Heart of the Pride by Anaya Phoenix (freda ebook reader txt) 📖

glare.
“Get out Isabel!” She yelled, trying to draw attention to herself from her parent’s, forgetting she had a boy in her room.
“Actually, no. I’m not going to get out. You are Bella,” Izzy sneered her name “unless of course you want me to tell the parents about the boy in your room, how hot and heavy you were getting, how your shirt was mere inches from coming off…” Isabel’s voice trailed off as she watched her sisters face blanch. Izzy looked to Tommy.
“That’s your cue to get out.” She told him and he nodded and threw her sister off of him as he grabbed his jacket and his bookbag.
“Bye Izzy, bye Bella.” He said quickly before jumping out the window. The fall wasn’t that far, but he still managed to screw it up and fall on his hand. Izzy heard his shout of pain and went to the window to see if he was alright.
“You OK?” She asked, worry crinkling her brow.
“I think I broke my wrist.” He whimpered and Izzy sighed. She jumped from the window she had jumped from so many times before to see and she shrieked. The bone was practically sticking out of the skin.
“Fuck that’s bad. Want me to drive you to the hospital?” She asked, already pulling him around the house and into the front door.
“Yes, please.” She grabbed her jacket and her phone and left out with him. She sent her dad a text saying she wouldn’t be home to later and hopped into his fancy car.

He had to get it reset, the idiot had gone and broken his wrist, and put in a cast. She stood by him, she’d even let him hold her hand when they reset it. She didn’t care that he had cried, she thought it was sweet. They gave him some painkillers for when the pain became unbearable and gave him and her a note.
“What’s this for?” She asked, looking at it with confused eyes.
“This is a note, excusing you for the last ten minutes of class.” The nurse at the triage replied and Izzy crinkled her brow.
“But, I’m not the one that’s hurt.”
“You’re going to be his buddy. Help him get his books from the locker, help him to class, etcetera.” Izzy smiled and nodded. She walked back over to Timmy and smiled.
“Looks like your stuck with me.”

She drove him home, explained the deal to his parents, then called a cab for herself. His mother had made a cake, and she gave Izzy a piece. Timmy sat on his porch with her while she waited.
“Thanks for helping me out.” He said, she was too busy eating the yummy lemon cake to reply so she simply shrugged. She pulled out a sharpie from her pocket, you’ve always got to carry a sharpie around, just in case, and gestured for his injured hand. She held the cake between her lips as she wrote on his cast, trying not to push too hard. She wrote down her number, name, and a face with it’s tongue stuck out. She closed up the sharpie and put it back in her pant pocket.
“Now, I’m the first one to sign it. That number is for friendship purposes only. If you need help with anything, I’m there. Even if you’ve got to pull up your drawers and you can’t do it, I’m there.” She said around a mouthful of cake and smiled when he laughed.
“You do realize you’re sister is going to kill us both, right.” Isabel’s’ eyes narrowed dangerously on the boy sitting in front of her.
“She won’t touch me, but if she ever lays a hand on you… tell me, Ok?” He nodded, noting the seriousness of the subject and Izzy smiled. Her cab had pulled up and she stood from the porch step. She kissed his forehead and gave him a wink.
“Stay golden, Timmy. Stay golden.” What she meant by that, he didn’t know, but he knew it was meant to be a compliment. That had to count for something. Chapter 2

Izzy stepped back into the house and sighed as Zena ran screaming to hug her.
“We missed you!”
“I highly doubt that Zena.” Izzy grumbled, pulling the small child off of her, and walking in to the kitchen. The dishes were cleaned and the pots and pans were put away.
“It’s in the microwave.” Zena said and sat down on one of the kitchen stools. Izzy nodded and walked over to the microwave.
“Mommy made the chicken, daddy made the rest.” Zena said and propped her hand on her chin. Isabel took out the plate and walked to sit across from where Zena sat.
“How much trouble am I in?” Izzy asked as she bit into a fried chicken leg.
“Izzy, you’re never in trouble. You’re the good one. Dr. Jenkensin, our family doctor, called Mom and Dad and told them you had chaperoned a young boy there because he’d broken his wrist. That would’ve been it, said and done right there, if Dr. Jenkensin hadn’t blabbered and said it was Timmy. Bella shit a brick when she found that out.”
“I thought we had an agreement, no cursing inside the house and I don’t blow your cover that you steal from Mom’s chocolate collection.” Izzy said, digging into the mash potatoes and spinach.
“Agreements are null and void if two parties don’t sign a contract.” Zena said, shrugging her shoulders.
“What the hell are they teaching you in second grade?” Izzy said, looking up from her food and to her sister.
“Stuff that I already know.” Zena said around a yawn. Izzy shook off that answer and continued eating.
“So… What happened?” Zena pushed, gesturing her hand in a motion to say hurry up.
“Stuff that I’m not gonna tell you miss chatty Cathy.” Izzy mumbled around a mouthful of food.
“My name is Zena, not Cathy.” Zena scoffed, shaking her head and making her frizzy brown hair move with her.
“As if I could forget.” Izzy said and threw away the plastic plate.
“I’m going to bed, you should go to bed too.”
“You should stop being so Izzy, but you are.” Zena said as she watched her sister go up the stairs.
“That didn’t make sense Zena.” Izzy said tiredly, making it to the top of the stairs.
“Your existence doesn’t make sense.” To that, Isabel had nothing more to say.


