bite.
Her eyes widen slightly and she reaches for her drink. I intercept her this time.
“My turn,” I say. Now that I know nothing is off limits, I ask her about the one thing she didn’t really want to talk about yesterday. “I want to know the story about your dad.”
She groans, but plays along. She knows she can’t refuse to answer that question, because I just completely opened up to her about Les.
“Like I said, I haven’t seen him since I was three. I don’t have any memories of him. At least, I don’t think I do. I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“Your mom doesn’t have any pictures of him?”
She cocks her head slightly, then leans back in her seat. “You remember when you said my mom looked really young? Well, it’s because she is. She adopted me.”
I drop my fork.
Adopted.
The genuine possibility that she could be Hope bombards my thoughts. It wouldn’t make sense that she was three when she was adopted, though, because Hope was five when she was taken. Unless she’s been lied to.
But what are the chances? And what are the chances that someone like Karen would be capable of stealing a child?
“What?” she asks. “You’ve never met anyone who was adopted?”
I realize the shock I’m feeling in my head and my heart is also registering in my expression. I clear my throat and try to regroup, but a million more questions are forming in my mind. “You were adopted when you were three? By Karen?”
She shakes her head. “I was put into foster care when I was three, after my biological mother died. My dad couldn’t raise me on his own. Or he didn’t want to raise me on his own. Either way, I’m fine with it. I lucked out with Karen and I have no urge whatsoever to go figure it all out. If he wanted to know where I was, he’d come find me.”
Her mother is dead? Hope’s mother is dead.
But Hope was never put into foster care and Hope’s dad didn’t put her up for adoption. It all makes absolutely no sense, but at the same time I can’t rule out the possibility. She’s either been fed complete lies about her past, or I’m going insane.
The latter is more likely.
“What does your tattoo mean?” she asks, pointing at it with her fork.
I look down at my arm and touch the letters that make up Hope’s name.
If she was Hope, she would remember the name. That’s the only thing that stops me from believing in the possibility that she could be Hope.
Hope would remember.
“It’s a reminder,” I say. “I got it after Les died.”
“A reminder for what?”
And this is the only answer she’ll get that’s vague, because I’m definitely not about to explain. “It’s a reminder of the people I’ve let down in my life.”
Her expression grows sympathetic. “This game’s not very fun, is it?”
“It’s really not.” I laugh. “It sort of sucks ass. But we need to keep going because I still have questions. Do you remember anything from before you were adopted?”
“Not really. Bits and pieces, but it comes to a point that, when you don’t have anyone to validate your memories, you just lose them all. The only thing I have from before Karen adopted me is some jewelry, and I have no idea who it came from. I can’t distinguish now between what was reality, dreams, or what I saw on TV.”
“Do you remember your mother?”
She pauses for a moment. “Karen is my mother,” she says flatly. I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to push her. “My turn. Last question, then we eat dessert.”
“Do you think we even have enough dessert?” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
“Why did you beat him up?” she says, darkening the mood completely.
I don’t want to get into that one. I push my bowl away. I’ll just let her win this round. “You don’t want to know the answer to that, Sky. I’ll take the punishment.”
“But I do want to know.”
Just thinking about that day already has me worked up again. I pop my jaw to ease the tension. “Like I told you before, I beat him up because he was an asshole.”
“That’s vague,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “You don’t do vague.”
I know that I like her stubbornness, but I only like it when she’s not pushing me to bring up the past. But I also have no clue what she’s been told about the whole situation. I’ve made it a point to get her to open up to me and ask me questions so she can hear the truth from me. If I refuse to answer her, then she’ll stop opening up.
“It was my first week back at school since Les died,” I say. “She went to school there, too, so everyone knew what happened. I overheard the guy saying something about Les when I was passing him in the hallway. I disagreed with it, and I let him know. I took it too far and it came to a point when I was on top of him that I just didn’t care. I was hitting him, over and over, and I didn’t even care. The really fucked-up part is that the kid will more than likely be deaf out of his left ear for the rest of his life, and I still don’t care.”
