by Emma Nichols
I let out a long gust of breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Whew.
“Hope has agreed to tutor you,” Miss Walsh said, leaning forward to join the conversation, “and at the end of the term, you’ll be given a comprehensive exam that covers the subjects you’re missing. There are three in total: health, civics, and introduction to Shakespeare.”
Wait, that didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t allowed to study with me, much less spend hours upon hours preparing me for some exams. What was I missing?
“But how?” I looked to Mr. Harrison for guidance. He knew that I was aware of the … complications … with Hope’s family life. To help us circumvent them, he’d let us use his classroom to work on our homework assignments during our lunch period. He hadn’t been able to get her father to agree to the after-school study sessions, but he’d done the best he could given the limitations we operated under. Not the least of which was the fact that my textbooks still hadn’t arrived. With graduation so close I could practically taste it, I wasn’t sure I saw the point in them coming at all at this point.
Especially now that the school had somehow worked a miracle and gotten her father to agree to the arrangement. “You’re really going to help me pass these tests?” I hoped my voice didn’t betray my excitement. Hours alone with Hope? It was the answer to every secret prayer I’d whispered this past month.
She turned toward me and nodded. “I am.”
I didn’t want to misinterpret the gleam in her eyes, but it looked a whole lot like joy to me. I hadn’t ever seen her quite so … happy before. Hope was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met. From the beginning, I’d known there was something special about her, but as we’d gotten to know one another, I’d learned just how deep her goodness ran. Despite how trapped her ties to the church made her feel, she never spoke an unkind word about her father or the people of his congregation. Kids at school teased her about it, but somehow, she always turned the other cheek. I didn’t think I’d have been able to do the same.
But then the look in her eye shifted, and I saw something else—guilt.
Shit. Suddenly, I had a sneaking suspicion I didn’t have the full story. “How’s that going to work?” I asked, sitting back in my seat. In all my excitement, I’d moved to the edge, practically ready to leap out of my chair.
Principal Grisham, Mr. Harrison, and Miss Walsh all shared a look. The man in charge flattened his lips into another hard line, while Miss Walsh fidgeted with the ring on her right hand. Eventually, Mr. Harrison spoke up. “Hope will receive extra credit for helping me with a special project. Her parents have signed off on the arrangement already. What they don’t know is getting you to pass those exams is the project.”
I looked around the room, my eyes finally coming to rest on the girl I adored. “Hope?”
Finally, she glanced back up. “It’s the only way, James.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. There are plenty of other kids who’d tutor me.” Even as I said the words, I knew they were a lie. Anyone who spent that much time helping me would expect to be paid, and that wasn’t something I could afford.
She reached for me, but then as if realizing what she was doing, she dropped her hand down to her lap. “It’ll be okay. I promise. I want to help you.”
There it was again—that inherent kindness. Even as Hope put herself in danger, she was thinking of me first and foremost.
“Thank you; I mean that. But I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get you in trouble with your dad.” I was careful not to say out loud what that would entail because I didn’t know how much the other people in the room knew about what form Pastor Johnson’s punishments for his daughter took. The last time she’d been punished, he’d made her scrub the floor of the entire congregation on her knees, using nothing but a toothbrush. The church wasn’t a large building, but she’d confessed it had taken her more than eight hours to clean to her father’s satisfaction. On her knees. That had been because he’d found a book hidden in her room that wasn’t on the approved list of reading materials mandated by the church. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do to her if he found out she was spending time alone with me. I didn’t want to imagine it.
I shook my head. “No, it’s too risky. I won’t put you in that position.”
Miss Walsh cleared her throat. “Your willingness to protect Hope is commendable, James. We all know how hard it would be to find someone else willing to tutor you on such short notice, and the fact that you’re willing to go without her help when it’s your best shot speaks to your character. But you’re not the only one here looking out for Hope.”
My gaze swung between the three adults in the room, each of their gazes fixed with grim understanding. Except they couldn’t have understood. If they did, we wouldn’t be here right now.
As if she could read my mind, Miss Walsh said, “I get it, James. I really do. I used to attend the same church. I’ve known Hope since she was a little girl.”
Before I could think better of it, I blurted out, “If you get it, how can you even suggest this? You know what he’ll do to her!” My fingers dug into the arms of the chair, my nails leaving crescent-shaped marks in the wood.
Miss Walsh nodded. “I do know. Except it won’t come to that. I promise.”
I shook my head. “You can’t promise that. If he finds out …” I trailed off. I didn’t know exactly what would happen if he found out, but at least three of us in this room had a pretty good idea.
I’d done some reading on this so-called church, my stomach curdling with each new article I read. I wasn’t sure how they got away with half the shit they did, but somehow the authorities ignored everything that went on there. I suspected the town’s Chief of Police either didn’t care or had motive to turn a blind eye. There was a reason she wasn’t allowed to talk to boys, and it had everything to do with her father’s plans for her once she turned eighteen. If he thought for even one second she’d been sullied, she’d be looked down on as damaged goods. And everyone knew what happened to garbage.
