Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  But she was breaking.

  Breaking, breaking, breaking.

  And she had no idea how she was going to come back from this.

  How would she ever tell Evan?

  The movement of his hands flew behind her eyes. Memories ingrained.

  The statements that he’d made.

  FRANKIE, WE AREN’T GETTING MARRIED OR HAVING BABIES OR LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER. WE WERE JUST LITTLE KIDS. YOU NEED TO GET OVER THAT.

  Oh God. Oh God.

  Tears raced and her pulse shuddered and her mind whirred with the thoughts.

  Flashes of hopes and dreams and dread and fear.

  She remembered her childhood belief. All the hearts she’d sewn into that froggy for Evan. Believing there would always be one there for him if he needed it.

  If only she could do that for this child. Believe hard enough, and it would be.

  She clutched at the bump that was just beginning to show.

  Agony clawed as a rush of love flooded into her system.

  She looked back at her uncle Kale. “I can’t.”

  They drove in silence back to Gingham Lakes. Music quietly playing. A melody that was meant to soothe, but there was no comfort that Frankie Leigh could find.

  She rubbed mindlessly at the bump.

  Baby girl. Baby girl.

  And she prayed with all she had that she could feel her. That she would know, even if she never got to hold her, that she would be forever loved. That Evan wouldn’t take it on as a burden.

  As a sin.

  The phone ringing through the speakers nearly made her jump out of her skin. Everything too sensitive. Too sharp. Too shrill.

  Hope’s name came up on the dash screen. “Hey, baby,” Uncle Kale answered, though his voice was subdued. Different than his normal casual easiness.

  But Aunt Hope. Aunt Hope was screaming on the other end of the line. “It’s Evan. He collapsed in class. They brought him by ambulance . . . he wasn’t breathing. Oh, God. Kale.”

  A guttural sob tore from Frankie’s throat.

  Instant.

  Like it’d been waiting right there to explode.

  Climbing out from where it had rotted and decayed. From the deepest, most sinister place. From that place that would whisper its menace in her ear, tell her she was going to lose everything that meant the most to her.

  It was the first time she believed it might speak the truth.

  E-V-A-N.

  She rushed into the hospital room.

  He was breathing.

  Alive.

  Whole.

  She dropped to her knees at his bedside.

  Sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.

  Because she couldn’t control it anymore.

  She was weak.

  Losing the battle.

  “Oh God,” she whimpered, pressing her face into his arm, fingers digging into his skin, inhaling him, wanting to crawl on top of him and hug him tight and beg him to never leave her alone.

  She wanted to attach herself to him in some fundamental way. Seep into his bloodstream and heal all that was wrong. Do it for their child who would never know what it was like to run and play.

  “I can’t, Evan, oh God, I can’t.”

  A swell of sickness slammed her, and fumbled for the trash bin next to his bed, and she puked up the little that was in her stomach.

  No longer able to keep it together.

  No longer able to keep herself from fallin’ apart.

  He reached for her.

  Squeezed her hand.

  So much sorrow in his expression. Green eyes overflowing with an apology.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, brushing his thumb across the tears soaking her cheek. “I am sorry, Frankie.”

  She kept weeping, unable to stop.

  “I can’t, Evan. I can’t,” she was rumbling, tears a blanket down her face, wanting to tell him about the baby but unable to force the words from her tongue. “I can’t.”

  Evan pulled her close, ran his fingers through her hair, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s okay.”

  But it was so, so not okay.

  * * *

  Frankie Leigh.

  My Sunshine.

  My Unicorn Girl.

  I am the most selfish man. I’ve been taking what I never should have. Stealing more time than I should have been given.

  But I saw it today.

  I saw that look on your beautiful face.

  I saw more pain than any person should have to suffer.

  I saw the childless.

  I saw a widow.

  I saw a life of unreasonable sorrow.

  I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t hold you back. I can’t stand in your way.

  Loving you will always be my greatest treasure.

  Letting you go my greatest pain.

  Soar to the stars, Unicorn Girl. And don’t ever, ever let anyone clip your wings. I won’t let that be me, anymore.

  Evan

  Clutching the letter to her chest, Frankie Leigh dropped to her knees.

  Finally conquered by the pain.

  Nothing left to give.

  No hope left.

  “Evan. Evan. Evan. I need you. Oh God, I need you.”

  She whimpered his name again and again. Praying for him to come back to her. To wrap her up and tell her it would be all right. To remind her where they had been written in the stars. Her constellation.

  Emptiness howled.

  Vacancy echoed back.

  Frankie Leigh alone. Abandoned. The way Evan had warned.

  Only he was the one who chose it.

  * * *

  When she awoke in the middle of the night, she knew. It was the quietest kind of heartache. The kind she waded through slowly. The kind that hitched her soul up in a surrendered sort of agony.

  The stillness that echoed inside of her.

  The little soul she could no longer feel.

  Tears streamed silently down her face, everything numb except for her heart.

  Her mind and her spirit and her body that felt like they had floated out into the universe, chasing after what was lost.

