She’s holding a small blue box in her hand as she approaches.
“What’s that?” I ask when she stops in front of me and extends the box.
“Open it and find out.” She smiles, rocking back on her heels.
“You know I hate surprises,” I remind her, taking the box from her hand. I slowly peel open the top, the amazing smell of baked goodness hitting me in the nose seconds later. “You made me macarons?” I look down at the assorted colored cookies and then back up at Hope.
“I know how much you love them. I thought you could take them with you on the plane. You know, in case you get hungry.”
“Come here, Russell.” I grab her shoulder and tug her to my chest, wrapping my free arm around her before dropping my lips to the top of her head. “You are something special, you know that?”
“I know.” She giggles when I squeeze her side before releasing her. “We can put them back in the kitchen for now if you want. I just didn’t want to forget to give them to you.”
“Actually, I think I’ll stick them in my car really fast. Otherwise, I might forget them and then I’d be pissed tomorrow. I’d be back here making an early morning wake up call to get my damn cookies.”
“Okay, you go do that and I’m going to run upstairs and grab a sweater. It’s kind of chilly out here tonight.”
“Meet me back here.”
“Yep.” She spins around and once again takes off toward the house.
Right as I reach my Jeep, my dad calls to confirm my arrival time for tomorrow. I end up talking to him for a few minutes, and by the time I make it back to the party, the thin crowd that remained has begun to filter out.
I spot Wendy next to the table, clearing some of the leftover food away and I offer to help.
“Here, let me get that.” I slide up next to her and start taking the condiments out of her hands. “Have you seen Hope around?” I ask.
“She walked a couple friends out front and then I think she went inside for something.”
“I’ll track her down.” I turn, arms full, and head toward the backdoor. After making a stop at the fridge, I go in search of Hope.
She’s not in the living room, so I head toward her bedroom. Knocking lightly on the door, it jars open on contact.
“Hope?” I call, pushing the door the rest of the way open.
The room is empty and the only light is coming from the small lamp on her bedside table. I’m about to turn around and keep looking for her when my gaze goes to her desk and an idea hits.
Crossing the room, I try to locate some paper, pulling open a couple desk drawers before finding a notebook and a pen. Flipping it open, I search for a blank sheet to write on. To leave her a note to find once I’m gone. There’s several things scribbled on the pages. Some recipes, a to do list, but then I freeze when I come across a picture of me and Hope tucked in between two pages. It’s from the night of Spring Formal Junior year. The photo her mom insisted on taking. And then I catch my name scribbled on top of the page.
I set the picture aside, my eyes scanning the page without actually reading one word.
It’s a letter...
A letter to me.
Even though I know I shouldn’t.
Even though I know the right thing to do is to close the notebook and put it back where I found it, I can’t bring myself to do it.
I read every word, convinced that someone else must have written this letter. That there must be a reasonable explanation as to why it’s here, in Hope’s room. But once I reach the end and see her name signed at the bottom, I know there’s no mistake. Hope Russell wrote this letter.
“Alec.”
I jump at the sound of her voice and lose my grip on the notebook. It slides from my hands and hits the floor, falling open to the very page I was reading.
Hope’s expression changes the instant she realizes what I was doing.
Fuck.
“Hope, I can explain.” I hold my hands up, fairly convinced she’s about to sock me in the face when she comes stomping toward me.
She stops just shy of where I’m standing and swoops down, grabbing the notebook off the floor. Her eyes scan the page for a long moment before she lets out a slow, heavy breath.
“Did you read this?” she asks, her voice low, eyes cast down.
“Hope... I.”
“Did you read it?” she questions defensively as her gaze cuts to me, her expression a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
“Yes, but I didn’t mean to.” My hands still raised to express my innocence. “I was just going to leave a little note for you to find after I had left.”
“You didn’t mean to?” she questions, completely bypassing everything else I said.
“I saw my name and I don’t know. I couldn’t stop myself.” I run a hand through my hair, knowing by the look on her face that I royally fucked up.
“You need to leave.” She’s so quiet with her request that I almost don’t catch the words.
“Hope.”
“I said leave, Alec. Now!” The last word echoes through my ears as she points toward the door.
“Hope, please. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Tears fill her eyes. “You’re sorry?” She flings the notebook across the room. It hits the wall and falls to the floor. “You come into my room, go through my things, read something that wasn’t meant for you, and now you’re sorry?”
“Yes.” It feels stupid to say, but what else can I say.
Yes, I did all of those things and yes, I am sorry. But at the same time, I can’t ignore what I read.
“Leave,” she repeats.
“No,” I say, surprising us both.
“No?” Her cheeks heat to a deep pink.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me why you wrote that.” I point in the vicinity of where the notebook fell.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Her voice shakes the way it always does when she gets nervous.
