Hold on to Hope

Feeling the distress.

Chris pulled the knife away and waved it back and forth in front of my face. “The baby or the girl? The baby or the girl?” He singsonged the threat. “What’s it gonna be? Which one will make us even for what you have taken from me?”

There are moments in your life when everything comes into sharp, clear view.

When it crystallizes.

When you realize all the hope and love and belief you had was meant to be directed at one thing.

I think Evan and I had lost so much time thinking we were sacrificing for the other. Him protecting me from the life he thought would burden me, and me protectin’ him from the burden I didn’t think he could bear.

I guessed it was right that second we both accepted that was the meaning of love. We would sacrifice it all, give it up for the other.

But more importantly, we both gladly give that sacrifice for Everett.

Pay any cost.

Lay down our lives.

Those emerald eyes were on me.

Conveying the same message I was giving.

Our connection shivered and shook and trembled. So different. So different than it’d ever been before. Fierce and unrelenting and all-knowing.

We were in this together.

To the end.

Everett. Everett. Everett.

Evan jumped into action before Chris could process the shift in the atmosphere. Evan spun, bolted down the hall in the direction of Everett’s room.

Chris tossed me aside, seeing the choice was made, running after his revenge.

Sirens whirred and the severity flashed and our worlds gathered to a pinpoint.

The second strung out like it would go on for eternity.

Chris darted down the hall.

The door banged to Everett’s room, and Evan was rounding around, a punch thrown that caught Chris off guard, fist ramming into his face.

He staggered back, not anticipating that Evan was gonna fight with everything he had.

It left him disoriented for the one second needed to isolate him.

Make him vulnerable.

I shouted, “Attack.”

And Milo—my sweet old boy—he did.

He protected the way he’d been trained to do.

Milo went for his arm, mauling at the flesh, teeth tearing and ripping.

Chris dropped to his knees.

Howling in pain.

When Chris scrambled back for the knife that had dropped to the floor, Milo went for his neck.

Lights spun through the windows, flash after flash, and I raced for the door and flicked the lock just in time to allow a herd of officers to come stampeding through. Seth was at the helm with his gun drawn, eyes on me before they were dragging to where Milo tore into Chris’s neck, going for the throat, because my boy knew this was a fight to the death.

Evan stood right outside Everett’s door.

His breaths heaving.

His eyes meeting mine as the officers swarmed the house.

And we might have had hurts stretched out between us.

Wounds that had been inflicted.

Traumas we didn’t know how to navigate.

But we knew—we knew what we were fighting for.

He was fighting for me.

For Everett.

For us.

Exactly the same as I would forever fight for them.

Thirty-Four

Evan

Lying in our bed, I gazed at her through the early morning light that trickled in through the drapes of our bedroom window. The girl stared back at me. No chance we could tear ourselves away.

It was what we’d done the entire night, neither of us able to sleep after what had happened.

No words really said.

Just silent, unspoken resolution.

Everett was fast asleep in the middle of us because we couldn’t bear for him to be out of our sights, and Milo was in the mix of it, curled up at the bottom of the bed at our feet.

Our family.

She slid her hand across the mattress over Everett’s head, reaching out to trace the lines of my face. “I am so thankful you came back to me.”

I knew she was whispering it so quietly, words little more than a breath that caressed my face.

“And I’m so thankful you came back to me.”

Her head shook slightly. “I guess I really didn’t leave you, Evan. I just got lost in the fear for a while. The same way as you did. You were just gone a little longer.” A wistful smile tugged at one side of her mouth.

Emotion clogged my throat. Trying to process through all the information and facts and raveled ends. How was it possible to be so repentant, to want to beg for forgiveness for your greatest transgression, and know you would never take it back, would never change it, if given the chance?

Everett was the gift that had been given.

I brought her hand to my mouth. “You’re right, Frankie. That is exactly what I was. Lost. Lost without you.” I reached out, toying with one of those untamed curls, tucking it back behind her ear as I stared at my best friend.

My partner.

The girl who had always been meant for me.

Maybe it’d taken a little while to finally get to where we both fully knew it. Where there was no going back. No questions or barriers left between us.