  She didn’t change out of her pajamas. She just slipped into her flipflops, took her purse, and eased out the door.

  She moved right toward Evan’s parents’ house.

  She’d crossed that road a million times.

  But tonight—tonight the sky was starless.

  As if all the constellations had fallen.

  Pure darkness taking its place.

  She rapt at the door, listened to the creak of the stairs and squinted when the porch light flickered on overhead. Her uncle Kale slowly opened the door.

  He looked like he’d aged fifteen years in the six weeks since Evan had left.

  Depression taking hold.

  Frankie couldn’t even bring herself to look in the mirror.

  Couldn’t bring herself to see the hollowness staring back.

  “Frankie,” he murmured urgently.

  She set her hand on her belly, and she whispered, “She’s gone.”

  She’d thought that maybe she could handle it all.

  Had thought maybe she was strong enough.

  But that splintered Heart of Stone that couldn’t be broken?

  It finally completely split in two.

  Thirty-Two

  Evan

  I dropped to my knees.

  Reduced to a puddle of tears and heartbreak and apology.

  I buried my face in her stomach, held her by the hips like I could breathe healing into her body, into her soul, while Frankie Leigh just kept weeping.

  Though I could feel it.

  She was detached.

  Hovering somewhere in the periphery.

  Gone to the story she had just told.

  Swept away in the grief.

  “Oh, God. Frankie. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I tried to gather her closer, but her head shook, her knees week. Girl so distraught I could
feel the pulses of misery shuddering through her shaking body. Or maybe it was only mine ricocheting back.

  Pain searing through the atmosphere.

  More than either of us could bear.

  I’d been responsible for the one thing I’d sworn I would never be.

  Reckless with Frankie.

  Reckless with life.

  It was an affliction that was supposed to have ended with me.

  I never should have let it happen.

  A child. Our child. Our little girl.

  “Frankie,” I begged again, trying to get her to focus on my face. To look at me. To see me.

  But she’d retreated.

  Withdrawn into herself.

  Everything going dim and dark.

  “Frankie, please, look at me.”

  Her head shook, her eyes distant as she tried to back away.

  “I’m so sorry, Frankie. Fuck. I never meant to hurt you this way.”

  I watched her mouth, her lips moving slow, like she was speaking from someplace faraway.

  From three years ago when I’d betrayed her.

  Left her when she needed me most.

  “I was so mad at you for leavin’ me, Evan. So angry, and still, I totally understood why you did it. Accepted it. Forgave you a long time ago.”

  Sorrow trembled on the edges of her gorgeous mouth that was soaked with her tears.

  An apology written in this smile that ripped me in two. “But this mornin’? I think . . . I think I’d buried it, never really dealt with the grief of it. I just stuffed it down and let it fester and thought it would get better. And today it got loose. And right now, I don’t know how to handle it.”

  Shame eclipsed her light, and she fumbled to step back.

  Agony filled her movements, the closest she’d let her spirit come to me since she’d started confiding the truth I should have been man enough to hold then.

  WHAT IF I’M TOO AFRAID TO LOVE HIM RIGHT? WHAT IF I’M NOT ENOUGH? I . . . I CAN’T BREATHE, EVAN . . . CAN’T BREATHE AT THE THOUGHT OF LOSING A CHILD ALL OVER AGAIN.

  Pushing to standing, I tried to wrap my hands around hers. To stop this madness. To stop this girl from shouldering any more blame. “No, Frankie. You saved him. He needed you, and you did exactly what he needed you to do. That’s what parents do. They do the best that they can. This is my fault. The sorrow you’ve harbored. The child. The fact you were alone. My. Fault.”

  Knew my voice was cracking. Begging this girl to see. To once and for all be the man she needed me to be.

  “Please, let me hold the sorrow. It hurts so goddamn bad, Frankie, knowing what we created. That we lost it. That I wasn’t there to hold you through it. But I need you to know how badly we need you. Everett and I. Right now. Today. Forever. And I know you need us, too.”

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she stepped back, rejecting what I said. “I . . . I think I need to go, Evan. I need . . .”

  She blinked like she didn’t know what that was.

  Lost in the wreckage of what I’d done.

  “Frankie.”

  She put up a hand. “Please, Evan . . . I just . . . please.”

  She started for the door.

  “Frankie.” My voice stopped her when she was halfway out, her broken gaze meeting mine from over her shoulder. “I ran, Frankie, because I was scared. Because my life and who I was and the hardship of it felt like it was too much. I was wrong. I belong here. Just like you belong with us.”

  Tears kept falling down her face, and her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip. “It hurts, Evan, and I’m scared I might love him too much.”

  Then she slipped out. Taking the storm of energy with her.

  Staring at the closed door, I realized it only took one mistake to change the trajectory of our lives.

  One mistake to cause a fallout that would rain forever.

  One mistake and the consequences were more than we could afford.

  But sometimes . . . sometimes we received mercy for our sins.

  Grace in our errors.

  A blessing given in the middle of the curse.