My fist is clenched on the table. Just thinking about the way everyone acted after she died has me pissed off all over again.
“What did he say about her?”
I lean back in my chair and my eyes drop to the table between us. I don’t really feel like looking her in the eyes when I’m only thinking about stuff that infuriates me. “I heard him laughing, telling his friend that Les took the selfish, easy way out. He said if she wasn’t such a coward, she would have toughed it out.”
“Toughed what out?”
“Life.”
“You don’t think she took the easy way out.” She doesn’t say it like it’s a question. She says it like she’s truly trying to understand me. That’s all I’ve wanted from her all week. I just want her to understand me. To believe me and not everyone else.
And no. I don’t think she took the easy way out. I don’t think that at all.
I reach across the table and pull her hand between both of mine. “Les was the bravest fucking person I’ve ever known,” I say. “It takes a lot of guts to do what she did. To just end it, not knowing what’s next? Not knowing if there’s anything next? It’s easier to go on living a life without any life left in it than it is to just say ‘fuck it’ and leave. She was one of the few that just said, ‘fuck it.’ And I’ll commend her every day I’m still alive, too scared to do the same thing.”
I look at her after I’m finished speaking and her eyes are wide. Her hand is shaking, so I clasp my hands around hers. We look at each other for several seconds and I can tell she has no idea what to say to me. I attempt to lighten the mood and change the subject. She said that was the last question, then we get dessert.
I lean forward and kiss the top of her head, then walk into the kitchen. “You want brownies or cookies?” I watch her from the kitchen as I grab the desserts and she’s staring at me, wide-eyed.
I freaked her out.
I just completely freaked her out.
I walk back to where she’s seated and I kneel down in front of her. “Hey. I didn’t mean to scare you,” I tell her, taking her face in my hands. “I’m not suicidal if that’s what’s freaking you out. I’m not fucked up in the head. I’m not deranged. I’m not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m just a brother who loved his sister more than life itself, so I get a little intense when I think about her. And if I cope better by telling myself that what she did was noble, even though it wasn’t, then that’s all I’m doing. I’m just coping.” I allow her time to let my words sink in, then finish my explanation. “I fucking loved that girl, Sky. I need to believe that what she did was the only answer she had left, because if I don’t, then I’ll never forgive myself for not helping her find a different one.” I press my forehead to hers, looking her firmly in the eyes. “Okay?”
I need her to understand that I’m trying. I might not have it together and I might not k
now how to move past Les’s death, but I’m trying.
She presses her lips together and nods, then pulls my hands away. “I need to use the bathroom,” she says, quickly slipping around me. She rushes to the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.
Jesus Christ, why did I even go there? I walk to the hallway, prepared to knock on the door and apologize, but decide to give her a few minutes first. I know that was really heavy. Maybe she just needs a minute.
I wait across the hallway until the bathroom door opens up again. It doesn’t look like she’s been crying.
“We good?” I ask her, taking a step closer to her.
She smiles up at me and exhales a shaky breath. “I told you I think you’re intense. This just proves my point.”
She’s already herself again. I love that about her.
I smile and wrap my arms around her, then rest my chin on top of her head while we make our way to her bedroom. “Are you allowed to get pregnant yet?”
She laughs. “Nope. Not this weekend. Besides, you have to kiss a girl before you can knock her up.”
“Did someone not have sex education when she was homeschooled? Because I could totally knock you up without ever kissing you. Want me to show you?”
She falls onto the bed and picks up the book that she read to me last night. “I’ll take your word for it,” she says. “Besides, I’m hoping we’re about to get a hefty dose of sex education before we make it to the last page.”
I lie down beside her and pull her to me. She rests her head on my chest and begins reading to me.
• • •
I ball my hand up into a tight fist and keep it at my side, doing everything in my power not to touch her mouth. I’ve just never seen anything so perfect before.
