Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  I wanted to reach out and touch the lines. To maybe claim the frame as my own.

  I dropped my gaze when I realized I’d been staring too long, cleared my throat, and took a gulp of my wine.

  “I had your back, Sweet Pea. I kept telling them to let you be. Girls need to figure out who they are, and it became clear really fast you were our wild child,” Aunt Nikki told me with a wink. “And there’s no use trying to take the wild out of a wild child.”

  “At least someone around here got me,” I teased with a laugh.

  Energy flashed. This enticing lure that wrapped me whole. Evan’s attention trained, a promise that he had always gotten me.

  Better than anyone else.

  “Hey, don’t forget about me. I had your back, too.” Carly’s voice was pure feigned affront. “I was always game for whatever escapade you conjured up. I mean, except for the one where you wanted to climb to the very top of that tree.” Carly pointed at the massive Cyprus that grew off to the side of the lake.

  “Hey, that was gonna make one heck of a tree house.”

  “And guess who volunteered to carry up the wood.” Carly wasn’t even asking, she was just staring across the fire at Evan.

  My partner in crime.

  My partner in everything.

  “He had two big ol’ planks strapped to his back, totally off balance, and he still thought he was going to scale that thing,” Carly said.

  “Frankie needs wood, she gets wood.” That raw, raspy voice hit the air, amusement fluttering all through Evan’s expression.

  Um, what?

  My eyes bugged right out of my head, and I was trying to fight the urge to get up and run, or maybe laugh, or maybe just hug him because I thought it was the first joke I’d heard him make since he got back and it was so like something he would have said way back then.

  Josiah spewed out the beer he had taken a gulp of, his hands fumbling like they were laughing as he signed. OH, I BET MARS BAR WOULD BE HAPPY TO GIVE FRANKIE A LITTLE WOOD.

  The jerk actually waggled his brows.

  Oh my God. It just got worse.

  Evan chuckled a scraping laugh and shook his head like he was innocent of the whole thing.

  I swear, Josiah should have been kicked out of ASL because he sure didn’t need that as his secret language.

  “I will cut off your hands,” I whisper-shouted at Josiah. “You and Evan are not allowed to hang out. Put you two together, and you’re worse than a pack of fourteen-year-old boys.”

  Josiah only hooted louder. Clearly the boy had put a dent in that stock of beer.

  “Hardly,” Mom cut in, “I have to live with Preston, remember? If I find one more penis drawn on something, I’m going to lose it.”

  Aunt Nikki giggled against the rim of her wine glass. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have left all those Lauren Rowe books lying around when he was learning to read.”

  “Bite your tongue, woman. Those are my most prized possessions.”

  From behind, I could feel Jack paying too close attention, trying to pick up on what was going on, the more than inappropriate innuendo being tossed around like it could possibly be funny.

  Oh, my daddy sure didn’t think it was.

  He scowled like I was thirteen and he’d barged through my closed door thinking he was goin’ to find Evan and me up to something salacious where we were lying in my bed, while Uncle Kale watched me with worry, waiting for the second that I fell apart.

  Jack’s fingers were suddenly playing in my ponytail.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Could this get any worse?

  Jack leaned over my shoulder. “How about you and I go for a walk?”

  I didn’t even have to be watching Evan to know that he flinched. There was nothing I could do but experience his turmoil.

  To experience his pain.

  A prisoner to the exact same thing.

  Empathy shouted through our connection. This feeling that I understood it in every way and wanted to reject it just the same.

  Didn’t he know I’d never wanted it this way? That I would have given anything for him to stay? I wanted to hop up and scream and demand for him to tell me how he could have chosen to be so unfair and cruel when he’d always been the one I could count on most.

  Suddenly feeling like it all weighed too much, I faked a yawn and an exaggerated stretch. “I’m actually gettin’ a little tired. I’m going to call it a night. You ready, Carly?”

