Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  Lean but rippling with strength.

  Tall but no longer gangly.

  Healthy.

  Beautiful.

  But I was pretty sure the biggest change was the tiny child he had hooked on his right hip, this little thing with his fist clutched at the neck of Evan’s shirt, the child clinging to him like a little froggy sticking to a tree.

  Grief gusted and blew.

  My hand darted out to the wall to keep myself standing beneath the weight of the green eyes that were so familiar. The baby’s gaze overflowed with confusion.

  I didn’t know if it was horror or relief that hit me hardest.

  The fact that Evan was standing there alive and breathing and whole, or if I was crumbling under the weight of witnessing what I would never have.

  My attention was back on him. On Evan who was frozen like me.

  Shocked.

  The two of us stuck in that second as I was assaulted by the memories.

  By the oaths and dreams we’d weaved.

  The fact he’d promised me all of his days, and then he’d just walked away.

  That break in my heart quivered. Threatened to crack wide open.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

  Air gone.

  Knees weak.

  I struggled around it, trying to get it together, to focus on the fact that he was there.

  But I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Couldn’t stop the crash of hurt that rolled underfoot.

  Tears spilling free, I started to back away, unable to stand, unable to watch. I fumbled through the swinging door because there was no chance I could remain standing there.

  And I fled from the boy I’d always love most.

  Two

  Evan

  Have you ever heard the sound of silence?

  The echoing nothingness banging through the stillness?

  I’d lived it my entire life.

  Like moving through a stifled ocean of complete, utter quiet.

  Deaf from day one.

  But I didn’t think I’d ever felt it more profoundly than when I stepped through the entrance of A Drop of Hope as my mother came through the kitchen door.

  Like it was all playing in slow motion, a tray slipped from her hands, the metal hitting the ground, bouncing twice before it skidded.

  The treats she’d made my entire life tumbled across the floor.

  Every single person in the bakery froze as a shockwave of confusion blistered through the air. I felt it like a hushed anxiety clawing across my skin.

  The stilled vibrations that shivered and shook.

  They shouted louder than a voice ever could.

  Had I expected a different reception?

  A prodigal son coming home to a ring on his finger and a feast at the table?

  My mom’s hands flew to her mouth, holding back what I knew was a shout of pain. Her eyes were rounded, though they were pinched at the sides, bleary with an overwhelming shock of emotion that I was one-hundred-percent responsible for.

  Disbelief and hurt oozed from her like a flood.

  Only solace was that in it, there was the most stunning kind of relief.

  Sometimes it only took one single moment to realize how badly you’d fucked up.

  My moment was right then.

  But there was nothing I could do but come here.

  Desperate.

  Hopeless.

  Hell, I’d get on my hands and knees and grovel and beg if I had to.

  I hiked Everett up a little higher against my side, and he dug his little fingers tighter into my shirt, tipping his trusting gaze toward me in question.

  My throat tightened.

  Fuck. Still didn’t know how to deal with it. What to do with the crush of fear that pulsed through my veins like a flash of fire. A million different emotions I couldn’t seem to process.

  They all came at me in strobes.

  Only thing I did know was I had to return. No matter the consequences.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, sure my voice cracked with the tremor of dread.

  I started to say something to my mom. To plead with her.

  That was until my own shock was jutting from my lungs when my attention jumped to the door swinging open behind her.

  Frankie Leigh stumbled out.

  A kaleidoscope of that energy boomed through the air.

  She was there.

  Of course, she was there.

  My tightened throat fully constricted, and my heart tried to climb out through the stricture, like it recognized its home and it couldn’t wait to lay itself at her feet.

  No regard to whether it was going to get all busted up on the way to get there.

  It’d been broken since the day I was born, anyway.

  Didn’t think there was any hope for reconciliation now.

  Might as well take a swim in the pain.

  I stood there watching the horror etch across her face as she jerked to a stop.

  Didn’t matter if it made me a fool.

  My eyes climbed to hers as if they were searching through the rubble, fingers bloody and knees scraped from the time it’d taken to claw my way back to her.

  I felt her like a goddamn stake to the heart.

  A scourge.

  A balm.

  Didn’t fucking know.

  Brown eyes with the cinnamon flecks I could never forget roamed over me, like she was trying to reach out and touch me through the distance.

  To remember.

  But then that gaze was twisting.

  Morphing.

  The disorder whipping into a frenzy when her attention landed on the child I was holding.

  My son. My son. My son.

  The words spun through my mind like a windstorm. A vortex that was going to suck me into oblivion.

  Still unable to process it myself.

  But Frankie Leigh?

  Her head rocked back like she’d been punched in the face.

  Blindsided.

  I wanted to shout at her. Beg her to understand. To not look at me like I’d completely shattered her because it was the last fucking thing I’d wanted to do.

  I knew immediately her face was wrought with the same expression I’d been too much of a coward to stand in front of three years ago when I’d left. Knew this was the kind of pain that would have been written on her when she found the note.

