Losing Hope

“I’m so sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. I just needed . . .”

Jesus. She’s apologizing to me? “Shut up,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I didn’t leave earlier because I was mad at you. I left because I was mad at myself.”

She nods, then pulls away from me and walks to the bed. “It’s okay,” she says, lifting the covers. “I can’t expect you to want me in that way right now. It was wrong and selfish and way out of line for me to ask you to do that and I’m really sorry. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” She climbs into the bed and pulls the covers over her.

I’m trying to process her words, but they aren’t making any sense. I don’t feel that way about what she asked me to do at all. How the hell did she ever get these crazy thoughts in her head to begin with?

“You think I’m having a hard time with this because I don’t want you?” I walk to the bed and kneel next to her. “Sky, I’m having a hard time with this because everything that’s happened to you is breaking my fucking heart and I have no idea how to help you.” I climb onto the bed with her and pull her to a sitting position with me. “I want to be there for you and help you through this but every word that comes out of my mouth feels like the wrong one. Every time I touch you or kiss you, I’m afraid you don’t want me to. Now you’re asking me to have sex with you because you want to take that from him, and I get it. I absolutely get where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t make it easier to make love to you when you can’t even look me in the eyes. It hurts so much because you don’t deserve for it to be like this. You don’t deserve this life and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do to make it better for you. I want to make it better but I can’t and I feel so helpless.”

I take her in my arms and she wraps her legs around me, hanging on to every word I’m saying.

“And even though I stopped, I should have never even started without telling you first how much I love you. I love you so much. I don’t deserve to touch you until you know for a fact that I’m touching you because I love you and for no other reason.”

I press my lips to hers desperately, needing her to know that I’m speaking nothing but truth now. Every word I speak and every time I touch her, there’s nothing there but honesty.

She pulls away and kisses my chin and my forehead and my cheek, then my lips again. “I love you, too,” she says, proving to me that words are yet another characteristic someone can fall in love with. But I’m not falling in love with her piece by piece anymore. I’m in love with the whole girl. Every single piece of her.

“I don’t know what I’d do right now if I didn’t have you, Holder. I love you so much and I’m so sorry. I wanted you to be my first, and I’m sorry he took that from you.”

“Don’t you ever say that again,” I tell her. “Don’t you ever think that again. Your father took that first from you in an unthinkable way, but I can guarantee you that’s all he took. Because you are so strong, Sky. You’re amazing and funny and smart and beautiful and so full of strength and courage. What he did to you doesn’t take away from any of the best parts of you. You survived him once and you’ll survive him again. I know you will.”

I place my palm over her heart, then pull her hand to my heart. I lower my eyes to her level, making sure she’s completely in this moment with me. “Fuck all the firsts, Sky. The only thing that matters to me with you are the forevers.”

She releases a breath of relief, then completely kisses the hell out of me. I grab her head and lower her back onto the bed, climbing on top of her. “I love you,” I say against her lips. “I’ve loved you for so long but I just couldn’t tell you. It didn’t feel right letting you love me back when I was keeping so much from you.”

She’s crying again, but she’s also smiling. “I don’t think you could have picked a better time to tell me you loved me than tonight. I’m happy you waited.”

I dip my head and kiss her. I kiss her like she deserves to be kissed. I hold her like she deserves to be held. And I’m about to make love to her like she deserves to be loved. I untie the robe she’s wearing and slide my hand across her stomach. “God, I love you,” I say to her. My hand moves from her waist, down her hip and to her thigh. I can feel her tense up, so I pull back and look down at her. “Remember . . . I’m touching you because I love you. No other reason.”

She nods and closes her eyes and I recognize the nervousness seeping off her. I pull her robe closed and bring my hand to her face.

“Open your eyes,” I say. She opens them and they’re full of tears. “You’re crying.”

She just nods and smiles up at me. “It’s okay. They’re the good kind of tears.”

I silently watch her, gauging if we should even be doing this right now. I want to show her how much I love her and I want to erase what happened between us an hour ago, because it never should have happened. I want to make it right for her. It’s always been so ugly for her, but she deserves to see how beautiful it can be.

“I want to make love to you, Sky,” I say, lacing our fingers together. “And I think you want it, too. But I need you to understand something first.” I lower my mouth and kiss away a falling tear. “I know it’s hard for you to allow yourself to feel this. You’ve gone so long training yourself to block the feelings and emotions out any time someone touches you. But I want you to know that what your father physically did to you isn’t what hurt you as a little girl. It’s what he did to your faith in him that broke your heart. You suffered through one of the worst things a child can go through at the hands of your hero . . . the person you idolized . . . and I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like. But remember that the things he did to you are in no way related to the two of us when we’re together like this. When I touch you, I’m touching you because I want to make you happy. When I kiss you, I’m kissing you because you have the most incredible mouth I’ve ever seen and you know I can’t not kiss it. And when I make love to you—I’m doing exactly that. I’m making love to you because I’m in love with you. The negative feeling you’ve been associating with physical touch your whole life doesn’t apply to me. It doesn’t apply to us. I’m touching you because I’m in love with you and for no other reason.” I kiss her softly. “I love you.”

She kisses me harder than she’s ever kissed me, pulling me down to the bed with her. We continue to kiss and she continues to allow me to explore every single part of her with my mouth and my hands. When I ready myself against her after putting another condom on, I look down at her and she’s finally looking up at me with a serene expression. The love in her eyes right now can’t be mistaken, but I still want to hear her say it.

“Tell me you love me.”

She tightens her grip around me, looking me hard in the eyes. “I love you, Holder. So much,” she says firmly. “And just so you know . . . so did Hope.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, I’m completely consumed by a sense of peace. For the first time since the second she was taken from me, I finally know what forgiveness feels like. “I wish you could feel what that just did to me.” I claim her mouth with mine at the same time she completely consumes my heart.

Chapter Forty-three

When I turn my phone on, I’m flooded with texts. Several from Breckin, several from my mother. There are missed calls from Sky’s phone, so I can only assume they’re from Karen. I don’t listen to any of the voicemails, though. I know everyone’s just worried about us, especially Karen. I’m still not sure how what she did fits into the picture, but I find it hard to believe that what she did was done from a place of evil.

Sky rustles in the bed, rolling over. I look down at her and lean forward to kiss her but she turns her face away and I kiss her cheek, instead.

“Morning breath,” she mumbles, sliding off the bed. She heads for the shower and I check the time. Check- out is in an hour, so I decide to gather our things.

After I’ve got most of our things packed, she walks out of the bathroom. “What are you doing?” she asks.

I glance at her. “We can’t stay here forever, Sky. We need to figure out what you want to do.”

She rushes toward me. “But . . . but I don’t know yet. I don’t even have anywhere to go.”

Her voice is full of panic, so I walk to her in order to ease her mind. “You have me, Sky. Calm down. We can go back to my house and figure this out. Besides, we’re both still in school. We can’t just stop going and we definitely can’t live in a hotel forever.”

“One more day,” she says. “Please, let’s just stay one more day, then we’ll go. I need to try to figure this out and in order to do that, I need to go there one more time.”