She’s been reading for well over half an hour now and I haven’t heard a damn word she’s said. Last night it was so much easier to pay attention to the actual story because I wasn’t looking directly at her. Tonight it’s taking every ounce of willpower I have not to claim her mouth with mine. She’s propped against me with her head on my chest, using me as her pillow. I’m hoping she can’t feel my heart pounding right now because every time she glances up at me when she flips a page, I squeeze my fists even tighter and try to keep my hands to myself but my resistance resonates in my pulse. And it’s not that I don’t want to touch her. I want to touch her and kiss her so bad it physically hurts.
I just don’t want it to be insignificant to her. When I touch her . . . I want her to feel it. I want every single thing I say to her and every single thing I do to her to have significance.
Last night when she told me she’s never felt anything when she was kissed, my heart did this crazy thing where it felt bound, like it was being constricted, just like the lungs in my chest. I’ve dated a lot of girls, even though I might have downplayed that to her. With every single girl I’ve been with, my heart has never reacted like it reacts to her. And I’m not referring to my heart’s feelings for her, because let’s be honest, I barely know her. I’m referring to my heart’s literal, physical reaction to her. Every time she speaks or smiles or, God forbid, laughs . . . my heart reacts like it’s been sucker-punched. I hate it and like it and somehow have become addicted to it. Every time she speaks, the sucker-punch in my chest reminds me that there’s still something there.
A huge internal part of me was lost when I lost Hope, and I was convinced Les took the very last contents of my chest with her when she died last year. After being with Sky these last two days, I’m not so sure about that, anymore. I don’t think my chest has been empty this whole time like I thought. Whatever is left inside me has just been asleep, and she’s somehow slowly waking it up.
With every word she speaks and every glance she sends my way, she’s unknowingly pulling me out of this thirteen-year-long nightmare I’ve been trapped in, and I want to continue to allow her to pull me.
Fuck it.
I unclench my fist and bring it up to her hair that’s spilled across my chest. I pick up a loose strand and curl it around my finger, keeping my eyes trained on her mouth while she reads to me. I find myself still comparing her to Hope every now and then, despite my efforts not to. I’m trying to recall exactly what Hope’s eyes looked like or if she had the same four freckles across the bridge of her nose that Sky has. Every time I start to compare them, I force myself to stop. It doesn’t matter anymore and I need to let it go. Sky has proved that she can’t be Hope and I have to accept it. The odds of the girl I lost being right here, pressed against my chest, her strand of hair between my fingertips . . . it’s impossible. I need to separate the two of them in my head before I screw up and do something stupid, like refer to Sky by the wrong name.
That would suck.
I notice her lips are pressed into a tight, thin line and she isn’t speaking anymore. It’s a damn shame because her mouth is fucking hypnotizing.
“Why’d you stop talking?” I ask her, without looking at her eyes. I keep my gaze trained on her lips, hoping they start moving again.
“Talking?” she says, her top lip curling up in a grin. “Holder, I’m reading. There’s a difference. And from the looks of it, you haven’t been paying a lick of attention.”
The feistiness in her reply makes me smile. “Oh, I’ve been paying attention,” I say, lifting up onto my elbows. “To your mouth. Maybe not to the words coming out of it, but definitely to your mouth.” I slide out from under her until she’s on her back, then I scoot down until I’m beside her. I pull her against me and take her hair between my fingertips again. The fact that she doesn’t resist in the slightest only means I’ll be at war with myself the rest of the damn night. She’s already made it clear she wants me to kiss her, and I’ll be damned if backing away from having her pressed up against the refrigerator wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
Shit. Just thinking about it is almost as intense as when it was actually happening.
I drop the strand of hair and watch as my fingers fall straight to her lips. I don’t know how the last five seconds just occurred, but I’m looking down at my hand as it grazes over her mouth like I have no control over my limbs anymore. My hand has a mind of its own but I really don’t care . . . nor do I want to stop it.