  Crushed.

  Absolutely demolished.

  There wasn’t one goddamn apology that was going to fix this. No explanation. No reason that would be deemed sufficient.

  But I had to remember the mess I’d left between us wasn’t the reason I was there.

  I had a child to protect.

  I swallowed, tried to shove the turmoil down, to ignore the fact that this girl’s sweet body still made me ache with a need that had chased me through every night of the last three fucking years.

  Ignore the force of her spirit that rippled and shook.

  Ignore the connection that pulled and tugged and demanded to know how I could have betrayed her the way that I did.

  Still, I felt like I was getting peeled apart when she started backing away.

  Fleeing.

  Desperate to find a safe place.

  Those locks of wild brown curls all around her face.

  Mouth parting in shock as she stared at Everett like she was trying to force it all to make sense.

  Then her eyes snapped to mine in a blast of alarm before she turned and was gone.

  I wanted to run after her.

  Touch her.

  But I had to focus on what I’d come back to Gingham Lakes for in the first place.

  I forced my attention back on my mother—this woman who would have laid down her life for me—the one who’d protected me and sacrificed and instilled in me what a real man should be.

  Failed that, too.

  “Evan.” Her mouth moved in a plea, no sound to touch my ears.

  Didn’t matter.

  I felt her.
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  My focus locked onto the motion of her lips, carefully watching my mom deal with the idea that I was really there while I tried not to completely lose my shit. No doubt it was the fact I had a kid hooked to my hip that almost knocked her on her ass.

  That made two of us.

  “Mom.” I forced it up my throat, knowing the word was probably distorted and garbled, though most people could understand me when I spoke aloud.

  Everett scratched his fingers into my chin. Without a doubt, this little man felt my anxiety. I had to wonder if he’d been born with a sixth sense.

  One that could tap into emotions in a way that wasn’t natural.

  Like he’d taken all my amplified senses and multiplied them as his own.

  We’d connected in an instant which scared the shit out of me, too. Didn’t have the first clue how to care for him. How to help him. And still, there was nothing I could do but cling to him, anyway.

  I shifted him to bring us chest to chest, his little heart beating erratic. Or maybe it was just mine.

  “Mom, I need your help.”

  That was all it took to send my mom flying across the bakery floor, confusion pouring from her as she ran toward us. Tears streaked down her cheeks, her eyes roving like she was taking in every inch.

  She came to a grinding stop a foot away, hands lifted and trembling, like she wanted to wrap me up and didn’t know where to touch.

  Like she’d become an outsider.

  I hated it.

  Hated that I’d put so much distance between us that she no longer knew how to reach me.

  Everett pressed one ear against my chest, his head way up high under my chin while he stared out at his grandmother. I splayed my hand over his back, giving him comfort, and I knew it was a sob that was busting from my mother.

  Guttural.

  Broken.

  The way her entire chest swelled and shook, the roll of her throat, the twist of her jaw.

  Pain lanced through my spirit.

  Regret and remorse and every-fucking-thing I wished I could take back.

  “Mom,” I said again.

  Frantically, she began to sign.

  E-V-A-N. WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHAT IS GOING ON? I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE HERE. YOU’RE HERE.

  Her watery gaze turned to Everett, a trembling hand reaching out to trace his chubby cheek. Her mouth was quivering all over the place when she looked up and asked, “Oh God, Evan . . . is this your son?”

  It wasn’t much of a question considering he pretty much looked exactly the way I had in my baby pictures. But I knew exactly how she felt.

  Shocked.

  Hurt.

  Dread taking hold at the truth of what that meant.

  “Yes,” I told her, admission cracking with a grief I wasn’t expecting.

  Everett gave one of his tiny-toothed grins when I said it, and fuck, that feeling I kept fighting was twisting around me again.

  I wanted to tuck tail and run.

  I wanted to stay.

  Wanted to fight.

  Protect.

  Maybe curl up in a ball like I used to do when I was a kid and pray my mom could make it all okay.

  But those days were long since gone and it was time I manned up.

  “Oh God,” Mom whimpered and she swayed, and suddenly Jenna was in action, rounding around the counter, rushing for us. Jenna wrapped an arm around Mom’s waist when she looked like she might faint.

  Jenna angled her head at me. Pissed. Dazed.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  “Think it might be a good idea to take this homecoming party into the back, don’t you?” She rushed through the statement so quickly, it was hard to read her lips, but I got the full gist.

  I was about to get my ass handed to me.

  I gave a tight nod.

  Itching to reach out for my mom.

  To hug her and do a little of that begging myself. To tell her I was so goddamn sorry. That I hadn’t meant to hurt her. That I’d believed I was doing the right thing for everyone.

  I’d been so sick of being a burden.

  Of their lives revolving around mine.

  Waiting for the day it would end.

  Once I’d started the spiral of hopelessness, I didn’t know how to get out of it.

