Hope Blooms

by Jamie Pope

  “Is this why you were making all that damn racket?” Nova said as she ran her hand along the body of the car. “Well, honey, it’s beautiful. We’re going to have to take it for our girls’ night out.” She looked over to her son, still sitting in the front seat. “Hi, baby,” she said almost shyly. “How was your game today?”

  “Good.” He kept his answer short, which was odd for him. He seemed to have so many words for everyone except his mother. They were almost like familiar strangers.

  “What about your shoes? Were they too tight? You need to tell me if they are so we can get new ones. Okay?”

  “They’re fine. Uncle Wylie checked them before I played.”

  “Oh.” She looked over to him. “Hey, brother,” she said quietly, which was unusual for her. In fact, everything was quiet about her today. Her hair was loose and long, as it always was, but she wore no makeup, plus an old T-shirt and torn jeans. Nova was usually glamorously beautiful; today she was just plain pretty, and that made him wonder what was up.

  “Hey.”

  “You finally stopped being such a damn control freak and let this woman get a car.” She injected some sass into her voice, but he could tell it was halfhearted. “It’s about time. I’m surprised that you don’t keep her chained to you.”

  He walked over to his sister and put her in a gentle headlock. “Why are you so mean to me? Huh?” He ruffled her hair. “Is it because I’m smarter and better-looking and generally a nicer person than you are?”

  “Yeah.” She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him. “That’s exactly why.”

  He hugged her back, resting his chin on her forehead. A memory of the last time he hugged her like this came to mind. It was just before his father died, one of the few times his mother came to see him after she left. Nova had been six at the time and their mother . . . She was drunk. The whole entire visit had been colored by her alcohol-infused happiness, her slurred words and clumsy behavior. And yet he hadn’t wanted her to leave. She was his mother. She wasn’t always supposed to leave. She was supposed to want him. When it was time to say good-bye and Nova wrapped her arms around him so tightly, he had the distinct feeling that Nova hadn’t wanted to leave—if Nova could have traded places, she would have been glad to stay. Somehow that image of the sad little six-year-old she was had drifted from his mind.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her seriously. “You need something?”

  “No.” She pulled away from him. “It’s PMS.” She looked at Tanner, not saying anything, but their eyes locked and held for just a little longer than Wylie was comfortable with. Tanner was a good guy and Nova was a beautiful girl, but Nova was his baby sister.

  “Hey, big mouth.” His eyes wandered over her, but there was concern there.

  “Hey, stretch. Your hair actually looks good today.”

  “I know. I brushed it two hundred times before I went to bed last night.”

  She nodded. “A lady should always take care of herself—even one as ugly as yourself.”

  “We were going to get ice cream, and your kid suggested that we bring you along too.”

  “He did?” She looked over at Teo, who was in deep conversation with Cass. “I’d better not. I have a sink full of dishes.”

  “Get your big mouth in the car, Nova.” Tanner pushed her toward the convertible. “Your kid wants you there.”

  “You’re lying,” she whispered. “You’re just using what I said against me.”

  “I don’t care enough to do that. Just get in the damn car.” She looked at Wylie. “Is it true? Did he ask for me?”

  “Yeah,” he said truthfully. “He said that you liked black-cherry ice cream.”

  “I do.” She nodded. “Okay. I’ll come. Let me get my wallet.”

  “Ice cream is on me today,” Cass said to them all while she was still focused on Teo. “Get in the back, kid. Mommy is going to ride next to me.”

  * * *

  Two nights later she was sitting next to Wylie in bed. He was reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he looked so engrossed in the story that she didn’t want to disturb him. She hadn’t seen him read much since she had been there, but there were books all over the house and there was a library card in his wallet. Cass remembered that while growing up, Terrance had been good in every subject, acing every class with ease, but Wylie was good in English. He made it into the honors class his junior year of high school, which must have seemed like such a little accomplishment to the Millers compared to all the ones Terrance had. But it was something to be proud of and she wondered if they ever told Wylie that.

