Page 7 of Broken Hearts (Hibiscus Hearts #1)

“No,”

I spit back, tired and confused by all of this. One minute he’s telling me to leave and then next he’s asking me to stay. I have whiplash from all this bullshit, and I don’t need it. This situation is hard enough as it is, and I don’t need to add to it by dealing with Nate’s bipolar behavior.

I pull away from him and haul ass up the steps, slamming the door behind me as I find what little solace I have in my dad’s apartment. The only calm it brings me is that I’m alone. Nothing about this feels like home or even remotely comfortable.

I can hear the guys laughing from behind the closed door, undoubtedly finding humor in the way I just stormed into the house, slamming the door in his face. What they don’t know is that Nate has been so rude to me since the day I arrived, and I’m already overwhelmed with being here in the first place. How the hell am I supposed to stay here and be treated like this? I can’t leave before my dad’s memorial service. That would make things even worse.

I’m keenly aware of everything around me, the strangeness of the house, the sounds from outside, the people who know my father best; it all feels confining and heavy. I don’t fit in here, and I probably never will. The island might be gorgeous, but I’m from New York, all concrete and buildings. I’m a tourist in their eyes, and always will be even if my father’s an islander.

It’s late in New York, but I need someone to talk to, someone who might be able to keep me from breaking down and boarding a plane tonight.

“Mom,”

I whine as soon as she answers, her voice tired and I know I woke her up.

We’ve been texting since I got here, but we haven’t talked. I think she hasn’t called because she knows I’m a mess. Hearing her voice causes me to instantly breakdown.

“Sage, you okay?”

she asks, her question completely stupid and not what I need to hear. I sniffle down the line, the sob finally leaving my mouth. I’ve been holding back since I closed the door, not wanting Nate to see me cry. It would give him way too much satisfaction to know I’m miserable.

“No,”

I wail, ready to unload on her. “I’m in a strange house. The people hate me. I want to come home, Mom.”

I seriously sound like a spoiled child and not a twenty-two-year-old who is about to finish college and be out on her own.

“Sage,”

she says, and I can hear that tinge of placation in her voice that she gets when she thinks I’m being ridiculous.

Maybe I am, but I don’t need her to say it. I used to think of myself as independent, like my mom. Thinking she raised me, I must be like her, but as I stand here in this house, I’m far from it. Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl”

is playing on a loop in my head.

That’s me.

Spoiled, rich girl having a tantrum.

“Mom, I don’t belong here. There’s this guy who works for Dad, and he’s a complete asshole. When I got here, the first thing he said to me was that Dad never told him about me. He asked why I was here.”

It comes out in a rush, and I’m not even sure she can understand me through the tears.

“Sage,”

she says again, and each time she says my name I want to scream. She’s not taking my side. She’s not even trying to make me feel better. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to stay.”

“Mom,”

I wail again, pouting.

“Can you hear me out?”

she says, her words firm, and I’m trying to remind myself that I did wake her up and am now whining and being a huge pain in the ass. But that’s part of her job as my mother, to talk me off the ledge.

“Fine,”

I spit out sourly as I drop my phone on the couch, switching it over to speaker. I flop down, the scent of surf wax floating in the air.

“Please remember, Sage, these people, your father’s friends, are grieving his loss. He was part of their family, and even if you weren’t part of it, he is your father. He’s still your family too. You need to make every attempt you can to help these people lessen the loss and understand who your father was.”

Her words sting because she’s right, but I still don’t want to hear it.

I swallow hard, wanting to come back with something snarky and mean, but I shut my mouth, reminding myself that I’m an adult. This is the first time I’m dealing with something like this. Most people lose a grandparent or a great-aunt before their parents. Even a pet dying prepares you. I didn’t even have a fish growing up.

“Do you get what I’m saying?”

my mom now asks, and I nod even though she can’t see me. “Sage, it’s really hard, I get that, but you need to try. Your dad was a complicated yet simple man, but he was kind and giving and caring and funny. It’s why I fell for him when we met.”

“He taught you to surf, Mom. It’s not like he saved your life.”

“Sage, cut the snark, I’m trying here,”

she bites out. “He loved the island and its people. He started his business there because he knew the area needed it. It’s why he wouldn’t leave. He saw the bigger picture. He saw his future there, and the future of that little town. He knew you were in good hands with me. He tried, please understand that. He did what he could.”

I let out a ragged sigh, my heart hurting so badly with each word she says. It aches for my loss. It aches for how right she is. It aches for all the people who are missing him. It aches for this empty house.

“I’m sorry,”

I say, rubbing my palms over my sandpaper-feeling eyes. “I’m just having a really hard time.”

“I know you are, and that’s why you need to try to connect with your father’s friends. It will help,”

my mom tells me, and again I find myself nodding. “There has to be someone there who isn’t salty about you being there.”

“There is. Alana works for my dad.”

The words catch in my throat, realizing I keep talking as if he’s still alive, as if the store is still his. “I told you about her. She’s the one who contacted me. She’s really nice, but the guy who seems to run things here is a total dick, Mom.”