  I gave her a look that she’d better be even if she wasn’t. I needed back up. A voice of reason when I felt like I was losing my mind.

  She drained her cocktail. “I am now.”

  “Uh, what? I don’t think so,” Josiah slurred. “This party is just getting started, my bitches. Get your asses off the lame train and sit down. It’s shot time.”

  Carly pushed to standing. “Not happening. We are nothing like your gamer friends who will stay up all night listening to your nonsense.”

  He smacked his hand against his chest. “You wound me.”

  “Someone needs to wound you,” she tossed back before she was stretching out a hand to help me up.

  Awkwardly, I looked around, trying not to stare too long at Evan, failing at it miserably because my heart was getting all knotted up again when I looked at him.

  My thoughts running rampant with what it might have been like. If we were still together and we were here as one. If we would have come clean to our families about who we really were to each other and who we wanted to be.

  If Evan would have endured.

  If he would have held on.

  If he would have loved me enough.

  “Night, everyone,” I said over the scratchiness in my throat.

  I started to take my first step toward the tent when Jack grabbed me by the wrist, whirling me around to look at him where he remained sitting. His face was twisted up in his own hurt.

  A plea.

  I never should have brought him here.

  God. This was terrible.

  So wrong.

  Jack didn’t deserve to get embroiled in our mess.

  “Good night,” I murmured to him, hoping he heard my apology.

  Because I was no cheater, and I knew what Jack was thinking. Sorrow gripped me by the throat because that was the last thing I wanted to do—hurt someone I cared about.

  Hell, I didn’t want to hurt a soul.

  But sometimes life was complicated and messy and there were casualties, no matter how hard we tried to keep it from happening.

  Jack gave my hand a little tug.

  An appeal.

  I dipped down and kissed his temple.

  It wasn’t an affirmation of us.

  It was an apology.

  Then it was Carly who was tugging at my hand. “Come on, I need to pee. You need to hold the flashlight because there is no way I’m going out in those woods by myself. There might be bears or snakes or spiders out there. Or maybe there might be a Josiah. That would be a real horror story.”

  “Hey, I heard that,” he cried, and everyone laughed, all except for me and Evan who I could still feel watching me.

  The overpowering force of the boy hunting me down as I twisted out of Jack’s hold. I didn’t look back as I followed Carly over to our things set up by our tent. She grabbed a flashlight, and we waded out into the spindly forest that had become nothing but howling trees and the tranquil sounds of the night.

  Once we got out of earshot, Carly spun around. Before she could say anything, the words tumbled out, “I told you I shouldn’t come. I knew this was going to be a disaster.”

  Her face pinched in disbelief. “No, Frankie, this is exactly why you should have come. Because this is what you need to see. What’s really important to you. Maybe then you’ll stop faking it and go after what’s real.”

  “I already know what’s important . . . it was Evan who didn’t grasp it.”

  She huffed, her voice held in a tight whisper. “You aren’t really going to stand
there and act like that’s the truth, are you? Have you looked at him with that baby? Have you seen the way he looks at you? I promise you that man knows exactly what is important.”

  “He left me,” I defended on a low hiss.

  “And maybe he had to in order to become strong enough to find his way back to you.” She hesitated, her eyes dropping in the glow of the flashlight as she sighed. It took her a few seconds to look back up at me. “I know you needed him, Frankie. I know what he did sucked balls and was all kinds of wrong and part of you wants to hate him for it, and that’s okay. But I think you have to ask yourself how much time you two are gonna waste.”

  Grief constricted my heart, right along with the hope that wanted to burst up from the depths. I felt like I was suffocatin’ on them both.

  She stared me down for a second, waiting. I was completely incapable of answering her. She shook her head. “I really do have to pee.”

  Like the good friend that I was, I held the light while she squatted, and then we silently stumbled back through the rocks and dirt to our tent.

  At the flap, I paused to peer out on the camp, the fire burning bright within the ring of rocks, all the faces of those who I loved lit up in the flames.