  “Is the light bothering you?” He set the book down on his chest. “I can turn it off if you want to go to sleep.”

  “No. Don’t. You really like to read, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t before. I used to hate it, but my pop couldn’t read so good. Neither could my grandmother. I used to read all the mail to him and help him with the taxes. At night he used to make me read the newspaper to him. Reading wasn’t something I liked to do. It was something I had to do. It was like a chore. But then Mr. Miller gave me In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and I realized that books could have sex and violence and cusswords in them, and that opened up a whole new world for me.”

  “Give a boy a dirty book and you’ll turn him into a lifetime reader. Eric gave you that book, huh? You two had a pretty good relationship, but you never called him anything but Mr. Miller.”

  “No. I knew my place, and you know how I feel about children calling adults by their first names. We don’t do it where I’m from.”

  “But you’re a man now.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good one who loves his baby sister. She told me you stopped by the shop today.”

  “She has her moments, and I can’t believe she told you that.”

  “She can’t believe you showed up.”

  “I think Tanner has a thing for her.”

  “Of course he does. She’s the most beautiful woman on the island and she’s sexy. There’s a sweetness about her too, which is hard to see sometimes, and when I mistakenly thought you had a kid with her, I wanted to scratch her eyes out.”

  “You did?” He chuckled. He wrapped his arm around her and rested his lips on her forehead. “I don’t have children yet. My grandmamma always said don’t have sex with anybody you don’t want to be the mother of your babies.”

  “And did you follow that advice?”

  “Not always. It’s hard being a sixteen-year-old boy and trying to keep it in your pants. Common sense doesn’t often prevail. But the older I got, the more I listened to her advice.”

  “And you don’t have any babies yet.” She looked up at him, studying his strong profile and sleepy face. “Are you going to make love to me tonight?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes. Unless you don’t want to. It’s okay if you just want to sleep tonight.”

  “Come here.” He sat up straight and patted his lap. She straddled him so that they were face-to-face. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, bringing her closer. He looked deep into her eyes like he could see inside her, and sometimes she was sure he could. Sure that he knew all her thoughts, could see all her feelings. “I always want to make love to you. Always. I always have wanted to make love to you. I don’t think there has been a minute or a second since I’ve met you that I haven’t wanted to be with you.”

  Then why did you leave? She wanted to ask that question so bad that sometimes it burned a hole in her stomach, but she didn’t want to have that conversation now, because she wanted to make love more.

  She leaned in closer and gave him a soft kiss. He kissed her back just as gently, but his tongue swept deeply into her mouth. His kiss made her feel good and beautiful and special. Like she was important to him. She wondered if every woman Wylie kissed felt this way; and if they did, then every woman should experience kissing him just once.

  “Take this off.” He touched her nightgown, and his voice was even husk
ier with arousal. He was hard already. His erection was gently probing between her legs, even though the thin material of his boxers separated them. “I want to see you.”

  She slipped her nightgown off over her head, revealing herself to him. He just looked for a while, looking as though seeing her for the first time instead of the hundredth. They had often made love like this when they were younger. Face-to-face. Eyes open. No covers or darkness or barriers. “You are beautiful.” He touched her breast, simply sliding his rough palm across it, making her nipple tighten at the sensation. “Sometimes I wonder if you really want this or you are just doing it because you know how much I need you.” He cupped her breasts, squeezing them, running his thumbs over her sensitive skin.

  “W-what”—she stuttered because his touch felt so good that she couldn’t keep her thoughts coherent—“do you mean by that?”

  He peppered kisses across her collarbone and then the top of her chest. “You never say no to me. Sometimes I feel greedy for wanting you so much.”

  “You shouldn’t. I want this. I want you.”

