Hopeless(82)

I turn around and walk back toward the house. He’s standing in the doorway, watching me. He steps aside to let me back in and I walk straight to the kitchen and open the refrigerator. I grab a bottle of water and open it, then take several gulps. My mouth is dry and I never did get the water he said he was getting for me earlier.

I set the bottle down on the bar and look at him. “Take me home.”

He doesn’t object. He turns around and grabs his keys off the entryway table, then motions for me to follow him. I leave the water on the bar and silently follow him to the car. When I climb inside, he backs out of the driveway and pulls onto the road without speaking a word.

We pass my turn-off and it’s apparent that he has no intention to take me home. I glance over at him and his eyes are focused hard on the road in front of him. “Take me home,” I say again.

He looks at me with a determined expression. “We need to talk, Sky. You have questions, I know you do.”

I do. I have a million questions I need to ask, but I was hoping he would let me sleep on it so I could sort them out and try to answer as many of them as I could myself. But it’s obvious he doesn’t care what I prefer at this point. I reluctantly take off my seatbelt and turn in my seat, leaning with my back against the door to face him. If he doesn’t want to give me time to let this soak in, I’ll just lay all of my questions on him at once. But I’m making it fast because I want him to take me home.

“Fine,” I say stubbornly. “Let’s get this over with. Why have you been lying to me for two months? Why did my bracelet piss you off so much that you couldn’t speak to me for weeks? Or why you didn’t just say who you really thought I was the day we met at the grocery store? Because you knew, Holder. You knew who I was and for some reason you thought it would be funny to string me along until I figured it all out. Do you even like me? Was this game you’ve been playing worth hurting me more than I’ve ever been hurt in my life? Because that’s what happened,” I say, furious to the point that I’m shaking.

I finally give in to the tears because it’s just one more thing that’s trying to get out and I’m tired of fighting them. I wipe them away from my cheeks with the back of my hand and lower my voice. “You hurt me, Holder. So bad. You promised you would only ever be honest with me.” I’m not raising my voice anymore. In fact, I’m talking so quietly that I’m not even sure he can hear me. He keeps staring at the road like the * that he is. I squeeze my eyes shut and fold my arms across my chest, then fall back into my seat. I stare out the passenger window and curse Karma. I curse Karma for bringing this hopeless boy into my life just so he could ruin it.

When he continues to drive without responding to a single word I’ve said, I can do nothing but let out a small, pathetic laugh. “You really are hopeless,” I mutter.





“I need to pee,” she giggles. We’re crouched down under their porch, waiting for Dean to come find us. I like playing hide and seek, but I like to be the one hiding. I don’t want them to know that I can’t do the counting thing yet like they always ask me to do. Dean always tells me to count to twenty when they go hide, but I don’t know how. So I just stand with my eyes closed and pretend I’m counting. Both of them are already in school and I can’t go until next year, so I don’t know how to count as good as they do.

“He’s coming,” she says, crawling backward a few feet. The dirt under the porch is cold, so I’m trying not to touch it with my hands like she is, but my legs are hurting.

“Les!” he yells. He walks closer to the porch and head straight for the steps. We’ve been hiding a long time and he looks like he’s tired of looking for us. He sits down on the steps, which are almost right in front of us. When I tilt my head, I can look right up at his face. “I’m tired of looking!”

I turn around and look at Lesslie to see if she’s ready to run to base. She shakes her head no and holds her finger to her lips.

“Hope!” he yells, still sitting on the steps. “I give up!” He looks around the yard, then sighs quietly. He mumbles and kicks at the gravel under his foot and it makes me laugh. Lesslie punches me on the arm and tells me to be quiet.

He starts laughing, and at first I think it’s because he hears us, but then I realize he’s just talking to himself.

“Hope and Les,” he says, quietly. “Hopeless.” He laughs again and stands up. “You hear that?” he yells, cupping his hands around his mouth. “The two of you are hopeless!”