Losing Hope(25)
“Hey.”
Hey? Jesus, Holder. Nice. Real nice.
She freezes midmovement. I can tell by the way her shoulders rise and fall that she’s taking a calming breath. Does she need calming because of me? My heart is racing at warp speed and thirteen years’ worth of pent-up adrenaline is making its way through my body.
Thirteen years. I’ve been looking for her for thirteen years and I very well may have just found her. Alive. And in the same town as me. I should be elated, but I can’t stop thinking about Les and how I know she prayed every single day for this moment. Les spent her whole life wishing we would find Hope and now I’ve found her and Les is dead. If this girl really is Hope, I’ll be devastated that she showed up thirteen months too late.
Well, maybe not devastated. I forgot that word is on reserve. But I’ll be pretty damn pissed.
She’s facing me now. She’s looking right at me and it’s killing me because I want to grab her and hug her and tell her how sorry I am for ruining her life, but I can’t do any of these things because she’s looking at me like she has no clue who I am. I just want to scream, “Hope! It’s me! It’s Dean!”
I grip the back of my neck and try to process this whole situation. This isn’t how I pictured finding her. Maybe I fictionalized it and played it up all these years but I thought her recovery would be way more climactic. I thought she would have way more tears and way more emotion and not appear to be nearly as . . . inconvenienced?
The look on her face right now doesn’t register as recognition in the least. She looks terrified. Maybe she doesn’t recognize me. Maybe she appeared flustered inside because of the idiotic way I was staring at her. Maybe she appears terrified now because I practically chased her down and I’m giving her absolutely no explanation. I’m just standing here like a creepy stalker and I have no idea how to even ask her if she’s the girl I lost all those years ago.
She eyes me warily up and down. I hold out my hand, hoping to ease some of her fear with an introduction. “I’m Holder.”
She drops her gaze to my extended hand and, rather than accept the handshake, she actually takes a step away from me.
“What do you want?” she says sharply, cautiously peering back up to my face.
Definitely not the reaction I expected.
“Um,” I say, not really meaning to appear taken aback. But honestly, this isn’t going in the direction I was hoping it would go. I don’t even know what direction that was at this point. I’m starting to doubt my own sanity. I glance across the parking lot at my car and wish I had just kept walking, but I know if I did, I’d regret not confronting her.
“This might sound lame,” I warn, looking back at her, “but you look really familiar. Do you mind if I ask what your name is?”
She releases a breath and rolls her eyes, then reaches behind her to grab the doorknob of her car. “I’ve got a boyfriend,” she says. She turns and opens the door, then quickly climbs into the car. She starts to pull the door shut, but I catch it with my hand.
I can’t let her leave until I’m positive she’s not Hope. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life and I’m not about to let thirteen years of guilt and obsessing and analyzing her disappearance go to waste just because I’m afraid I might piss her off.
“Your name. That’s all I want.”
She stares at my hand holding open her door. “Do you mind?” she says through clenched teeth. Her eyes fall to the tattoo on my arm and my adrenaline kicks up a notch when she reads it, hoping it’ll spark some recognition on her part. If she can’t remember my face, I’m almost positive she’ll remember the nickname I gave her and Les.