Page 1 of Broken Hearts (Hibiscus Hearts #1)

It’s late when my phone begins to vibrate across my nightstand. The low rumbling wakes me, but I don’t bother to answer it. Glancing down at my watch, the time glows bright in the dark room, and I see it’s nearly three in the morning. I quickly scan my brain, trying to remember if my mom is out of town, but she isn’t. She’s here in New York, not traveling till next week.

I’m sure it’s just a wrong number, some drunk ass trying to call an ex, but just as I’m falling back to sleep, it begins again.

Rolling over, I watch it light up on my nightstand, glowing ominously in the blackness of the room, and I’m hit with this strange sense of panic. My heart begins to race, my thoughts following, and when I take the phone from the nightstand, the number is unrecognizable.

But the area code is not.

It’s Hawaii.

My dad.

I swipe the screen, answering with an unintentionally groggy, “Hello,”

but there’s silence for the longest few seconds of my life. “Dad?”

I question when the person doesn’t say anything for what feels like forever. I feel stupid for saying his name, like he’d call in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry,”

a woman’s voice suddenly says, and I’m caught off guard. “I didn’t expect you to answer, and I was trying to decide if I should leave a message. Is this Sage Harris?”

“Who is this?”

I ask, but it comes out as more of a panicked demand. Something isn’t right and I can feel it in my bones.

“I’m a friend of your father’s. Alana Hale,”

she sniffs, and I can tell she’s been crying. “I’m sorry to call so late. I know you’re in New York, but I didn’t get a chance to figure out the time there.”

She’s rambling, and as she does, I sit up in bed, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry, Sage, but your father passed away.”

“What?”

It comes out in a rush, as I hear Alana let out a stifled sob. “My dad is dead?”

I ask, my words shaky and scared.

“Yes, I’m so sorry,”

Alana says, her words filled with the sound of tears. “It was a surfing accident.”

She falls silent, the line only filled with labored breathing.

I don’t know what to say, almost wishing I were religious so I could tell her something to ease her pain, but I have nothing, staying as silent as she is.

“We’re having a memorial service in three weeks, and we’d love for you to be there,”

Alana now says, trying to force some positivity into her words but failing when she sobs down the line. “I know it’s last minute, but it would mean a lot…”

She trails off, and I can’t help but wonder if she was about to say that it would mean a lot to my dad for me to be there.

“I’ll be there,”

I respond without even giving it much thought but knowing it’s the right thing to do. “Can you send me the information?”

“Of course, I’ll text it to you,”

she says, and with that, we end the call.

I have no idea how to process any of this: the call in the middle of the night, finding out my father is dead and having to go to Hawaii in three weeks. It’s all a lot, a lot that I was not prepared for, and I’m not prepared for the onslaught of emotions I feel.

I fall back against my pillow, staring up at the ceiling, watching the ceiling fan spin as I try to understand this.

I haven’t seen my father in person since I was twelve years old when I spent the summer on Maui with him. It was awkward. I was difficult. He worked a lot, and I was resentful. He had a life that didn’t include his only child, and something about that hurt.

Not that I had any right to be hurt at twelve. He tried his best to be involved in my life. Calling every Sunday, sending birthday presents and showing up when I graduated from high school, but I always resented him.

He even asked me to move there and live with him when I was twelve, and nothing sounded worse than leaving my mother, the only true parent I had. She might have had a job that took her all over the world, but she took me with her. We did everything together, and my dad was left in the background, only showing up at those important times. If anything, I didn’t try hard enough, and neither did my mom.

I can say that now because he’s dead, and there’s something about it that’s completely disingenuous. I feel like the shittiest person in the world, but I also feel this horrible sense of relief.

I shake my head, my eyes welling with tears. I should be sad. I should grieve the loss of my father, but how can I grieve for a man I barely knew?

The last time I spoke to him was over a year ago, and that was just to ask how classes were going. I stopped answering his Sunday calls years ago, but he never gave up, always leaving a message telling me to call him when I got a chance.

But as time went on, I stopped calling him back, and when I did call, it was like talking to a stranger. So instead of being an adult, I just cut him out, bothered by the inconvenience it was to try.

Now he’s dead, and I have to deal with how this all fits into my life, a life I created without him.

Instead of trying to go back to sleep, which is never going to happen, I pull on some clothes and leave my apartment, heading to my mother’s.

The house is dark when I get there, with it being a little after four in the morning. There’s no way she’s awake, and I’m probably going to scare the shit out of her. I’m supposed to be asleep in my bed in my apartment, but here I am, standing in the kitchen of the house I grew up in.

I wait a few seconds, listening to the sound of my own breathing, hearing my heart pulsing in my ears, wondering if turning the alarm off will wake her up.

But it doesn’t.

I head upstairs to her room; the door is closed, and I slowly open it, whispering her name in the hopes of not having her murder me for coming in at this hour.

“Mom,”

I say, this time louder, but she doesn’t wake. Shit, this is going to be harder than I thought. I figured she’d shoot up in bed as soon as she heard my voice.

“Mom,”

I say again, standing right next to where she’s sleeping. “Angie!”

