Page 17 of Hiding from Hope

Why would they? This book is just a tormented, fictional spin on the tragic story of a boy who had his heart torn from his chest by the sun of his sky.

No one cares about that story.

Another frustrated grunt as I run a frustrated hand through my hair. I spin, grabbing my keys from the counter, and leave the apartment, slamming the door behind me. Unsure where I’m going or what I’m doing. I forgot my coat, and the New York air is unforgiving, but the heat thrumming through my veins is doing its job so far in keeping me warm. The streets are busy with people in their activewear, their fashionable coffees in hand, walking their pets. But it all passes me in a blur, as though my subconscious has a one-track mind. Like I’d planned this, my insanity has taken over my motor skills and now I have somehow ended up at the Garcia building, standing in front of apartment 23A.

I raise a fist to knock and instead throw my head back in exasperation. “What the fuck are you doing, Jessie?” I chastise myself and turn to leave. But I make it four steps, then pivot, and before I think about it anymore, I raise my fist again and knock. Possibly heavier than I meant to.

The door opens a crack, and I see the warm auburn hair that I see in my dreams spilling over her shoulder as she leans through the gap. “Oh.” Her voice is softer than usual, something off in the way she speaks. She quickly closes it, and before I can protest, she opens it again, a smile I can tell is forced plastered to her face. “Hi, Jay, what… what are you doing here?” She tries to pretend, but I hear the wobble in her voice, see the stains on her cheeks and the way her lips have puffed slightly. She was crying.

Something tightens within me, like a wrath and an urgency. I want to simultaneously save her from her woes and destroy the perpetrator all at once. Whoever made Casey Baker cry or feel sad was going to meet a painful demise, and I’ll be damned if it wouldn’t be by my hand.

I push the door open wider, stepping right up to her, planting my hands on her face. “Who?” I practically growl at her. She looks shocked, but after a few tense seconds, she melts and leans into my touch, lowering her eyes to her feet. I urge her with my hands to lift her gaze to mine. If she won’t tell me with words, I’ll get them through her eyes. I don’t care. “Ace, tell me. Who made you feel like this?” I try to soften my voice, try to dim down the rage while I map out the ways I’d ruin someone for hurting her.

“Me,” she says on a whisper and big sad tears drip slowly down her pretty pink cheeks before she squeezes her eyes shut, releasing a sob. Before I know what I’m doing, I pull her to my chest and wrap my arms around her, walking her backward into the apartment and kicking the door closed behind me.

She wraps her arms around my waist and just cries. I feel strange, a mix of rage and pain. I want to make it stop. Make her not hurt, but at the same time, I selfishly take pleasure in her coming undone in front of me. That she is letting me comfort her, allowing herself to lose a little bit of that control she holds onto so tightly.

It dawns on me then that I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to comfort, I’m not good at helping heal or talking through emotions. I pray to God she doesn’t want to vent. The only emotion I’m well acquainted with is anger. And I feel like that won’t do much use here.

I use a hand in her glowing reddish-brown locks to gently massage her head, a firm hand between her shoulder blades, and we stay standing near the entryway of her apartment like this for minutes.

She breathes in, then steps out of the embrace, leaving the safety of me, and taking with her my sanity in not being able to cure her unhappiness. She self-consciously wipes her cheeks and turns and heads to the kitchen. I can’t even help it; I follow her like a lost puppy as she finally speaks. “How come you’re here, Jessie?”

She isn’t mad, but she is embarrassed, and I hate that.

“Well… I was feeling like shit.” I shrug and subconsciously twist the ring on my finger. “I was going to see if you wanted to… hang out or something,” I mumble because I feel like an idiot. The only reason any of these honest words are coming out is because when she is in the same room, I seem to lose all sensibility.

She turns and looks at me, a quick sight of shock, before reaching and grabbing a glass to fill with water at the sink. “Oh, you wanted to hang with me?”

A lot of responses come to mind. None of them make it past my lips. When she looks up to me, she must find the answer she was looking for and a soft smile replaces the pain she held previously. She brings her thumb to her mouth and chews it again.

I step back into her space. Gently prying her thumb from her mouth, I run a soft finger through the line formed between her brows. The rarity of the imperfection only adding to her magnificence. Operating on autopilot, and this suddenly desperate need to take away any pain she feels, I twist and slide my grandfather’s ring off my pinky, sliding it onto her thumb. She looks at it, a pink blush covering her cheeks. “Now, every time you go to bite your nail, you’ll see the ring and remember to stop.” She breathes heavily for a moment, then blinks rapidly and shakes her head.

“Why?” she whispers.

“Because doubt and worry are two things you have no business entertaining. I can see you feel them when you bite your nail. But you’re exceptional. You don’t need to give in to those bullshit emotions.” I tuck her hair behind her ear because I can’t help it, but I manage to restrain myself from running my thumb along the sharp line of her cheek or pressing my lips to her puffy ones. I’m a man, not an animal. Yet.

I decide then that earth shattering attraction and desire aside, perhaps we both need this. A person, a friend. If she was easily so willing to be that for me, I sure as hell could do that for her.

“You know, Ace, if you need a person, too, I’m here.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine really. I just—”

“Don’t lie to me.” I grip her chin and force her to look into my eyes. “Stop pretending to be okay. Be strong enough to exist in your shit. If you can’t do it for yourself…, do it for me.” I fail to tamper down the anger, but it’s hard when I watch her put up this façade. When she changes who she is to ensure other people are comfortable, to keep the peace. Her eyes search mine and a blush rises from her neck to her cheeks as her lips part on a breath. I use every ounce of control within my soul to keep my eyes on hers and my face not within kissing distance. She nods and grabs my wrist, not removing my hand, but instead leaning into the touch. I small twitch of my cock at the passing thought that she likes it firm.

I quickly step away and shake my head, and she breaks the silence.

“So… you wanted to hang out? What did you have in mind?”

“Well, what do you usually do when you have… these feelings?” I gesture and mutter as I stalk for a seat at the kitchen counter, trying to put solid objects between me and the walking temptation.

When I look back to her, her smile has grown. The light I usually find in her eyes is back, and she looks every bit as beautiful as always. “I bake.”

“Well, then I guess we’re baking.”

Casey’s baking playlist fills the kitchen, Zach Bryan singing Holy Roller setting the soundtrack to the way I watch Casey float through the motions. She looks truly at peace when she bakes. The sadness and sorrow from earlier but a distant memory, and I’m selfishly glad Rosie was called into work today because I get the real Casey. She isn’t putting on a show, there are no fake smiles, and she doesn’t pretend to have her shit together.

Watching Casey exist in her feelings, though, makes the echoing heartbreak from Jenny ring harder in the back of my mind. The bullshit I buried and refused to deal with. Our departing words and the way she just left.

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