I turned to Mr. Harrison. “Please. There’s got to be a different way.”
“We just have to protect Hope until her eighteenth birthday, right before graduation. After that, she’s an adult and can make her own decisions.”
“But that’s months away. What happens if her dad kicks her out before then? Where does she go?”
“If that happens, she comes to live with me.”
My head swung around to Miss Walsh, then back to Hope, like I was watching a tennis match.“This is crazy. Tell me you know that.”
Hope nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m dying there, James. Every time I go home, it’s like I can’t breathe. I need this. I need something that’s outside … them.”
I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want anything bad happening to you because of me.”
Hope wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and stood. Moving around Mr. Harrison, she came to stand in front of me. Putting her hand on my shoulder, she said, “You’re the first good thing that’s happened to me in forever.”
3
James
The sun broke through the clouds as Hope walked toward me, the light bouncing blindingly off the cheap yellow fabric of her graduation gown. When she was only a couple of feet away, she stopped and smiled, her hands clasped in front of her. “We did it, James.”
We had. And hell, it had not been easy. On more than one occasion I’d thought for sure my head was going to explode. The tests themselves hadn’t been that difficult, but juggling studying for them with all the assignments I had to turn in for my regular classes had meant a lot of late nights with my nose buried in a book. Three days a week, she and I would study together until six o’clock, when she’d leave for dinner with her family, and I’d head home to heat up a frozen meal for dad and me. Those hours together holed up in Mr. Harrison’s classroom or the library had been the best damn hours of my life.
I took a step forward, mindful
of potential spies. Hope had turned eighteen two weeks before, so her father no longer had any say in who she could—and couldn’t—speak with, but she didn’t leave for the intensive summer program at her college for three more weeks. Between now and then she was trying not to rock the boat. Too much. Her dropping the bomb on her family that she was going away to school—a non-religious one—had not gone over well. Miss Marsh had been on standby in case they’d kicked her out. They hadn’t, but things had been tense ever since.
I didn’t trust her family not to try and punish her in some mean and devious way, but there was nothing I could do to help Hope. I left for boot camp in seventy-two hours, and short of marrying a girl I’d never even kissed (much as I’d wanted to), my hands were tied.
I’d miss her like crazy, but I’d have basic training to focus on. She’d promised to write, and as much as I was looking forward to that, I wasn’t going to hold my breath. We’d only been friends for a couple of months, and while there’d been moments where I’d wished for more between us, I didn’t expect our unlikely friendship to stand the test of time.
But we still had three days together, and I was going to use every last second of it making sure that she knew how thankful I was. I’d never had a friend like Hope, and I didn’t know that I ever would again.
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Hope. You—” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence because her lips were suddenly on mine.
Our first kiss—and likely our last. And it was over far too quickly.
Before I could wrap my arms around her and pull her in tight against me, Hope jumped back and looked up at me with panic-stricken eyes. With at least a foot separating us, she raised a trembling hand to her lips. “I-I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
I had some idea why.
Something had changed between us the last couple of weeks. There were times she’d stare at my mouth as I spoke, her eyes unfocused. When I’d try to get her attention, it’d be obvious she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. With the warmer weather, everyone at school was wearing less clothing than when I’d arrived. For me, that meant cargo shorts and old, faded t-shirts. I’d caught her checking out my abs a couple of days ago when I’d reached for a book in the library and my shirt had ridden up. She’d actually licked her lips and sighed. I didn’t think she was even aware of the way she reacted around me.
But it wasn’t only Hope who’d developed … reactions.
She’d always worn dresses—even when the temperature dipped below freezing and it was snowing outside—but once the warm weather arrived, they hadn’t been as frilly and stuffy as before. Not that there was anything sexual about what she wore these days. Quite the opposite, in fact. With fabric draped to her ankles, and a lightweight cardigan buttoned to her chin, other students still called her sister wife. But once the school day was over and it was just the two of us, she’d take off the sweater and put her long, flowing hair up in a ponytail. Since then, I’d been dreaming about the slope of her neck, and the span of her collarbone. And the soft skin on the inside of her elbow? I’d been filled with the strangest desire to kiss her there for days.
But right now, I had a different kiss to deal with. A real one. I clasped my hand to the back of my neck, my head dropping forward. “I wouldn’t mind if you did it again.”
She gasped. “You would?”
I nodded and took a step forward. And then another. When we were close enough that I could see the flecks of copper in Hope’s hazel eyes, I took her hand in mine and linked our fingers together. It didn’t escape my notice this was the longest we’d ever touched. Because of the situation with her family—and her innocence as a byproduct of that—I’d always tried to be honorable in the way I treated her No matter how at odds she was with her father, she believed some of his teachings. Namely, the parts about saving oneself for marriage.
I respected Hope; I cared about her. I didn’t want to lead her into temptation. Not that I had a whole lot of experience with temptation myself. She wasn’t the only virgin in this chaste duo.