She’d had to wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual so she could drive Timmy to school and that had made her a little more than grumpy. So when she stepped out of the cab and he wasn’t downstairs ready to be driven to school she wasn’t exactly thinking rationally. She walked to the back of his house, using pure intellect to figure out which room was his and started to climb the tree that was there conveniently. She looked into the room and saw he was still sleeping and she rolled her eyes. She sent a prayer up to the heavens and pulled on the window, smiling when it opened for her. She crawled in when it was just right for her to squeeze threw and closed it behind her. His room was way too messy and she nearly tripped over one of his many articles of clothing. She noticed he had a radio and used that to her advantage. Without turning the volume up she tuned it to z100 and, only when one minute had passed did she blast it. It just happened to be her luck that ‘We Are Never Get Back Together’ by Taylor Swift, reminding her of her break up with David and how much crap was going to go down at school. Timmy shot up and looked at her, scowling and standing up.
“Ok, Ok. I get it, just turn it off!!” He said covering his left ear with his uninjured hand. She smiled and turned the radio off.
“I woke up 30 minutes before I normally do, just to get here in the hopes that you would be downstairs waiting for my arrival so that we could go to school. But my hopes were in vain when I arrived here and you’re in your bedroom catching some z’s!!” Isabel said her anger slowly draining as she let him have it.
“Now I would really appreciate it if you got up off of your basketball playing ass, took a shower, and got dressed so I could drive you to school. And by ‘appreciate’ I mean ‘you’re going to do as I say or I will murder you where you stand’, got it?” Isabel said lightly, blinking once at the stunned boy.
“Soo… Not a morning person, I take it?” He said, then ran like hell as she unplugged the radio and got ready to throw it at his head.

Thirty minutes he was cleaned, shaven and ready to go. He had slicked his blond hair back with water, thrown on a guns and roses shirt with black jeans and black converse. He had his bookbag thrown over his shoulder and held it there with his uninjured hand.
“Ready?” She asked, not really caring as she slid into the car. She opened the car door from the inside for him and started it up. The school was much farther from him than it was from her and they had ten minutes to get to school. She looked to him as he closed his door with a mischievous smile. “Let’s see how fast this baby can go, huh?” Before he could answer she sped out of his driveway and gunned it toward the school.
They made it to the school with two minutes to spare. Timmy jumped out of the car with a giant smile on his face, as did Isabel.
“That was fucking awesome speed racer!” Timmy yelled as he walked to her side and held his hand up for a five.
“Hellz yeah it was.” She said giving it to him. They heard the bell ring and they both blanched. They had Mr. Crumbles for Trigonometry. Mr. Crumbles was a force to be reckoned with if you were late, disobeyed him, or didn’t do his homework.
“C’mon!” Izzy yelled and ran to the school. He, of course, was faster than her and grabbed her hand to keep her at the same pace as him. They ran threw the hallways, not seeing anything but the time in their mind, and into Mr. Crumbles classroom. Just as the late bell rang. Izzy threw her hands up, one of them still entwined with Timmy’s and cheered.
“Yeah!! Straight up gangster!! Made it before the late bell!!! Woot, woot!!!” She crowed and the class tittered, even Mr. Crumbles cracked a smile.
“That you did, now please have a seat miss Mcreery, mister Demaro.” He said, and it seemed at that moment the whole class realized what had just happened. The freak, Isabel Mcreery, had just walked in, late mind you, hand in hand with Timmy Demaro. Izzy seemed to notice too as she shook her hand out of Timmy’s and went