She lets out a chuckle and it bothers me. Of course, she finds humor in something that I’m suffering through. She’s always so chill about everything, laughing about someone being a jerk to me is her way of saying I probably deserve it.

“One piece of advice, Sage,”

she says, and I roll my eyes, waiting for her words of wisdom. “Don’t fall for him and end up pregnant.”

“Oh my god, Mom. That’s never going to happen. He hates me, and I’m sure he has a girlfriend. All hot and tanned surfer type with a killer body.”

Again, she’s laughing. “You just described your father twenty-three years ago. They’re hard to resist, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Goodbye, Mom,”

I say, annoyance blanketing my words even though I find myself smiling at her ridiculous comment.

“Bye, Sage. Remember, they’re all grieving too. Love you.”

“Love you.”

As I end our call, I fall back against the couch, looking around the house. It’s truly a beautiful place, and I walk over to open the slider that leads to the deck overlooking the ocean. Letting in the warm night air, I catch the smell of the ocean mixed with the blueberry surf wax, and it takes me back to the last time I was here.

I can picture my dad standing in the old, outdated kitchen, a smile on his face, happy that I was there. It had these rustic dark wood cabinets but with this unique flair to them. I loved the banana tree in the yard, picking them and eating them without even going inside. And the hibiscus flowers that grew everywhere around the outside of the house. It felt like a different world back then.

It still feels like a different world.

I swipe at the tears running down my cheeks. I wish I would have enjoyed my time here more back then. I wish I would have visited again. I wish I would have tried harder. It’s all a moot point now, though.

A gust of wind blows in through the open sliders, sending the papers flying off the kitchen table. I walk over to pick them up, shuffling them into a pile, but as I do, I’m hit with a strange thought.

Sitting down, I begin to look through all the brochures and paperwork that my father’s friend Pat left. Still confused by it all. I was confused when the guy said he wanted to talk to me about my dad, when in reality, he wanted to talk about the land The Pipe Dream sits on.

This guy wants me to sell it to him now that I’m the owner of it all. He told me my dad was in talks to sell it to him and retire. The amount of money is more than I would have expected, and I can see why my dad might have given in to the offer.

But this is where it gets confusing.

I don’t think my dad would have sold The Pipe Dream. It was literally a pipe dream—something unattainable. But he did it. He created this amazing business in this small town, and like my mom reminded me, this little village needs it. Why would he give it up now? He spent the last thirty years building it from nothing.

And he also recently renovated the apartment. He planned to be here forever, or at least that’s what it looks like.

I thumb through it all, seeing the offer letter. It’s the kind of money that could set me up for the rest of my life, and while I get that my father may not have been interested, I might be.

It is my decision now. I have a life to begin. I’ll be graduating from college soon, and to have this kind of money, I could buy a house, a new car, I could travel. Hell, I could do all these things and more. I could set aside college funds for my future children. It would make my life so much easier, not that my life is hard to begin with, but anyone who says money doesn’t help, it does.

I look at the proposed plan for the land, going back and forth on how much it could help this little community.

A high-rise hotel with hundreds of rooms, three restaurants, a spa, two bars. The number of jobs something like this could create is unimaginable. Isn’t that what these people want? To be able to have something like this in their backyard, the tourists boosting the economy.

It’s why my dad built The Pipe Dream here, like my mom said, he knew the town needed it. Maybe the town needs more than just a small surf shop.

Surrounding my dad’s house and shop is just land he owns, tons and tons of land. I wonder if he planned to expand The Pipe Dream one day. Maybe he hoped he’d have a family.

I push all the papers aside, a decision that feels far too hard to make under these circumstances.

Stepping outside, I look around. The ocean to the front of me, and the mountains to the side. It’s stunning, like a postcard and I remember this view, loving the way the white flowers dot the mountains and the vegetation surrounding my dad’s house.

I take in a ragged breath, my chest shaky as I remember a story he told me when I was here at twelve. I had come in from collecting flowers, my favorite were these white blossoms that looked like they were missing their other half.

“Sage, those are naupaka flowers,”

he said, his words soft and calming. “They’re special.”

“Really?”

I asked, feeling like I found something that most people didn’t know about. And coming from New York, they were unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“Naupaka was a Hawaiian princess who fell in love with a commoner. That was forbidden,”

he said, winking at me. “They consulted several elders and priests, and they were eventually told there was nothing to be done, and they could not be together. Naupaka was horribly upset and took a flower out of her hair and tore it in half.”

My dad took one of my flowers, running his finger over the missing half as he smiled.

He handed it to me to inspect, but I already loved the flower for its missing part.

“She gave half to the man she wished to be her husband and told him to return to the water and live his life as a fisherman,”

he continued. “She escaped to the mountains to grieve. And, to this day, you’ll see naupaka both by the water and in the mountains, each with their distinctive half-flower.”

“Fuck,”

I mutter to myself, the sadness a heavy ache in my chest. I run my hands over my face, tugging them through my now wind-whipped hair.

I missed so much.