Losing Hope: A Novel

by Colleen Hoover

  Yeah. A little boy who was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. “Your dad walked over to our yard and asked me if I knew where you were.” This is where it gets hard for me. This is the point I realized the awful mistake I had made. “Sky, you have to understand something,” I say to her. “I was scared of your father. I was just a kid and knew I had just done something terribly wrong by leaving you alone. Now your police chief father is standing over me, his gun visible on his uniform. I panicked. I ran back into my house and ran straight to my bedroom and locked the door. He and my mother beat on the door for half an hour, but I was too scared to open it and admit to them that I knew what happened. My reaction worried both of them, so he immediately radioed for backup. When I heard the police cars pull up outside, I thought they were there for me. I still didn’t understand what had happened to you. By the time my mother coaxed me out of the room, three hours had already passed since you left in the car.”

  She can feel how much this hurts me to talk about. She pulls one of her hands out of the sleeve of her shirt and places it in mine.

  “I was taken to the station and questioned for hours. They wanted to know if I knew the license plate number, what kind of car took you, what the person looked like, what they said to you. Sky, I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t even remember the color of the car. All I could tell them was exactly what you were wearing, because you were the only thing I could picture in my head. Your dad was furious with me. I could hear him yelling in the hallway of the station that if I had just told someone right when it happened, they would have been able to find you. He blamed me. When a police officer blames you for losing his daughter, you tend to believe he knows what he’s talking about. Les heard him yelling, too, so she thought it was all my fault. For days, she wouldn’t even talk to me. Both of us were trying to understand what had happened. For almost six years we lived in this perfect world where adults are always right and bad things don’t happen to good people. Then, in the span of a minute, you were taken and everything we thought we knew turned out to be this false image of life that our parents had built for us. We realized that day that even adults do horrible things. Children disappear. Best friends get taken from you and you have no idea if they’re even alive anymore.

  “We watched the news constantly, waiting for reports. For weeks they would show your picture on TV, asking for leads. The most recent picture they had of you was from right before your mother died, when you were only three. I remember that pissing me off, wondering how almost two years could have gone by without someone having taken a more recent picture. They would show pictures of your house and would sometimes show our house, too. Every now and then, they would mention the boy next door who saw it happen, but couldn’t remember any details. I remember one night . . . the last night my mother allowed us to watch the coverage on TV . . . one of the reporters showed a panned-out image of both our houses. They mentioned the only witness, but referred to me as ‘The boy who lost Hope.’ It infuriated my mother so bad; she ran outside and began screaming at the reporters, yelling at them to leave us alone. To leave me alone. My dad had to drag her back inside the house.

  “My parents did their best to try to make our life as normal as possible. After a couple of months, the reporters stopped showing up. The endless trips to the police station for more questioning finally stopped. Things began to slowly return to normal for everyone in the neighborhood. Everyone but Les and me. It was like all of our hope was taken right along with our Hope.”

  She sighs when I’ve finished and she’s quiet for a while. “I’ve spent so many years hating my father for giving up on me,” she says. “I can’t believe she just took me from him. How could she do that? How could anyone do that?”

  “I don’t know, babe.”

  She sits up in the chair and looks me in the eyes. “I need to see the house,” she says. “I want more memories, but I don’t have any and right now it’s hard. I can barely remember anything, much less him. I just want to drive by. I need to see it.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. I want to go before it gets dark.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  * * *

  I should never have let her come here. As soon as we pulled up in front of the house, I could tell just looking at it wouldn’t be enough for her. Sure enough, she got out of the car and demanded to see the inside of it. I tried to talk her out of it, but I can only do so much.

  I’m standing outside her window, waiting. I don’t want her to be in there right now, but I could clearly see that she’s not having it any other way. I lean against the house and hope she hurries the hell up. It doesn’t look like any of the neighbors are home, but that doesn’t mean her father isn’t going to drive up any second now.

  I look down at the ground beneath my feet, then glance behind me at the house. This is the exact spot she was standing in when I walked away from her thirteen years ago. I close my eyes and rest my head against the house. I never expected I’d ever be back here with her again.

  My eyes flash open and I stand up straight the second I hear the crash come from inside her bedroom, followed by screaming. I don’t give myself time to question what the hell is going on in there. I just run.

  I run through the back door and down the hall until I’m in her old bedroom with her. She’s crying hysterically and throwing things across the room, so I immediately wrap my arms around her from behind to calm her down. I have no idea what the hell brought this on, but I’m at an even bigger loss how to stop it. She’s frantically jerking against me, attempting to get out of my hold, but I just grip her even tighter. “Stop,” I say against her ear. She’s still frantic and I need her to calm down before someone hears her.

  “Don’t touch me!” she screams. She claws at my arms but I don’t relent, even for a second. She eventually weakens and becomes defeated by whatever it is that has hold of her mind right now. She grows limp in my arms and I know I need to get her out of here, but I can’t have her reacting like this once I get her outside.