  He pulled her nipple into his mouth, gently sucking on it, laving it with his tongue. “I thought about you all the time, Cass. Even after I knew you were with him. Even though I knew it was wrong,” he told her as he kissed her heart. “It was the worst when I was on my first tour in Afghanistan. I was surrounded by other men, but at night sometimes I thought I could smell your soap.”

  Why was he saying these things to her? Why did he have to be so sweet and so beautiful? He had left her. And by doing so, he had changed her life. He had changed all her plans.

  He captured her mouth just as that thought settled in her brain. It was like his kiss had powers, because soon she couldn’t think straight anymore. His hands were stroking down her body, arousing her, soothing her, loving her. His mouth was on top of hers, pulling her out of her thoughts, making her want him more.

  “Are you ready, honey?” He touched her between her legs, only to groan when he found her slick. “I don’t think I can wait anymore.” He leaned back against the headboard, looking at her. “I want you to be in charge tonight. Do what you want tonight.”

  She hesitated at first. She liked the often-reckless feel to their sex, the way her mind shut off when he touched her. But tonight he was asking for the opposite. She ran her hands across his shoulder and then used her lips, kissing the little white scar that was there. She moved her lips up to kiss his throat, flicking her tongue across his Adam’s apple. He swallowed hard. His erection twitched between her legs. He still wore his boxers, but she wanted to feel his skin. She released him, rubbing him against her wetness, sliding his head along her engorged nub. He inhaled sharply, dug his fingers into her hips, and she knew that he was on the edge. But she didn’t care because he felt too good there, and his thick fingers biting into her skin felt even better. She placed him at her opening, sliding down just a bit so she could feel his girth, but not enough to let him enter.

  He cursed violently as she retreated and rubbed him along the length of her. She eased herself down into his lap, continuing the slow grind, bringing herself closer and closer to orgasm, not caring how bad he was hurting. The pleasure was too intense.

  “Ride me, Cass. Please. I need to be inside you. I need you. I need you.” Hearing those words brought on her climax. She cried out his name, collapsing against him, but Wylie was impatient, lifting her up and settling himself inside her while she caught her breath.

  “Move on me,” he whispered. “I won’t be able to control myself much longer if you don’t.”

  She looked up at him, at the hunger in his eyes, and did as he asked. Her movements were slow and deep at first. She hadn’t made love like this in years, not since she was with him. She was unsure of herself. But his hands were there to guide her, and he spoke soft words of encouragement with each stroke.

  “You’re the only one who can make me this crazy. You’re the only one for me.” Her movements grew faster as his words and the pleasure caught up to her. “I need you.”

  “I need you.”

  They were words every woman wanted to hear, that she should want to hear, but they were clogging up her pleasure with emotions and memories. Memories of one of the hardest times in her life.

  But she kept riding him, faster and faster, trying to drown them out, trying to focus on how this felt and how close she was to the edge again.

  He brought her face closer, giving her hot, wet, openmouthed kisses as he guided her down on him. He seemed to take note of her urgency and moved himself so that he slid even deeper, made her feel even more of him. And then it came again, her orgasm. It struck her so hard that she screamed. His body jerked, and his cry mingled with her own.

  It was intense and in that moment she felt closer to him than ever before, but she was also angry with him and she couldn’t stop the tears that had formed in her eyes.

  He disconnected them, but he did not move her away from him. Instead he held her, cupping the back of her head in his hand. “Why are you crying, my sweet girl?”

  “It’s better with you.” She struggled to get the words out. “I loved my husband, but I feel better with you, closer to you, and I hate myself for that . . . because you walked out of my life.” She looked up at him. “Why did you?”

  Sadness took over Wylie’s normally expressionless face. “He never told you, did he?”

  “Who? Terrance? Told me what?”

  “Why I left?” He wiped his hand over his face. “I almost killed him, Cass. He didn’t tell you? He didn’t show you?”

  She knew what he was talking about. She remembered Terrance’s face: how he could barely see out of his eyes, how his jaw was so swollen he could hardly talk. “He said he got into a bar fight.”