  My chest clutched.

  I gulped around the sorrow, crawled the rest of the way inside, and slipped into my sleeping bag. Carly climbed under hers and shut off the flashlight.

  A few minutes later, her breathing evened out.

  Voices carried, growing quieter and quieter the more time that past. I had no idea what time it was when the orange glow finally burned out the same as the conversation did.

  Everyone calling it a night.

  Footsteps crunched around the camp as everyone retreated to their designated tents.

  It was almost silent when a cry jolted into the air.

  Everett.

  He was whimpering, crying these little bleats. “Ma-ma. Ma-ma.”

  Oh God. I could feel that little boy’s pain. His own abandonment. The child so full of joy but also knowing he was missing something essential.

  Evan’s voice covered it.

  Soothing.

  Sweet.

  Loving.

  Everything ached.

  So badly that I curled over onto my side in a ball.

  And I let myself weep.

  Quietly.

  Trying to hold it in while I listened to the comfort bleeding through the thin tent walls.

  Carly reached out and brushed the hair out of my face, her voice a desperate whisper. “I’m so sorry, Frankie. I know it hurts.”

  “It hurts so bad,” I gasped, choking around the confession. “It hurts so bad.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Twelve

  Frankie Leigh

  Five Years Old

  Frankie Leigh inched down the hall, her back pressed to the wall, trying to make herself a secret.

  She was supposed to be asleep, but she couldn’t sleep when she could hear the voices coming into her room.

  Quiet voices.

  She didn’t like the way they sounded, and her tummy felt funny as she moved closer and closer to the kitchen where the lights were shining bright.

  She stopped right at the end of the hall, hidden in the shadows, her ear listening to her daddy who was talking to her new mama. Her good mama and not the bad one that was so, so mean and scary that Frankie’s tummy got sick thinking about her, too.

  Her daddy’s voice was low, and she peeked out to see him sitting on a chair from the kitchen table that was turned around to face her mama. His elbows were on his knees and he was scrubbing both his hands over his face.

  Her tummy twisted up.

  “What do you mean?” her mama asked, sinking down onto her knees in front of him, touching him soft, trying to get his hands away so she could look at him.

  “It’s horrible, Rynna. That poor little boy. They don’t think he’s gonna make it through the night.”

  “Oh God.” Her mama pressed her fingertips to her lips, and Frankie could see the tears making a stream down her face. “What happened?”

  Her daddy shook his head. “There was some kind of altercation with his biological father. He had a cardiac arrest. They did emergency surgery, but things aren’t looking good. Kale is a disaster.”

  What were they talkin’ about?

  Frankie tried to listen harder, to make sense of it when her mama started crying loud there on the floor. “Oh, poor Evan. Poor Hope. I just can’t imagine.”

  Evan.

  Evan.

  Evan.

  His name pounded on her ears.

  Her favorite, favorite person in the whole world.

  Her froggy boy.

  Frankie all of a sudden felt freezing cold all over. Like she was in a pool of ice and all the big pieces were covering her and she couldn’t get out and she was gonna drown.

  Her lungs squeezed, funny sounds ripping from her throat that stung, everything feeling so ugly.

  Her stomach got sicker and sicker she thought she was goin’ to throw up.

  She ran into the kitchen. “What do you mean, Daddy? Where is Evan? I want to go see my best friend right now.”

  Alarm filled up her daddy’s face, and he was saying one of those bad words she wasn’t allowed to say before he was standing. He reached out for her. She jumped back and stomped her feet. “Take me now, Daddy. I wants to go to Evan’s house right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Sweet Pea. You can’t.” His voice cracked and Frankie’s eyes were all blurry and she couldn’t see.

  “Please, Daddy! Take me right now! I need to see him. I got to give him a toy.”

  And Frankie had never seen her daddy get tears before but he had them in his eyes, and she hurt all over like she fell down and her whole body got bloody. “Please, Daddy. Right now. We gots to go right now.”

