mum adds quickly.
I sag against my pillow, feeling the tension whoosh out of my body. I can’t handle seeing Dad on top of everything else.
“And he just accepted that, right?” I can’t help the bitterness that seeps into my voice.
Mum and Dominic trade a look, and immediately the small hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Bad news is coming my way.
“He did on the condition that you attend college in the US, like we agreed when your father and I….” She looks away.
“You can say divorce, Mum. It’s been twelve years. And I told you I didn’t care about your agreement. I don’t want to study in the States. Dominic didn’t.”
He puffs his chest out. “That’s because I’m a genius and got into Oxford. Don’t be a hater. Besides, I know what you’re saying is pure rubbish. I’ve seen you staring at Rushmore’s brochure for ages. Their football program is legendary. You’d be a fool to pass up that opportunity.”
I try to cross my arms, but it hurts when I move. I settle for pouting like a five-year-old. “They call it soccer over there. I can’t take them seriously when they don’t use the correct name for the sport.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that horse-shite excuse.”
Mum hits him on the chest with the back of her hand. “Dom, language.”
He scowls. “What? Sadie can drop f-bombs and I get told off when I use ‘shite’?”
I smirk. “You didn’t almost die.”
He sticks his tongue out at me like he’s a little boy, not a twenty-year-old man.
He’s not lying though. John Rushmore does have a wicked football program. It’s why—despite my protests—I applied. As much as I want to stay mad at my father and piss him off, I can’t do so at the expense of my future.
“I can’t make that decision right now,” I say, just to be difficult. “I’m still recovering from getting shanked, for crying out loud.”
Dominic’s lips curl into a knowing grin. “California, here we come, babe.”
I shake my head, struggling to keep my scowl. “You’re delusional.”
He knows me too well. There was never a doubt that I’d go to Rushmore, but protesting until the end is how I roll. I’m too stubborn to acknowledge defeat.
* * *