  “He didn’t. I did that to him.” He fell silent and she waited for him to go on to tell her the story, to give her the reason, but he didn’t. But she knew there was a reason. There had to be, because they loved each other.

  “No more hiding!” She punched his shoulder. “No more! Not from me.”

  “He found out about us.”

  “He knew?” She shook her head. She had never told him and he had never said anything to her about it. She had gone their entire marriage holding that secret inside. But it wasn’t a secret. He knew the whole time.

  And the thought of that left her breathless.

  “I don’t know who told him. It might have been his father or yours. They came to see me to tell me that somebody saw us together and it would be best if we ended things. They said that I wasn’t right for you and there was no use in breaking up two friendships for something that was never going to last. I told them to fuck off. It was the first time I’d ever been disrespectful to the man who took me in, but I was sick of the whole damn world telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t measure up to Terrance. What the hell made him so much better than me? He was lucky, lucky that his pop could read and his family had money. But I loved him, Cass. I loved him, but I was mad at him. And then he showed up two nights later and he was pissing mad. He called me ‘trash,’ Cassandra. Trash. Said I better not have forgotten where I came from, and the only reason I wasn’t in foster care or with my drunk of a mother was because his family saved me. He said I stole you, that I knew he loved you and I took you from him anyway. And I told him that—that I couldn’t take something that was never his and that you never wanted him in the first place. That’s when he punched me.” He shut his eyes and she felt his body go rigid beneath her. “I tried to control myself, but I was so damn angry. When he hit me, it was like I broke. I hit him back and I just kept hitting him and hitting him.” He dragged in a ragged breath. “I heard his nose break and felt his blood splatter on my face, but I couldn’t stop myself, because he was my brother and his words hurt. He wasn’t supposed to think I was trash. He was supposed to love me like I loved him.”

  She shut her eyes, trying to take it all in, to absorb what she was hearing about her husband a
nd her father. These were the men she was supposed to be able to trust the most, but they both had lied to her. “Tell me more.”

  “I couldn’t stop myself until I saw his eyes roll back in his head, and then I realized that he was on the floor and that I was on top of him. I was beating a man who was no longer fighting back. I hated myself and I knew that everyone else would hate me when they found out what happened. I knew my time in Harmony Falls had come to an end.”

  “So you left without a word?”

  “I knew you loved him too and I thought you would think I was a monster for what I had done. And he was right. He loved you first. He always loved you, and I knew that, but I couldn’t stay away from you.”

  “But you could leave me? What Terrance did to you was wrong. And I don’t like what you did to him, but I would have been on your side because I loved you that much. I’m always on your side. Don’t you know that?”

  “I hated myself then and I wanted to show them. I wanted to come back and show every one that I could make something of myself. I had to leave to do that.”

  “I was holding you back.”

  “I didn’t want to leave you. And if the fight hadn’t happened, I would have stayed there forever, but I knew you deserved better than a guy who worked two jobs just to feed himself. In my mind I always told myself that I was going to come back for you, but then I heard about your engagement to Terrance. It wasn’t even a year after I left. I thought you two had really fallen in love, and in the end I knew he loved you and would treat you like you deserved to be treated.”

  “I wasn’t in love with him,” she said aloud for the first time, and she felt like she was betraying Terrance. “I only married him because you broke my heart.”

  Chapter 16

  Wylie went to Mansi’s house the next afternoon, only to find Cassandra’s car gone. He didn’t know why he was nervous to find her gone. She didn’t have to tell him where she was going. She was an adult. She was responsible, but she had been quiet since the other night when he told her the real reason he had walked away from her and the only family he had at the time. She said she was on his side. She said she didn’t hate him, and she didn’t act like she did. But how could she not, when sometimes he still hated himself. Hated that he never made things right before he lost Terrance. He meant to make things right. He told himself he would, even if they could never be friends again. He just never thought Terrance would die; and now that he had, Wylie felt guiltier than ever.