It’s the stuff of fairy tales, the struggle of the Thorne siblings, how they overcame everything and stand united. And I do feel bad that I’m going to ruin it for them tonight. But I don’t want to think about that right now. Not when I have to protect my sister. My mother too, from a monster, and hopefully get her love back.
Their street is quiet and dark. I use the moon to guide me to their house and when I get there, I pause and stare at it. Made of red bricks and a slanting roof, it looks like all the other houses on the street. Well, maybe a little more on the unkempt side, with the front lawn being wild and in need of mowing. There’s a brick pathway in the middle of it that goes up to the wide stairs leading to the rickety-looking porch, and it looks cracked as well. Something about that makes my heart clench.
I go around the house and notice their backyard is much the same, with long unkempt grass, a giant tree in the middle and asoccer net far back. There are stairs here too, which lead to the back porch, and the wood looks just as rickety.
It only manages to clench my heart harder. It only makes it more difficult to do what I’m here to do. I mean, they already have so much to deal with. Even though I know most of the Thorne siblings are adults now, they’re still pretty much parentless. They went through a really hard life—still going through it—and my presence may only make things more difficult. Just because my life is hard, it doesn’t give me the right to make someone else’s hard too.
But again, I can’t think like that. I have to think of Snow. I have to think of my mother. I know exactly what that man is capable of. Not only from what I’ve heard but also from experience, so Ihaveto do this.
I decide to head back to the front yard and knock at their door. The windows are all dark and it’s past midnight. I realize this isn’t the ideal time to knock at someone’s door and break bad news. But I don’t have the luxury of picking a better one, what with school and Snow.
Just then, one of the bedroom windows on the first floor lights up. Before I can react to that, the door snaps open and a guy enters the room. He’s talking to someone behind him, looking all loose-limbed and relaxed, more swaggering than walking. Two seconds later, another guy enters—probably the one the first guy was talking to—and he seems the completely opposite of the first guy. All tight movements and a clenched jaw as if he’s angry.
They’re both dark-haired and have the same build: tall, broad in the shoulders and slim in the waist. Tanned skin, the kind that means they spend all their time outside. And they probably do, what with their love for soccer. I can’t really see the details of their faces from this far but they’re clearly brothers. I mean, the Thorne siblings live here so it’s obvious. But after awhile of watching them, I realize they’re more than brothers. As in, they are twins.
Identicaltwins.
From what I’ve heard, thereisa pair of twins in the Thorne family, Stellan and Shepard. Which, if I’m being honest, wasn’t really apparent at first sight. If I hadn’t known about this little tidbit, I’d have a hard time calling them identical. Mostly because they’reso differentfrom each other.
They both have dark hair, but one of them wears it really short, close to the scalp, not one strand out of place. And the other wears it longer. So long that the ends brush against the neck of the t-shirt he’s wearing. While one of them is all tense and serious, the other is as casual and cocky as ever. In fact, he’s smiling. Or rather smirking in this case, because they’re arguing. Or more like the first guy, the cocky one, is making the second guy, the serious one, angry. And the more I watch them and their body language, the more convinced I become that the first guy is provoking the second one.
I jump when a third guy enters. He has blond hair, long-ish, and while he’s as built as the other two, he somehow looks more mature than them. I think he’s the oldest Thorne brother, the one who gave up everything to come back home and raise his siblings. In this moment though, he’s angry. His booming voice makes it extremely clear. For some reason, his tirade is directed toward the arrogant twin. Who, as soon as the new guy arrives on the scene, has gone serious. He’s lost his provocative stance and is now standing just as alert as his twin brother, at last appearing almost identical.Almost.For some reason, I don’t think they can ever appear identical to each other despite being so.
In any case, the guy who I’m assuming to be the oldest Thorne gives a piece of his mind to the arrogant twin and leaves the room, quickly followed by the serious twin. Leavingthe arrogant one alone. Who, the moment they’re gone, clenches his jaw so hard that I feel the pressure in mine. He then goes ahead and clenches his fist too, before opening it and raking a hand through his mussed-up hair. He loses all his swagger, and his body grows tight and rigid, just like his twin’s was but more. Tighter and tauter.
It reminds me of when I have an argument with my mother.
When I try to pretend it doesn’t bother me that she thinks I’m a liar and the source of all her problems. When I try to seem unaffected, like nothing she could say would hurt me. But when she leaves, all that pretense, all that provocation leaches out of me, and I let my tears fall.
Him going all tense reminds me of that. He reminds me of myself. Which is why I think I do what I do. I keep watching.
Him.
I hide behind one of the overgrown bushes and watch as he comes out of the back door and heads to the net. I watch him kick the soccer ball for hours, finally understanding why everyone raves about him and his brothers. It’s because he’s magnificent. Just his free kicks are fire. There’s a power in them that rends through the air and wrecks it.
He must be the Wrecking Thorn then.
I watch him as he grows more and more frustrated and angrier and sweatier until I can hear grunts at the end of his breaths and the whistle of the ball flying through the air because he’s putting all his strength into it.
I watch and watch and forget why I came here in the first place. To tell them that my mother is married to a man named Jeremy Thorne and I think he’s their estranged father. Which means I’m their stepsister, and I want them to tell my mother what he did to them. So she’ll finally believe me that my stepfather is a piece of shit and leave him.
Prologue II
Ten Months Ago
My name is Jupiter Jones and I’m a stalker.
Believe me when I say that wasn’t my intention. I don’t think it’s anyone’s intention to become a stalker when they grow up. Most of the time you fall into it. Like for example, you see a cute guy at a coffee shop and you feel an instant connection. You’re too shy to approach him, so you watch him from afar. You follow him back to his apartment or his work. You notice how he interacts with people. You notice the things he likes, things he dislikes. You develop a strategy based on that. To make an approach. Just so you feel confident and not like you’re going to pass out just because he’s close.
I mean, there’s no harm in that, right? Conditions apply of course, but still.
In my case, it started when I was twelve. I saw him through his bedroom window and felt an immediate connection. I’ve always been lonely in my life, an outsider, and thought he was lonely too. Lonely, isolated, all alone in his own family. I thought I could watch him for hours, for days, and I did.
I watched him through his bedroom window as often as I could. I watched him around town. I watched him exercise in his backyard in the middle of the night. I watched him run through the streets early in the morning. I watched him party with his friends, be the center of attention, the guy they all thought promised a good time. I watched him fight with his twin brother, and then spend hours kicking around a soccer ball in his backyard, all angry and restless.
And when I couldn’t watch him in person, I watched him on TV. He’s a soccer superstar, captain of the New York City FC, and I’ve watched all his games. I’ve read articles about him. I’ve watched his interviews. I’ve watched him interact with his fans.
But I didn’t do any of that to make an approach. To develop a strategy or something similar. I watched because that’s all I can do. Because the guy I’ve been watching from afar for a little over eight years is my stepbrother.