  She might be scared, but Frankie needed to see that Everett was ours.

  He was our second chance.

  Our vindication.

  And the three of us, we belonged together.

  Thirty-Three

  Frankie Leigh

  Night crawled along the ceiling where I lie sleepless in my old bed at Carly and Josiah’s. Swimming in a sea of anxiety. A vat of misery. Lying in a pool of sweaty, sticky suffering that made me feel like I was gonna drown.

  I kicked my legs free of the covers, feeling like I was being incinerated.

  Burned at the stake.

  I tossed, and I tossed again, unable to get comfortable because I knew all the way deep down that this wasn’t where I belonged.

  My sweet boy Milo wasn’t here.

  Everett wasn’t here.

  Evan wasn’t here.

  This wasn’t my home, but I didn’t know how to return to it.

  Didn’t know how to stand up. How to wade through the shame.

  And I realized that was what it was.

  Maybe I’d never gotten to the point where I’d fully allowed myself to feel it before. I’d been too worried about what the truth would do to Evan. Terrified that he would slip into a deep depression and blame himself.

  Thing was, that meant I’d never allowed myself to process.

  To accept.

  To heal what was inside.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  Logically, I knew that. Of course, I did. But once the scabs had been ripped from the old wounds, I’d felt it in a sudden rush.

  Realized what I’d been harboring.

  Shame.

  There was a huge part of me that felt as if I’d failed as a mother. Failed that innocent girl who I was supposed to protect and give life.

  If only I would have slept more or eaten differently or did something better, she might have had a chance.

  If only I would have gone in earlier.

  Sought help rather than hidden it away.

  I’d felt it all over again this morning.

  The feeling that I had failed so miserably that I really didn’t deserve the chance.

  With it, came the stunning fear that had come in for a rebound.

  The terror of losing it all over again.

  What ifs slamming me as I’d replayed it over and over.

  Me in that kitchen dicing up those strawberries without a care in the world because I’d felt so utterly blissed out this morning.

  No thought given that I might be harmin’ him. That beautiful, sweet boy who had been given into my care who I’d come to love with all my soul.

  Like his little life had found a way to beat inside of me.

  God.

  Losing him?

  Shivers rolled across my flesh.

  Sickness roiling. I couldn’t. I just . . . couldn’t. But on the same token, I didn’t think there was a chance I could stay away.

  Grief curled and twisted and sucked me a little deeper into the dark, lapping waters I couldn’t get free of.

  Loneliness consuming.

  It was all mixed up with the regret of taking off the way I did. Guilt of not staying and being there for Evan after he’d found out this way.

  Knowing he had to be home by now. Destroyed the way that I’d known he would be. Left alone to deal with it, and I knew firsthand that was not a good place to be.

  Knowing he would be harboring all that guilt too when really it was neither of our faults.

  Lots cast long before either of us had been born.

  And then that cycle would just repeat, and I’d get sucked a little deeper into the vortex of what if and guilt and the need to get up and fight for what was right.

  I ached.

  I ached to hold him.

  For him to hold me.

  For him to come to me and tell me I was forgiven, tell me he didn’t blame me, so I could tell
him that I had forgiven him and didn’t blame him either.

  So we could cry together and finally begin to heal.

  My mouth opened on that disorder of thoughts, a silent cry cast to the heavens. For the clarity for us to finally figure out how to make this right.

  I nearly hit the ceiling I jumped out of bed so quickly when I heard the doorbell ring.

  He was here.

  Maybe his presence slammed me face-first into the realization.

  The realization that it didn’t matter how terrified I was to be put in the same position—to love someone so hard that it felt impossible.

  Maybe that was when I realized that was just what loving a child was.

  Maybe that was when I realized the full magnitude of it.

  It didn’t matter if they were healthy or sick or young or old.

  That love remained the same.

  I raced for the door, my bare feet echoing on the hardwood planks, the errant sensation that it was so wrong that Milo wasn’t there right beside me.

  This place that I’d considered a home for two years suddenly feeling vacant.

  And I was ready. I was ready to go home.

  To confess and forgive and love.

  I jerked the door open only to stumble back a step when I saw who was standing on the other side.

  Not Evan.

  My thundering heart stuttered a beat before it jumped into a jagged sprint. I stared dumbfounded at Chris who was standing on the porch, his dark hair hanging over his forehead and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

  He blew out of a sigh of relief when he saw me.

  “Frankie Leigh, thank God. I went to Evan’s parents’ house and no one answered. Do you know where he is? I found my sister . . . she’s in bad shape. Really bad shape.”

  Dread curled. “What? What happened?” I demanded, pissed that he’d disappeared for all these days when he’d been the one asking for help.

  “Think she tried to overdose. I found her in her motel room passed out with a bunch of empty bottles scattered around her.” His voice quavered. “She is okay, but she needs serious help. But she’s worried about that kid. She’s going to try to take him back and that is the last thing she needs right now. We need to talk some sense into her. Convince her he is better off with you and Evan.”