  Her daddy dropped to his knees on the floor. “Sweet Pea.” His voice was so sad when he said it, and she hated it so, so bad when it sounded like that. He brushed back her hair. “Evan’s sick. Really sick. Remember how we told you he has a bad heart? It’s really broken right now, and the doctors aren’t sure they can fix it.”

  She clutched at hers, her shirt in her fists. “Then let me give him mines.”

  Her daddy’s face crumpled up like a piece of paper, and he grabbed her, wrapped his arms that always made her feel so safe around her. But she didn’t want him to hug her. They needed to hurry fast.

  “Hurry, Daddy. You got to take me right now so I can give him my heart. He needs a good one.”

  “Sweet Pea . . . You can’t give him your heart. People only have one.”

  “No. I want to give him mine. RIGHT. NOW!”

  She was shouting and begging and her tears were big and hot, and her daddy was hugging her tight, and she thought that maybe she was gonna drown again. The way she’d felt when her mean mommy had left her alone and it was so scary and everything burned.

  She didn’t want Evan to be sick.

  She had to make him better.

  Her daddy stood up with her in his arms, and her face was in his neck, and his skin was getting all wet from her tears. “Daddy, please.” Her voice sounded weaker.

  He ran his hand over her back. “I’m sorry, Frankie Leigh. I’m sorry. I would change it if I could.”

  “We have to do something right now.”

  He hugged her tighter. “The only thing we can do is pray.”

  * * *

  “Oh, Frankie, what are you doing?” her mama asked from Frankie’s bedroom door.

  But Frankie didn’t have time to stop. She kept trying to cut open the stuffed froggy, her movements frantic and shaking and her finger stinging from where she cut it.

  She wasn’t allowed to have sharp scissors but she needed them really, really bad. So bad that she wouldn’t even care if she got sent to her room for being in trouble for the whole day.

  A fat droplet of blood dripped on the big green froggy, and she hoped that Ev
an wouldn’t be mad that she got red on it.

  “Frankie Leigh.” A hand curled softly around her shoulder.

  She shrugged it off. “I gots to do surgery like Uncle Kale, Mama. Shh. You gots to be so, so, so quiet. Did you knows Evan looks just like a froggy? I fink this is his favorite toy in the whole world.”

  Her mama climbed down beside her, touching the hearts Frankie had cut and colored and were spread out all over her bed.

  Frankie’s hearts.

  At least a hundred of them.

  Because Evan needed so many hearts.

  Not just one like her daddy said.

  When she got the froggy open wide, she started stuffing all of the hearts inside, saying all the prayers she could find.

  Please, please, please make Evan okay. He’s my bestest friend and I need him to stay here. It’s too scary to be alone. Don’t make Evan be alone. I’ll be good. I promise.

  Her mama softly brushed her fingers through Frankie’s hair. “Do you want me to help you?”

  Frankie frantically shook her head. “No. I gots to do it. They gots to be my hearts because he’s my best friend and Grammy said best friends make all the problems gets all better.”

  “Okay,” her mama agreed, but her face was still sad, and she stayed right there while Frankie got all the hearts where they belonged. Frankie took the big needle and the white thread and she sewed it up fast so they were all safe inside.

  “There,” she whispered. “All done.”

  Evan got all her hearts. Even when her daddy said she wasn’t allowed to give it to him.

  Thirteen

  Frankie Leigh

  I jolted upright with a gasp, drenched in sweat and clutching my sleeping bag.

  My eyes darted around, everything dark save for the glow of the moon that seeped through the thin material of the tent.

  The world was quiet.

  Bugs trilled and an owl called from somewhere high in the copse of trees, the lake still doing its gentle patting at the shore, the waterfalls crashing in the distance. I felt drawn to the solitude. To the whisper of the world that promised it was all gonna be okay. That there was something bigger and better and more beautiful out there waiting for us.