Hold on to Hope

I gestured awkwardly toward the back door. “. . . go.”

You know, only three hours before I was supposed to get off, but desperate measures and all.

Because I couldn’t stay there with Aunt Hope bouncing that baby and him making all these adorable noises as he got lost in the sugary bliss. Couldn’t stay there with Evan watching me like he was a starved man when it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t.

A bumbling smile curled my mouth, and I probably looked all kinds of nuts, but I’d take it as long as it got me out of this mess.

I started for the door.

Carly grabbed me by the wrist, her face angled so her words were only for me. “Hey. Are you okay? Let me drive you home. You don’t look so good.”

I didn’t feel so good.

“I’m fine.”

Her expression shifted. Silently shouting, ‘liar’.

That little voice was going to town behind me, that tiny boy telling a story that only he knew, and my heart was going haywire. If it beat any faster, I was sure it was going to explode.

Before I completely lost myself, I burst through the swinging door, going for the bins where we kept our things, hands trembling so hard that I could barely dig out my keys from my bag.

Somehow, I managed to get them free, and I slung the strap of my bag over my shoulder and flew out the back door into the dirt lot that was basically an alley.

The Alabama summer smacked me in the face.

Hot, sticky humidity an oil slick on my flesh, or maybe it was just the heat I was trying to escape from inside.

I started to stride for my car I had parked next to Carly’s, only to stop in my tracks when I felt the presence cover me from behind. The shift in the air and the punch to the atmosphere.

Shivers curled down my spine, spreading far and wide, and for a second, I froze.

Froze at the feeling of being in Evan’s space again.

Froze beneath the memories.

Beneath the hope and the love and the outright grief that had chased me for years. The problem was I had never figured out how to breathe beneath the magnitude of them all. The pendulum shift that I could never stop.

Could feel the force of his breaths coming at me like shockwaves.

An earthquake that shook my world.

Finally, I convinced myself to turn around.

To face the boy.

The man.

His hands moved, Evan communicating in his first language. The only one I was sure my heart truly recognized.

DON’T LEAVE. I watched the tremor roll down his thick throat when he swallowed.

PLEASE.

Could feel the despondency, the fierceness as he pled with me to stay.

It sucked that he hadn’t given me the chance to do the same. That he hadn’t stuck around to see the wreckage he’d left behind, for him to feel the torment of what living without him might be like.

That he chose it.

Old wounds convulsed in the middle of us.

Energy alive and weeping.

Still drawing and begging.

That was the hardest part.

This connection that remained so real and intense that I could barely force myself to continue to stand in place without getting sucked right into the beauty of this boy. Into his beautiful heart and spirit and mind.

Oh, that body sure wasn’t helping things, either.

I forced that wayward thought down.

Bad, Frankie.

There was no way I could allow my mind to start going there.

E-V-A-N.

I signed slow, every letter emphasized, my mouth moving with his name.

A whisper of regret.

A murmur of praise.

I blinked at him, my hands and fingers quickened in their plea. I’M NOT SURE I KNOW HOW TO STAY. HOW TO STAND IN FRONT OF YOU AND HAVE TO WITNESS THIS.

I gestured toward the café, heartbreak spilling out with the motion. My own selfishness and greed getting loose of its chains. Then my hands were clamping down on my chest, words tumbling out like a confession.

“You’re a daddy. He’s so incredibly beautiful. I’m so happy for you.”

It was funny how both emotions could be completely true.

Evan watched me.

Knowing me the way he always had.

I wanted to cower behind a bush or maybe throw a towel over my head to hide what I was feeling. This boy reading me like I was a story that only he could tell.

“I never meant to hurt you, Frankie.”

Tears broke free.

YOU DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT ME, EVAN? YOU NEARLY KILLED ME.

Eight

Evan

I stood out in the deserted parking lot, chest heaving with pants like I’d just run a goddamn marathon. On some account? It felt like that was exactly what I’d done.

Run all the way across the country only to end up right back here.

Standing ten feet away from her.

Begging.

For what? I wasn’t sure.

I’d been convicted of my reasoning then, sure the path was right, and now I was standing there wondering if the only thing I’d been was a fool.