“Did you mean it? What you said in that letter.” I take a step toward her. “Did you mean it?”
“Alec, please.” She knots her hands in front of herself, unable to meet my eyes.
“Tell me the truth, Hope.” I stop directly in front of her and use my hand to lift her chin, forcing her gaze upward. “Did you mean what you said?” I ask again.
“Yes, but...”
She’s not able to get another word out before my mouth is on hers. I don’t know where it comes from. I had no intention of kissing her. But the instant my lips meet hers, I know that I never want to stop.
She whimpers against my mouth when my tongue slides against hers and it pushes me further. My arms slide around her waist and I pull her closer, securing her body flush against mine.
I’ve thought about kissing Hope more times than I care to admit over the years, but I never in a million years thought I’d actually be doing it.
She’s always been a fantasy. The girl I could never have. The one who was destined to be nothing more than a friend even though deep down I always wanted her to be more.
I thought I could live with that. I thought I could just be her friend. But now? Now that I’ve tasted her, now that I know what she feels like pressed against me, how her breathing changes when my hand slides into her hair and tangles in the strands. There’s no going back.
“Alec.” Hope’s hands slide between us and she presses against my chest, forcing me backward.
As much as I don’t want to, I let her push me away.
She looks up at me, confusion in her eyes, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen from my kiss. Damn, if she doesn’t look even more beautiful than minutes ago.
“What... What was that?”
“I’m sorry.” I pause. “You know what, no. I’m not sorry. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first moment I met you and now that I have, I won’t apologize for it.”
“You’ve wanted to kiss me...” She lets the statement hang. “But Lulu?” Her confusion seems to deepen.
She lifts her hand and slides her fingers across her lips like she’s still trying to process the kiss we shared. Hell, I know the feeling. It’s not like I saw this coming either.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I continue.
“Because you were with Lulu.”
“Not at first I wasn’t. And according to what you wrote, you felt it the moment we met. Just like I did.”
“I saw the way you looked at her that first day at lunch. And then you asked about her later that day in class.”
“Lucy is an attractive girl. Of course I was interested. But I wouldn’t have looked in her direction had you given me any indication that you might be interested.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” Her voice shoots up an octave. “I always disappear when Lulu enters a room. How was I supposed to know that you were any different from all the others?”
“All this time.” I run a hand through my hair again, tugging on the ends. “All this time that I’ve fought what I felt for you and now you’re telling me you felt the same way.”
“But you were with Lulu. You loved her.”
“Yes, I was with Lucy. And yes, I cared about her very much. But she isn’t you, Hope. Don’t you get it? That’s why we could never work. Because she will never be you.” I grab her hand and pull her back into my arms.
It’s only seconds before my lips find hers again, and while I expect to find some resistance, there is none.
I nip at her bottom lip, pulling it into my mouth as I suck and kiss, needing to taste every ounce of her.
My body moves on its own accord as I lift Hope, her legs wrapping around my waist. Walking backward with her pinned to me, I push the door shut. With her pinned against the painted wood, I flip the lock into place.
I trail kisses across her jaw, down the side of her neck, sliding my tongue along the curve of her collarbone. She arches into my touch, her hand sliding into the back of my hair.
“Wait.” Hope’s airy voice breaks into my haze. “We can’t.”
I pull back, not able to think of anything I want to do less.
“We can’t. You just broke up with Lulu a couple of weeks ago. I can’t be that friend. I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I won’t.”
My shoulders sag forward as I step back, knowing that she’s right but wishing that she wasn’t. If something were to happen between us, she’d never forgive herself. I know her well enough to know how loyal she is to the people close to her.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, wishing I could change things. Wishing I could go back and do all this differently.
“Me too.” She gives me a sad smile, straightening the material of her shirt.
“Maybe after a little time has passed?” I offer, grasping at straws because deep down I know she’s about to tell me goodbye and I don’t think I can handle that right now.
“It’s too late, Alec. If not because of Lulu, then because of everything else. You’re leaving for California tomorrow and when you get back...”
“You won’t be here.”
“You know?”
“Your mom told me. She thought I already knew.” I exhale through my nose. “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
“Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
“And how am I looking at you?”
“Like I doused your favorite shirt in a bucket of bleach.”
“What?” I can’t help but chuckle at her analogy, despite the heaviness of the moment.
“Shut up.” She swats her hand through the air. “You know what I mean.”
“Not exactly how I would have described it, but yes, I know what you mean.”
“I didn’t think I’d get in. We made plans. And then I got the call. I didn’t know how to tell anyone. Lulu doesn’t even know.”
“She’s going to be just as happy for you as I am, Hope. Because she loves you. And so do I. I love you, Hope.”
“Alec.”
I hold my hands up to stop her from saying more.
