Hold on to Hope

“Don’t what? Point out the truth? Because I’m pretty sure enough lies have already been told.”

Grief crested and crashed.

My stomach getting twisted up in a mess of knots that I didn’t think could ever be undone.

I glanced over my shoulder at Jack’s side of the duplex. His car was out front, parked crooked the way he always did. No doubt, he was inside, sitting in front of the television, unwinding after a day of manual labor since he was the foreman of one of my daddy’s construction teams.

I looked back at her. “The only thing I want is for Evan to be happy.” It came out a plea.

She leaned back against the wall. “Well, he sure didn’t look all that happy to me. He looked . . . terrified. And every bit as broken as you.”

Disquiet stirred, my thoughts getting whipped into a frenzy.

Carly was right.

There was just . . . somethin’ off.

Way off.

Not that the situation could even be remotely normal, Evan showing up after being gone for three years.

What he’d done to all of us had been so damned wrong.

But it didn’t matter.

Didn’t matter how much time had passed. How much pain he’d meted. How much distance had separated us.

I knew Evan.

Knew him with a glance.

Something was definitely wrong.

Horribly wrong.

That little boy’s face flashed.

The spark in his green eyes.

The way Evan had held him like he was petrified he might slip away.

My guts clenched.

Pain and shock.

I tried to block it out.

Maybe if I focused hard enough, I could will the love away.

Guessed I always had been accused of being a dreamer.

“You should come inside,” Carly said. “Josiah’s making dinner, and I just opened a bottle of wine. Thought you might need a glass or maybe six.”

“You’re my hero.”

She arched a brow. “Ah, we know who your hero is. We’re done with the lies, remember?”

I relented with a nod, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to eat. But that wine? I was game.

Five minutes later, I was standing at the counter with a glass of red while Josiah worked his magic in the kitchen.

“You’re almost as good as my mama,” I told him with a smirk, fighting for normalcy.

“I wouldn’t dare aspire to such great things,” he teased, sending me a wink that was wound with worry and understanding.

Josiah was awesome.

The biggest nerd you’d ever met.

Spent his life in front of a computer screen playing video games.

He was also Evan’s first friend, the two of them introduced by their pediatric cardiac doctor since they’d both had heart defects.

Josiah’s had been much less significant, and he was considered completely cured.

Carly, Josiah, Evan, and I? We’d become as tight as could be, even in the days when I’d been running around in junior high and high school, thinking I was all kinds of awesome, wantin’ to be a cheerleader. On the A Team. Varsity.

The center of attention.

A dancer and a star.

But a star didn’t shine without the reflection of the sun.

“She’s pretty amazing, that’s for sure,” I agreed, taking another good guzzle of the wine.

“Kind of like those recipes you and Carly have been whipping up at the bakery.” He angled a shoulder toward her since his hands were busy dicing and chopping.

“Pssh.” Carly waved him off. “I am there purely for supervision. Have to keep Hope and Frankie here from running wild with their crazy-ass concoctions.”

“Hey, those concoctions are gonna make us famous.”

Josiah let his attention move over me, searching. “Are you finally going to employ that marketing degree you worked so hard to earn? Apply it to the bakery?”

I bit down on my bottom lip. I’d graduated this last May. I think everyone was waiting around on what I was goin’ to do. If I’d find some small firm here in Gingham Lakes, or if I’d move away to a big city.

Maybe I’d contemplated it for a day or two.

Running away.

Getting free of the memories that bound and chained.

But I’d come to accept that idea was about as far-fetched as it came.

Because I knew leaving A Drop of Hope would be impossible.

Felt like I’d been etched into those walls.

As if the years had seeped into my bloodstream until it was written in me.

Carly hopped up onto the counter, swinging her legs as she sipped at her wine. She tipped her glass at Josiah, though her head was angling for me. “You know she wasn’t about to leave A Drop of Hope. She’s been waiting around there for the last three years for Evan to show back up.”

Was she serious?

My mouth dropped open. “Carly. I have not. I can’t believe you would even say that.”

I was gonna throttle her.

“Lies, lies, lies.” She singsonged it in the middle of taking a sip of her wine.

“You’re just trying to stir up trouble,” I warned. Did she really have to go and point out the obvious?