  I loosen my grip and turn her around to face me. She falls against my chest and sobs, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt while she tries to hold herself up. I lower my mouth to her ear.

  “Sky. You need to leave. Now.” I’m trying to be strong for her, but I also need her to know that being here is a very bad idea. Especially after she’s just destroyed the entire room. He’ll know someone was here for a fact now, so we need to leave.

  I pick her up and carry her out of the bedroom. She keeps her face buried in my chest while I walk her outside and to the car. I reach into the backseat and hand her my jacket.

  “Here, use that to wipe off the blood. I’m going back inside to straighten up what I can.”

  I watch her for a few seconds to make sure she’s not about to panic again, then I shut the door and head back inside to her bedroom. I straighten up what I can, but the mirror is a hard one to cover up. I’m hoping that her father doesn’t come into this room very often. If I can make it look like nothing outside this room was disturbed, it could be weeks before he even notices the mirror.

  I put the blanket back on the bed and hang the curtains back up, then head back outside. When I reach the car, just the sight of her is enough to nearly bring me to my knees.

  This isn’t her.

  She’s scared. Broken. She’s shaking and crying and I’m wondering for the first time if any of the decisions I’ve made over the last twenty-four hours have been smart ones.

  I put the car in drive and pull away from the house, never wanting to see it or think about it again. I hope to hell she doesn’t, either. I place my hand on the back of her head, which is tucked against her knees. I run my fingers through her hair and don’t move my hand away from her the entire drive back to the hotel. I need her to know that I’m here. That no matter how she feels right now, she’s not alone. If I’ve learned anything from losing her all those years ago or from what happened with Les, it’s that I never want t
o let her feel alone again.

  • • •

  Once we’re back inside the hotel room, I help her down onto the bed, then grab a wet rag and come back and inspect the cuts.

  “It’s just a few scratches,” I say. “Nothing too deep.”

  I remove my shoes and climb onto the bed with her. I pull the blanket over us and rest her head against my chest while she cries.

  The length of time she cries and the desperation with which she’s holding on to me make me hate myself for allowing this to happen to her. I was careless last night and didn’t think to keep her out of Les’s room. She wouldn’t be experiencing any of this now had she not seen that photo. Then she would never have gone back into that house.

  She lifts her gaze to mine and her eyes are so sad. I wipe away her tears and lower my mouth to hers, kissing her softly. “I’m sorry. I should have never let you go inside.”

  “Holder, you didn’t do anything wrong. Stop apologizing.”

  I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have taken you there. It’s too much for you to deal with after just finding everything out.”

  She lifts up onto her elbow. “It wasn’t just being there that was too much. It was what I remembered that was too much. You have no control over the things my father did to me. Stop placing blame on yourself for everything bad that happens to the people around you.”

  The things he did to her? I slide my hand to the base of her neck. “What are you talking about? What things did he do to you?”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and drops her head to my chest, then starts crying again. The answer she’s refusing to give me right now completely rips apart my heart. “No, Sky,” I whisper. “No.”

  I’m overcome with several different emotions at once. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone like I want to hurt her bastard of a father, and if she didn’t need me here with her right now I’d be on my way back to his house.

  I close my eyes and can’t get the thought of her as a little girl out of my head. Even when I was a little boy, I could tell she was broken, and she was the first thing I ever felt the urge to protect. And now, curled up against me, crying . . . the only thing I want to do is protect her from him, but I can’t. I can’t protect her from all the memories that are flooding her mind right now and I’d give anything if I could.

  She clenches my shirt in her fists and the sobs continue. I hold her as tightly as I can, knowing there’s nothing I can do to make her pain go away, so I just hold her like I used to hold Les. I never want to let her go.

  She continues to cry and I continue to hold her and I’m trying so hard to be strong for her right now but I’m breaking. Knowing what happened to her and all she’s had to live through is completely unhinging me and I have no idea how she’s even able to hold up at all.

  After several minutes, her tears begin to soften but they never cease. She eventually lifts her face off my chest, then slides on top of me. She closes her eyes and brings her lips to mine, then she immediately tries to take off my shirt. I have no idea why she’s doing this, so I flip her onto her back. “What are you doing?”

  She slides her hand behind my neck and pulls my mouth back to hers. As much as I love kissing her, this just doesn’t feel right. When her hands grab at my shirt again, I push them away. “Stop it,” I tell her. “Why are you doing this?”

  She looks at me with desperation. “Have sex with me.”

  What the fuck?

  I immediately climb off the bed and pace the floor. I don’t even know how the hell to respond to that, especially after what she just remembered about her father. “Sky, I can’t do this,” I say, pausing to look at her. “I don’t know why you’re even asking for this right now.”

  She crawls to the edge of the bed where I’m standing and she pulls up onto her knees, grasping at my shirt. “Please,” she begs. “Please, Holder. I need this.”

  I step away from her, out of her grasp. “I’m not doing this, Sky. We’re not doing this. You’re in shock or something . . . I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say right now.”