“I get all the reasons why we can’t be together. I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you walk out of my life. You should know me better than that.”
“I want you in my life... Always. But this.” She gestures between us. “This can’t happen. No matter how much I wish it could.”
“I know.” I blow out another heavy breath.
“I need you to leave, Alec.”
“I can’t. I can’t leave after all of this.” I gesture around the room at nothing in particular.
“You have to. Because if you continue to stand there looking at me, I’m not sure what I’ll do. And for the sake of our friendship, as well as mine and Lulu’s, I need you to go.”
“Hope. Please.”
“Go, Alec.”
My feet feel weighted to the floor. How can I leave? How can I walk away knowing it will be months, possibly even years before I get to look at her again? How can I leave things like this between us?
And yet somehow I find the strength to reach for the door. Flipping the lock, I tug it open, a heaviness I’ve never felt before settling deep in my gut.
For a year and a half I’ve spent burying my feelings for this girl. In that time, I’ve tried to ignore the way my pulse spikes when she walks into a room or the way my breath catches when she smiles at me. All this time believing it was only me.
Now to learn that she felt it too. That this whole time we could have been together. That I’m just learning this as the world is driving us apart. It’s the most bitter pill I’ve ever had to swallow.
“Alec.” Her hand brushes the back of my arm as I step into the hallway.
I turn and she immediately slides into my arms. Wrapping her arms around my middle, she squeezes me impossibly tight.
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” I admit, kissing the top of her head.
“This isn’t goodbye forever.” She pulls back and hits me with a watery smile. “Just goodbye for now.”
“I know,” I say, even though something deep in my gut tells me otherwise.
How do we go back? How do we erase the last twenty minutes? What we’ve admitted to each other.
And how do we move forward? How do we return to being just friends when we both want more and know it?
“Just so you know,” I cup her face, dropping my forehead to hers, “everything you wrote in that letter was true for me too. I’m in love with you, Hope. Always have been. Probably always will be.”
She lets out a gargled noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. I can’t bring myself to look down at her face to confirm which it is. So instead, I press my lips to her forehead before I quickly turn and walk away.
Chapter Thirteen
“There he is.” I hear my father seconds before I spot him making his way through the crowd of people.
“Hey Dad.” I smile, accepting his standard one-armed hug accompanied by a firm pat on the back.
“Glad to have you here, son.” He takes a step back. “I’ve got Katy in the car waiting, so we should probably get going,” he tells me, hitching his thumb toward the exit.
Of course he brought his girlfriend with him. A girlfriend, who I might add, is almost young enough to be my girlfriend. All hopes I had of reconnecting with my dad go flying out the window the instant he mentions her name. Because unless something has drastically changed since my last trip here over Christmas break, wherever Katy goes, my dad follows.
Hope’s face flashes through my mind, followed by the hollow pit that has formed in my stomach every time I’ve thought of her over the last fourteen hours.
I still can’t believe the way we left things. I almost didn’t board my plane this morning. But then I thought about what Hope would want and I knew getting on the plane was my only option.
So h
ere I am. In California. Feeling a million miles away from the only person that I want to be near.
It’s crazy how quickly things can change. How one choice can send your entire world spinning in the opposite direction. Had I not gone looking for Hope. Had I not gone into her room. Had I not gotten the idea to leave her a note. None of this would have happened.
I would be here, blissfully unaware that the girl I’ve been secretly pining after for nearly two years was also pining after me. And while it would be hard to be away from Hope regardless, this feels difficult on a whole different level. Because now I know the truth.
I think about the saying that the truth shall set you free, but I can’t help but think what a crock of shit that is.
I think I was better off not knowing how she really felt. At least then I could continue on in my bubble of denial and not face a truth I’ve been trying to hide from for months.
The truth that I’m in love with Hope Russell. The truth that I always have been. The truth that she can never be mine...
That last one cuts the deepest.
“Must be a lot of people traveling for the start of summer.” My dad’s voice pulls me back to the present. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the airport quite this busy.”
“Yeah,” I numbly agree, following my dad outside and across the lot to where Katy is waiting in the passenger seat of his Range Rover.
“I made reservations for the three of us tonight at Rachet’s. I remember how much you always liked that place.”
“Awesome. Thanks.” I try to keep my voice void of the irritation I feel over the reservations being for the three of us rather than the two of us, as I drop my bags into the hatch before climbing into the backseat.
I pull my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and switch it off of airplane mode. Seconds later it pings with a text message.
My pulse quickens at the sight of Hope’s name on the screen.
Hope: Text me once you’ve landed. You know I won’t be able to relax until I know you’ve made it there safely.
My fingers move across the screen as I type out a reply.
Me: Just made it. I have dinner plans with Dad and Katy tonight. Oh joy.
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