But the longer we stood facing one another with sappy grins on our faces, the more I kicked myself for having not touched her before now. The first time I’d ever laid eyes on her, I had felt a jolt of electricity zapping through my core. Holding her hand was like an all-out electrical storm. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to wrap her in my arms and kiss my way inside her mouth.
All around us, students laughed and shouted, calling out to one another celebration. But I couldn’t have cared less about any of them. Right now, the only thing I cared about was having her lips on mine again. I dipped my head forward, and Hope raised up on her toes, her breath mingling with my own. But just before our mouths met, I dimly heard a shocked gasp and then angry bellowing. And before I knew what was happening, a meaty hand had latched itself to my shoulder and yanked me backward.
“Get your heathen hands off my daughter!” My head whipped around to meet the enraged eyes of Pastor Johnson. “If I see you anywhere near her, I will have you arrested!”
“Arrested?” Hope tugged on her father’s arm, attempting to pull him away from me. Unfortunately, this only tightened his grip. “For what?”
“Go to the car,” he ordered his daughter, finally releasing his grip on my shoulder. “I’m taking you home.”
“I’m not leaving!” She stood tall, her shoulders thrown back and her chin raised in defiance. “In case you hadn’t noticed—” she gestured to her regalia “—today is graduation, and I intend to walk across that stage.”
“This place has corrupted you.” He stalked toward her. “I should have pulled you out of school years ago. If your idiot mother wasn't so stupid, she could have homeschooled you.” He shot her a withering look. “See what your ineptitude has wrought? Your daughter has turned into a willful little slut.”
I winced, but Mrs. Johnson showed zero reaction. Almost like this wasn’t the first time she’d heard the insult. My dad would have given anything for my mom to still be with us; I couldn’t imagine growing up in a household where you routinely heard your mother berated and ridiculed. I’d never been fond of Pastor Johnson before, but suddenly I hated the man and everything he stood for.
I clenched my fists at my side. “Apologize to your wife and your daughter.”
“Or what?” he bellowed, spittle flying out the sides of his mouth. “What will you do?” With a sneer, he looked me up and down. He might have considered himself a righteous man, but I knew the truth. Pastor Johnson was nothing more than a bully using religion to mask his own inferiority. And now he was trying desperately to hold onto the control he’d established over his family. And I—the young man who’d dared put ideas into his daughter’s head—was the enemy.
Don’t do it, my conscious argued even as I took a step forward and held my hand out. You’re leaving. You can’t protect her.
I knew all of this, and yet I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling from my lips. I couldn’t leave her here with him. “Come on, Hope. Let’s get out of here.” I never took my eyes off her dad. I expected him to try and lay his hands on her. If he did, things were going to get ugly. He might have had a hundred or so pounds on me, but I had several inches and youth on my side. I wouldn’t let him hurt her. Not anymore.
A few seconds passed before I felt the soft skin of her palm press against the rough skin of mine. I looked down to find her staring up at me with wide eyes.
Her father growled. “You ungrateful slut! If you walk away from me now, do not come home. If you leave with this sinner, you’re dead to me. Do you hear me?”
Our gazes still locked on one another, Hope slowly nodded. “I hear you.” And then she gave my hand a light squeeze.
My eyes flicked between hers. “Are you sure?”
She nodded again. “Absolutely.”
I dropped a kiss on her forehead—right there in front of her angry, sputtering father—and we turned and left the school hand-in-hand. I had no ide
a what happened next, but I had seventy-two hours to find out.
Now
4
Hope
“I can’t believe I let you convince me to come back for this.” I stood in front of the full-length mirror in Jennifer’s bedroom smoothing down my dress. She’d quit being Miss Walsh a long time ago. Now, she was one of my closest friends and confidants. She’d saved my life ten years ago, and I didn’t know if I could ever repay her the kindness. Coming for a visit when she asked seemed like the least I could do.
“Please,” she laughed with a wave of her hand. “It didn’t take much convincing, and you know it. The moment I said his name, you were on Expedia looking up the cost of flights.”
I turned away. I didn’t want Jennifer to see the truth written on my flushed face. I hated being so transparent.
When the invitation for Linwood High School’s reunion had first arrived, I’d nearly tossed it in the garbage, but something—some indistinct niggling at the back of my mind—made me set it to the side instead. I had no reason to think James would be returning to this tiny, podunk Pennsylvania town to attend a reunion for a school he only spent four months attending, but a part of me wondered.
And hoped.
So when Jennifer’s call came three weeks later, asking why I hadn’t returned my RSVP card, I admitted the truth. It hadn’t made sense to lie to my friend and mentor. She’d been there to pick up the pieces of my broken heart when James had left for boot camp, and then again ten months later when he’d been deployed to the Middle East. We’d promised to keep in touch, but over time our emails and letters became fewer and farther between, until one day I realized it’d been more than six months since I’d last heard from him. I’d written to him one final time—to say goodbye, and to thank him for being my rock at a time when I’d needed someone most—and then put him firmly in the giant box labeled “my past.”