My words come out louder than I expect, desperate for her to wake up and help me understand how I’m supposed to deal with the death of my absentee father.

“Jesus, fuck, Sage!”

she screams, nearly punching me when she flings herself from the bed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,”

I say, an uncomfortable laugh leaving my mouth as I think about my mom swearing. Not like it’s the first time it’s ever happened, but in this moment, it feels that way. I feel like a kid again, standing beside her bed as if I’m sick and need her. In a way, I am.

I might be twenty-two and in my last semester of school, ready to catapult myself into adulthood and the real world, but in this moment, I feel like I’m thirteen again.

“Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

I can see the fear on her face now, her eyes wide and questioning.

“My dad died,”

I say without any hesitation, but there’s this void to my words that I hate.

“Sage, what?”

she replies, and, like me, she’s struggling to process it too.

My parents were never married, actually, they never even dated. My mom was in Hawaii for work, scouting locations to film a movie. She’s a location scout; that’s her job, something she has always loved, and it’s perfect for her because she never really settles down. I’d call her a free spirit, but she hates that term.

They hooked up one night after he taught her how to surf, and clearly, neither of them was concerned at all about STDs or getting pregnant because nine months later, I came along.

She never kept it from my dad that she was pregnant, and neither one of them tried to act like they were anything more than a random hook-up. He showed up when I was born, barely making it there for my birth, which really should be something that goes down in a record book. He flew from Hawaii to New York and still made it.

My mom leans over and turns on the light, her brow furrowed, and I watch as she swallows hard. “Are you okay?”

she now asks, swinging her legs off the bed and slipping her feet into the slippers beside it.

“I don’t know,”

I reply honestly. “I don’t know what to feel.”

I scrub my hands over my face, a headache beginning to build.

“What happened?”

she asks, guiding me out of her room and back downstairs.

I answer with the same response I gave when she asked if I was okay. “I don’t know. The woman on the phone told me he had a surfing accident.”

“Wow, that feels way too fitting,”

she says, and I hit her with a sideways glance. “Come on, Sage, your dad owns a surf shop. He wouldn’t leave Hawaii for the mainland even after you were born. He couldn’t be away from the ocean for longer than a minute.”

“Owned a surf shop,”

I correct, my heart clenching at the idea that the one thing he loved more than anything is no longer his. “They’re having a memorial for him in three weeks. I have the information right here.”

I show her my phone, not that it matters. The information means nothing to us, unfamiliar with the area or anything he’s linked to. I have only vague memories of his surf shop and his house, so vague they almost feel like a dream.

“You’re going, right?”

she asks, and I quickly nod my head. I should go. I have to go, even if we didn’t have a relationship.

“Will you come with me?”

I ask, the question said with desperation. “I don’t want to go alone.”

I take in a ragged breath; the threat of tears stings my nose.

“Sage, no. This is something you need to do on your own. I didn’t really have a relationship with your father. We weren’t co-parents or even acquaintances,”

she says, and I can hear the slightest tinge of guilt in her voice.

“Mom,”

I plead, and she shakes her head. “I don’t even?—”

I don’t get a chance to finish my thought before she interrupts me with a firm tone in her voice. “Sage, it doesn’t matter if you know him or not. He’s your father and this is for you to deal with. I know it hasn’t always been easy and some of that is on me, but now’s the time to come to terms with the relationship you did have with him.”

Shit, she’s really laying it on thick here, and as much as I know I need to go, I’m terrified to see the life he built. It was a life that never included me.

“Okay, but I have classes starting back up in a few days. How the hell am I supposed to miss that?”

It’s an excuse that I hope gets me out of this, but I know it won’t.

“Please, if you tell your professors that your father passed away, I think they’ll understand,”

she says, rolling her eyes at my poor excuse.

She reaches over and unplugs her laptop from where it’s charging on the counter. “Let’s get you a flight booked,”

she says, taking in a deep breath. “I’m sorry this is happening, Sage.”

She looks over at me, tears in her eyes, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

She drops a kiss on the top of my head and that’s when I lose it. Tears begin to stream down my face, unsure if I should be upset. I know very little about him, but I still feel the need to grieve the loss. He was my father, a man that most girls look up to, but I don’t even know where to begin with him.

“It’s okay,”

my mom whispers, wrapping her arms around me. “Go to Maui and spend some time there. It’s a beautiful place.”

“I know,”

I mutter back, my eyes blurry with tears.

“Go and get to know your father,”

she adds, and I look at her confused. Did she miss the part where I told her he died? There’s no getting to know him now. That ship sailed years ago, and I let it leave without me, watching it from a distance. “Sage, he might have passed away, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn about who he was and the life he lived.”

I take in her words, realizing she’s right, but still struggling with this internal battle that he might have been a shitty dad, even if I was also a shitty kid.

“I’m going to book you a flight for tomorrow,”

my mom says, and my jaw nearly hits the floor. I begin to argue with her, but she silences me when she holds up her hand. “Listen, you’re off school for another week. It will be good for you to spend some time there before the memorial service.”

I stop trying to change her mind because I know she’s right.

Looks like I’ll be in Hawaii for the next three weeks.