  She falls back down onto the bed and begins to cry again.

  Dammit. I don’t know how to help her. I’m completely unprepared for this.

  “Please,” she says, looking me in the eyes. Her voice and the pain behind it is shattering me from the inside out. She drops her eyes to her hands, which are folded in her lap. “Holder . . . he’s the only one that’s ever done that to me.” She lifts her eyes to mine again. “I need you to take that away from him. Please.”

  If I had a soul before those words, it just completely broke in half. Tears fill my eyes and I hurt for her. I hurt for her so much because I don’t want her to ever have to think about that bastard again. “Please, Holder,” she says again.

  Fuck.

  I don’t know what to do or how to deal with all of this. If I tell her no, I’ll hurt her even more. If I agree to help her by doing this; I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive myself.

  She’s looking up at me from the bed, completely broken. Her pleading eyes are waiting for my decision. And even though neither option is one I want to choose, I just go with whatever she thinks she needs right now. If I could trade lives with her I would do it in a heartbeat, just so she’d never have to feel whatever it is she’s feeling. I’ll do whatever it takes to ease her pain.

  Whatever it takes.

  I walk back to her and sink to my knees on the floor. I scoot her to the edge of the bed, then I remove both our shirts. I pick her up and walk her to the head of the bed and lay her down gently. I lower myself on top of her, then wipe her tears away again.

  “Okay,” I say to her.

  I know she more than likely just wants to get this over with. There’s no way this moment can be what it should be. I reach to my wallet and remove a condom, then take off my pants, watching her diligently the entire time. I don’t want her to panic during this like she did last night, so I watch for any signs that she’s changed her mind. She’s been through enough. I just want to do whatever I can to help her, and if this will help her, it’s what I’ll do.

  I kiss her the whole time I’m taking off her clothes. I don’t even try to make it romantic. I just try to think whatever thoughts about her I can think that will help me get this over with faster.

  Once her clothes are off, I put on the condom and ease myself against her. “Sky,” I say, praying she’ll ask me to stop. I don’t want it to be like this for her.

  She opens her eyes and shakes her head. “No, don’t think about it. Just do it, Holder.”

  Her voice is completely emotionless. I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face in her neck. “I just don’t know how to deal with all of this. I don’t know if this is wrong or if it’s what you really need. I’m scared if I do this, I’ll make it even harder for you.”

  She wraps her arms tightly around my neck and she begins to cry again. Rather than release me, she just pulls me tighter and lifts her hips in a silent plea for me to keep going.

  I kiss her on the side of her head and give her what she needs. The moment I push into her, tears escape my eyes. She never makes a sound. She just keeps herself wrapped tightly around me and I go through the motions, trying desperately not to think about how different I wanted this to be.

  I try not to think about how I feel like I’m taking advantage of her with every movement against her.

  I try not to think about how doing this makes me feel like I’m no better than her father.

  That thought freezes me. I’m still inside her, but I can’t move. I can’t do this to her for another second.

  I pull away from her neck and look down at her, then roll off her completely. I sit on the edge of the bed and fist my hands in my hair.

  “I can’t do it,” I say to her. “It feels wrong, Sky. It feels wrong because you feel so good but I’m regretting every single fucking second of it.” I stand up and toss the empty condom into the trashcan, pull my clothes back on, then walk to the door, kno
wing I’m letting her down again.

  I make my way outside and, as soon as I’m alone in the parking lot, I scream out of frustration. I pace the sidewalk for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I turn and hit the building, over and over, then fall against the brick wall and wonder how the hell I’ve let her end up here. How the hell did I allow it to ever get to this point? The last twenty-four hours of my life have been one huge, colossal fuck-up.

  And here I am, walking away from her again. Doing what I do best. Leaving her completely alone.

  Wanting to rectify at least one of my bad decisions, I immediately walk back into the hotel, back into the hotel room. When I make it inside, she’s in the bathroom, so I sit on the bed and pick up my shirt, then wrap it around my now-bleeding hand.

  The bathroom door opens and she pauses midstep, just as I look up at her. Her eyes drop to my hand and she immediately rushes to me, unwrapping the shirt to inspect my hand.

  “Holder, what’d you do?” she says, twisting my hand back and forth.

  “I’m fine,” I say, wrapping my hand back up. I stand up and look down at her, wondering how the hell she could possibly be worried about me right now.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. I just needed . . .”

  Jesus. She’s apologizing to me? “Shut up,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I didn’t leave earlier because I was mad at you. I left because I was mad at myself.”

  She nods, then pulls away from me and walks to the bed. “It’s okay,” she says, lifting the covers. “I can’t expect you to want me in that way right now. It was wrong and selfish and way out of line for me to ask you to do that and I’m really sorry. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” She climbs into the bed and pulls the covers over her.

  I’m trying to process her words, but they aren’t making any sense. I don’t feel that way about what she asked me to do at all. How the hell did she ever get these crazy thoughts in her head to begin with?