Colleen Hoover - Losing Hope

She’s wearing Les’s bracelet.

Why the hell is she wearing Les’s bracelet?

“Where’d you get that?” I ask her, still looking at the bracelet that sure as hell shouldn’t be on her wrist right now.

She looks down at her hand and shrugs like it’s not a big deal.

She just shrugs?

She shrugs like she doesn’t give a shit that she just completely knocked the breath out of me. How can she be wearing this bracelet? It’s Les’s bracelet. The last time I saw this bracelet it was on Les’s wrist.

“Where’d you get it?” I demand.

She’s looking at me now like she’s terrified of the person in front of her. I realize I’m holding on to her wrist with a tight grip so I release it, just as she pulls away from me.

“You think I got it from a guy?” she asks, confused.

No, I don’t think it’s from a guy. Christ. I don’t think that at all. What I think is that she’s wearing my dead sister’s bracelet and she’s refusing to tell me how she got it. She can’t just shrug and sit here, acting like it’s a coincidence, because that bracelet is handmade and there’s only one other bracelet like it in the whole damn world. So unless she’s Hope, then she’s somehow wearing Les’s bracelet and I want to know why the hell she’s wearing it!

Unless she’s Hope.

The truth hits me head-on and I think I’m about to be sick. No, no, no.

“Holder,” Breckin says, shifting forward. “Ease up, man.”

No, no, no. This can’t be Hope’s bracelet. How could she even still have it after all this time? Her words from Saturday night rush through my head.

“The only thing I have from before Karen adopted me is some jewelry, and I have no idea who it came from.”

I lean forward, praying this bracelet isn’t the jewelry she was referring to. “Who gave you the damn bracelet, Sky?”

She gasps, still unable to give me an answer. She can’t answer me because she honestly has no idea. She’s looking at me like I just crushed her and hell . . . I think I did.

I know she doesn’t have a clue what’s going through my mind right now, but how could I even begin to tell her? How in the hell do I explain to her that she may not know where the bracelet on her wrist came from, but I do? How do I tell her that bracelet came from Les? From the best friend she doesn’t even remember? And how do I admit that she got that bracelet just minutes before I walked away from her? Minutes before her entire life was ripped out from under her?

I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her, because she honestly has no memory of me or Les or how she got this damn bracelet. From looking at her, I don’t even think she remembers Hope. She doesn’t even remember herself. She said Saturday night she has no memory of her life before Karen.

How can she not remember? How can anyone not remember being stolen from her own home? From her best friend?

How can she not remember me?

I squeeze my eyes shut and turn away from her. I press my palms against my forehead and inhale a deep breath. I have got to calm down. I’m terrifying her right now and that’s the last thing I want to do. I grip the back of my neck in order to keep my hands busy so that I don’t punch the table.

She’s Hope. Sky is Hope and Hope is Sky and, “Shit!”

I don’t mean to say it out loud, because I know I’m freaking her out. But this is as calm as I’m able to be right now. I have to get out of here. I have to figure out how the hell to explain this to her.

I stand up and rush toward the exit to the cafeteria before I do or say anything else. As soon as I’m through the doors and alone in the hallway, I collapse against the nearest locker, and pull my trembling hands to my face.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Les,

I’m sorry I didn’t find her sooner. I can’t help but wonder if it would have made a difference. I’m so sorry.

H

Les,

She still has your bracelet, though. That has to mean something to you.

H

Les,

I don’t know what to do. It’s been over six hours now and I keep trying to figure out if I should go to her house and tell her everything or if I should give it more time.

I think I’ll give it more time. I need to process this.

H

Les,

What if I call Karen and explain everything to her? Sky seems to have a good relationship with her. Karen could figure out what to do.

H

Les,

Shit. What if Karen is the one who did it?

H

Les,

What if I tell Mom? I could tell Mom and she could figure out what we need to do or if we need to call the police. She’s a lawyer. I’m sure she deals with this kind of stuff all the time.

H

Les,

I can’t tell Mom. Mom’s in intellectual property law. She wouldn’t know what to do any more than I do.

H

Les,

It’s almost midnight. Twelve hours I’ve let this continue without giving her a single explanation for what happened at lunch today. God, I hope I didn’t make her cry.

H

Les,

She’s probably asleep right now. I’ll tell her in the morning. She runs every morning so I’ll just show up and run with her, then I’ll tell her. We’ll figure out what to do after that.

H

Les,

I can’t sleep.

I can’t believe I actually found her.

H

Les,

Why do you think she calls herself Sky?

There was this thing we used to do when we were little. We only did it a few times because she was taken shortly after that. But she used to cry all the time and I hated it, so we would lie in the driveway and watch the sky and I would hold on to her finger. I remember thinking it was gross to hold a girl’s hand so I would always hold her pinky, instead. Because even though I was just a kid and it was gross to hold a girl’s hand, I really did want to hold her hand.

I used to tell her to think about the sky when she got sad and she always promised me she would. Now here she is. And her name is Sky.

It’s three in the morning. None of this makes any sense. I’m going to sleep now.

H

Les,

Well, I ran with her. Sort of. It was more like I chased her. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her once I showed up. Then after the run we were both so exhausted we just collapsed onto the grass.

I was hoping that the incident in the cafeteria yesterday would spark some sort of memory from her. I was hoping when I showed up today that she would know exactly what upset me so much yesterday. I wanted her to tell me she remembered so I wouldn’t have to be the one to tell her.

How do you tell someone something like that, Les? How do I tell her that the mother who raised her could very well be the one who stole her from us?

If I said anything, her life would change forever. And she likes her life. She likes running and reading and baking and . . . holy shit.

Holy shit.

It didn’t make sense until just now, but the whole internet thing? Her mom not wanting her to have a phone? Karen did it. Karen fucking took her and she’s doing everything she can to make sure Sky doesn’t find out.

I don’t know what to do. I know I can’t be around her right now. There’s no way I can be around her and pretend everything is fine when it’s not. But there’s no way I can tell her the truth, either, because it would turn her world upside down.

I don’t know what will be more painful. Staying away from her so she doesn’t find out, or telling her the truth and ruining her life all over again.

H

Les,

It’s Thursday night. I haven’t spoken to her since Monday. I can’t even look at her because it hurts so much. I still don’t know what to do and the longer I just let this go on, the more of an asshole it makes me look. But every time I work up the nerve to talk to her I have no idea what I’d even say. I told her I’d always be honest with her and this is just something I can’t be honest with her about.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Karen would do something like this, but there isn’t a single valid excuse in the whole world that could justify someone taking a child. I’ve even thought about the chance that maybe Hope’s dad didn’t really want her, so he just gave her away. But I know that’s not true because he did everything he could to find her for months.

I just can’t figure it out. I don’t even know if I need to. Until I barged into her life two weeks ago, she was happy. If I don’t walk away now, it’ll ruin all that.