I feel her breath against my fingertips and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to center my focus on something other than what I want. Because it’s not my wants that are important right now—it’s hers. And I highly doubt she wants to taste my mouth as much as I need to taste hers right now.
“You have a nice mouth,” I say, still slowly tracing it with the tips of my fingers. “I can’t stop looking at it.”
“You should taste it,” she says. “It’s quite lovely.”
Holy shit.
I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my head to her neck, forcing my focus away from those lips. “Stop it, you evil wench.”
She laughs. “No way. This is your stupid rule; why should I be the one to enforce it?”
Oh, Jesus. It’s a game to her. This whole not kissing thing is a game to her and she’s going to tease the hell out of me. I can’t do this. If I give in and kiss her before she’s ready I know I won’t be able to stop. And I don’t know what the hell is going on inside my chest right now but I really like the way it feels when I’m around her. If I can drag whatever this is out to make sure she feels the same way, then that’s exactly what I’ll do. Even if it takes me weeks to ensure she gets to that point, then I guess I’ll wait weeks. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure her next first is anything but insignificant.
“Because you know I’m right,” I say, explaining exactly why she needs to help me enforce this rule. “I can’t kiss you tonight because kissing leads to the next thing, which leads to the next thing, and at the rate we’re going we’ll be all out of firsts by next weekend. Don’t you want to drag our firsts out a little longer?” I pull away from her neck and look down at her, very aware that there is less space between our mouths
right now than between our bodies.
“Firsts?” she says, looking up at me curiously. “How many firsts are there?”
“There aren’t that many, which is why we need to drag them out. We’ve already passed too many since we met.”
She tilts her head and her expression grows attractively serious. “What firsts have we already passed?”
“The easy ones,” I say. “First hug, first date, first fight, first time we slept together, although I wasn’t the one sleeping. Now we barely have any left. First kiss. First time to sleep together when we’re both actually awake. First marriage. First kid. We’re done after that. Our lives will become mundane and boring and I’ll have to divorce you and marry a wife who’s twenty years younger than me so I can have a lot more firsts and you’ll be stuck raising the kids.” I bring my hand to her cheek and smile at her. “So you see, babe? I’m only doing this for your benefit. The longer I wait to kiss you, the longer it’ll be before I’m forced to leave you high and dry.”
She laughs and the sound is so toxic I’m forced to swallow the huge lump in my throat so I can make room to breathe again.
“Your logic terrifies me,” she says. “I sort of don’t find you attractive anymore.”
Challenge accepted.
I slowly slide on top of her, careful to hold my weight up with my hands. If my body were to touch any part of hers right now, we’d already be moving on to seconds and thirds. “You sort of don’t find me attractive?” I say, staring straight down into her eyes. “That can also mean you sort of do find me attractive.”
Her eyes grow dark and she shakes her head. I can see the dip in the base of her throat barely move as she gulps before speaking. “I don’t find you attractive at all. You repulse me. In fact, you better not kiss me because I’m pretty sure I just threw up in my mouth.”
I laugh, then drop onto my elbow so I can move closer to her ear, still careful not to touch any other part of her.
“You’re a liar,” I whisper. “You’re a whole lot attracted to me and I’m about to prove it.”
I had every intention of pulling away, but as soon as the scent of her hits me, I can’t pull back. My lips are pressed against her neck before I even have a chance to weigh the decision. But right now it feels a hell of a lot more like a necessity to taste her rather than just a decision. She gasps when I pull back and I can’t help but hope that her gasp was genuine. The thought of her actually feeling what I felt when my lips touched her neck makes me feel ridiculously victorious. It’s too bad I like a challenge, because that gasp just made me want to up my game. I drop my mouth back to her ear and whisper, “Did you feel that?”
Her eyes are closed and she’s shaking her head no, breathing heavily. I look down at her chest, heaving dangerously close to mine.