Page 116 of Heart So Hollow

“Like, left left?” Not that I’m disappointed, but I am surprised that Hannah would skip out on this particular event. “Is she not coming out with us?”

Hildy looks down as she picks at her cuticle, “She said something about just not feeling it tonight and then said she was going home.” She lets her arm drop onto the armrest and jerks her head around, “Like, seriously, on Jay’s birthday?”

It’s odd—extremely odd—if for no other reason than it seems like Hannah would rather die than miss out on a night of partying with Bowen.

“That’s—” I can’t think of anything helpful to say, “really weird.”

“Yeah, well she can be fucking weird,” Hildy scowls, her tone turning harsh.

Before, she sounded disappointed, and now she sounds angry.

“Did something happen to her?” I ask, trying to choose my words carefully.

“Like what?”

“Today I saw she has these really gnarly bruises on her back. They weren’t there—” I immediately cut myself off when I realize that Hannah probably didn’t tell Hildy about what happened at the Rickhouse a week ago. “I mean, they look pretty recent.”

Hildy glances up in thought, “No,” she shakes her head, “not that I know of.”

She seems to dismiss my observation as nothing. And when she pauses, it’s apparent she has something else on her mind.

“You should probably know,” Hildy turns to me with an annoyed look, “Hannah’s my best friend, but she has issues. And sometimes they’re really annoying and ruin everything.”

“She hates me,” I deadpan.

Hildy presses her mouth together but a faint smile sneaks through anyway, “Yeah,” she admits, “but it’s not you. She did this with Bo’s last girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, “Bowen kind of said as much.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing specific,” I shrug, “I don’t know, I think she and Bowen have a really weird relationship.”

Hildy hesitates at first, like she’s deciding whether to continue, “Bo never used to date. He just kind of…” Hildy scrunches up her nose, “fucked around. I remember him telling me on the night of our high school graduation that he’d never get married. He said that women are only good for three things—mouth, ass, and pussy, and he didn’t need a ring to get any of those.”

“What?” I whisper in shock, “But what about you? You’re a woman,” I point out, “and you seem to have a decent relationship.”

Hildy flashes me a sardonic smile, “Oh, I asked him the same thing. He said since I share his DNA, that automatically makes me superior to other women.”

I stare at her in disbelief.

“Yeah,” she purses her lips, “I think some girl just pissed him off, but,” Hildy motions down the hill to the pole building, “this is not the brother I grew up with.”

“So, what changed?” I ask.

Hildy shrugs, “He finally found someone he got along with.”

I knit my brow in confusion, “What do you mean got along with?”

“Bo can be…a lot,” she casts me a sideways glance, “he’s the most fun person I know and he always has been. I love him to death—he’s my brother, right? But, when we were younger, he was a complete asshole.”

I nod in agreement at her from my chair, that’s an understatement…

“He was selfish and cocky and got in fights all the time. If it weren’t for Granddad, he’d probably be in prison. He just strung girls along until he got bored and I was usually the one who had to deal with it because then they’d come crying to me about it.”

“Like Hannah?” I surmise.

Hildy shoots me a side-eye, “Bo never had any tact. He liked the attention and he didn’t care what happened beyond that. But then,” she arches her brow, “one day he just changed. It was like he woke up and decided he was going to be someone else, that he was going to be different. And he’s been that way ever since.”

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