  Climbing out of it now was the only choice I had left.

  I gave an apologetic glance to the customers who were standing there gaping, unwilling parties witnessing this shitshow going down.

  Jenna led my mom to the back, and I followed, knocked in the guts again when I stepped into the kitchen and found Carly floundering in through the back door.

  Flustered and rushing and attention darting all over the place.

  If I had to put down money, she’d just chased Frankie out.

  When she saw me, a tear burst from her eye, and she was shaking her head through the disturbance, looking between me and Everett like she didn’t recognize me, either.

  Apparently, we were making quite the entrance.

  Welcome to the family, Everett.

  But I knew them well enough to know they would welcome him. Do anything for him. Protect him and keep him, which was exactly why I was there.

  As soon as we got into the kitchen, Mom whirled on me, her nails scratching at her chest. “You broke my heart, Evan.”

  Her words scraped my skin. Hit me like a blow. No, they made no impact on my ears, but fuck, I felt them all the way to my soul.

  Shame slammed me. “I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

  I hugged Everett a little tighter because the last thing I wanted was for him to be in the line of fire.

  None of this was his fault.

  It was mine.

  She blinked frantically. “You didn’t want to hurt me? God, Evan . . . you destroyed me. I . . . I . . . I haven’t slept a full night in three years. Three years, Evan. Because the only thing I’ve been able to do was worry about you. Wonder if you were safe or sick. Happy or alone. If you were alive.”

  She clutched her chest again on the last like the thought made her physically ill.

  “And now you show up here with a child? A child who looks like he’s at least a year and a half old? How could you do this to me? How?”

  There’s a thing about growing up the disabled kid.

  People watched you like you were different.

  Treated you like you were different.

  With too much care or with outright disdain.

  Fawned over you, made concessions, or treated you like you were dirt, unworthy to breathe the air.

  I’d been called both special and a pussy a thousand times.

  Thing was, the only times I’d ever cried in my entire life was over this woman.

  When she was in pain. When she walked in fear.

  When I’d been a little boy, and the only thing I’d wanted was to be able to protect her from my piece-of-shit biological father, but there’d been nothing I could do to stand up for her because I was just a weak little kid.

  Now, standing there as a man? I wanted to fucking weep because it’d turned out that I was a pussy after all.

  A coward.

  One who’d run when everything had felt too dark and bleak.

  Turning away for a beat, I gripped at my hair, hardly able to look back at her because Mom was sure as hell not making concessions right then.

  Wasn’t about to give me an easy out.

  I didn’t deserve one.

  Could feel Jenna and Carly watching in their own horror, and everything trembled when I forced myself to speak. “And I’ve spent every day of the last three years hating what I did and feeling like it was the only decision I could make at the same time.”

  WHY? she begged.

  I hesitated, warred, then finally said, “I just . . . needed to find myself. Away from all of this.”

  It was bullshit.

  She knew it was, too.

  Because grief was striking on her face and the
n she was throwing herself at me.

  Wrapping her arms around both of us.

  The same arms that had fought for me my entire life.

  Through all my disabilities.

  My genetic defects.

  My deafness and this fucking transplanted heart that some days I wondered how it was still beating.

  Because of her. That was why.

  This woman who’d wrapped me in comfort and joy and steadfast belief.

  Refusing to give up hope when she’d been told there was nothing left to be hoping for.

  She hugged us tight, tears seeping into my shirt. Could feel her sobs. The tremble of her body. After a long time, she pried herself away, her face full of anguish, only to shift and pull Everett into her arms.

  She was whimpering, hugging him and murmuring and kissing the side of his head.

  And she didn’t even know his name.

  It was the reason I’d come.

  The reason I’d known this was the only place I could go.

  She looked over at me through the tears in her eyes.

  Silent questions pouring free.

  Is he healthy?

  Does he carry your disease?

  God, how could you let this happen?

  I lifted my hands and gave her the only answer that I could.

  HIS NAME IS EVERETT. EVERETT CHASE.

  Everett Chase who I hadn’t known existed until three nights ago.

  Everett Chase who had been thrown into my arms in the middle of the night with a plea and a warning.

  Everett Chase who I didn’t know but was determined to protect.

  Whatever it took.

  * * *

  It was surreal pulling into my parent’s circular driveway. Massive trees stood like age-old sentries around the property, sheltering its borders, a vast canopy that stretched out to protect the big white house tucked at the back. Yard immaculate. As immaculate as the wrap-around porch that fronted the first level.

  Nostalgia whipped through my entire being as I pulled to a stop. It was in the same neighborhood where Frankie Leigh had lived. Where her parents and brothers still lived two houses down and across the street.

  After my mom and Kale had gotten married, they’d purchased this place. Frankie’s father, Rex, and his company had come in and renovated it.

  Made it better than brand-new.

  Putting my car in park, I scrubbed my face with my palms, hoping it might break up the disorder.