Page 15 of Heart So Hollow

Two hours later, the fire’s died down from a blazing inferno to a mellow glow. Having spent the day on the lake, everyone else gradually wanders off into a water-logged slumber while the two of us remain at the fire ring, watching it slowly burn down. Bowen tosses the last log onto the embers and settles back into his chair, the hood of his black sweatshirt framing his face.

He stretches out his legs and crosses his feet at the ankles, “Tell me more about this book.”

“Alright,” I tuck one leg underneath me and take a deep breath, “the surviving members of an old, eccentric woman’s family meet at her mansion on a secluded mountaintop in West Virginia. Some want a piece of her fortune, and some just want revenge. But no one knows who will make it back down alive.”

“Wow,” Bowen gives a half-smile, “where’d that come from?”

“My great-grandma had a family album and when she died, there was this giant feud between her kids about who would get it. Except, when they were cleaning out her house and dividing her belongings, no one could find it. And no one knew what happened to it.”

“What was in the album?”

“Stuff,” I say flatly.

Bowen grins at my vague response, “Did they ever find it?”

“Someone did.”

“And?”

I flash my eyes at him, “If I told you, it’d ruin the ending.”

Bowen scoffs and throws his head back in exasperation, “So, what you’re saying is that I’ll have to stick around to find out?”

Precisely.

I give a tight-lipped smile and waggle my eyebrows. Maybe I would let him read my stories if he was genuinely interested. Maybe it’s better that I don’t know him very well, then his opinion of me and my writing wouldn’t be diluted with personal history.

“So, is that what you want to do,” Bowen asks, “write books?”

“Yes,” I sigh, “live somewhere beautiful, write all day, travel, maybe have a few babies later. Is that so much to ask?”

Bowen shakes his head, “No. Not at all.” He pivots, adjusting in his chair. “So, you write creepy stories. Is your favorite book creepy, too?”

“No,” I can’t help but smile, “my favorite book is The Outsiders. It’s about a bunch of high school greasers in the 60’s who are always fighting a rival gang of rich kids.”

“That’s straight out of left field,” he chuckles.

“But it’s so much more than that, though,” I continue, “like how people are more than the circumstances they’re born into and the importance of friendship and standing by someone unconditionally, no matter how imperfect they are.” When I look up, Bowen’s staring at me with fascination. “Anyway, I read it in middle school and I was hooked.”

“Fair enough,” he nods. “You said your dad’s Norwegian. Did you go to school in the states?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say with a nod, “he’s from Norway and my mom’s from Montreal, but they met while skiing in Park City, Utah. They literally knew each other for two weeks before they got engaged. They were supposed to be on separate vacations, but after that, they just travelled around to other ski resorts until they ran out of money. My dad had already moved to the U.S., so I grew up in North Bay, on Lake Erie. But my parents live in Spain now, because why not?” I snicker at the next part, “I’m technically first-generation American, so I got a scholarship to OSU.”

Bowen gazes at me in bewilderment, his mouth ajar, “Nuh-uh.”

“Wild, huh?”

“OK,” he nods, “do you have any other family?”

“My sister, Jo, and her husband live in Toronto.” I flash him a grin. “She was named after Jo March from Little Women.”

“Jesus…” Bowen scoffs with a laugh, “are you all close?”

“Yes, I miss them and I wish we saw each other more,” I look down sheepishly, “but I also really like having a reason to travel the world.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Bowen tosses a balled-up paper towel into the fire. It flashes momentarily and immediately disintegrates into black dust. “How’d you turn into a horror and adrenaline junkie?”

“I don’t know,” I ponder, “probably because I was born on Halloween.”

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