My Hope Next Door by Tammy L. Gray

Author:Tammy L. Gray [Gray, Tammy L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503935761
Publisher: Waterfall Press
Published: 2016-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

Asher hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. In fact, everything he’d just heard made him wish he hadn’t gone outside to investigate the shouts filtering in through his ancient windows.

Katie stood across the yard. Her back was to him; the guy she’d been yelling at towered over her with a familiarity that didn’t seem recent. Who was he? Why hadn’t she mentioned him?

The burly man seized her shoulders and said something Asher couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made Katie push him away and take a step back.

“Don’t bring up that weekend.” Katie’s voice echoed in the distance.

“Then tell me something that makes sense.”

She pressed her temples. “Please, Cooper. For once, just let it go. You win, okay? I’m the bad guy. You’re exonerated. As far as I’m concerned, you were never there.”

Cooper. Asher let the name float through his mind, searching for any glimmer of recognition but not finding any. The guy hadn’t gone to their high school.

“I don’t want to be exonerated. I want you to stop pretending to be something you’re not. I want Chad to come home and Laila to stop walking around like her heart has been ripped out.” Cooper’s shouts had turned hoarse, as if his own heart were being ripped out with each word.

Katie’s shoulders sagged and for a moment, the violence around them disappeared. Cooper reached out and touched her face, set his forehead to hers.

Asher suddenly felt sick. Sicker than when they’d been yelling, sicker than when he heard the play-by-play of Katie getting high. He couldn’t define it, the twisting pressure in his gut, but it wouldn’t subside, even when Katie shoved the guy away.

“We can’t go back to how things were. I know it. Laila knows it. That’s why she hasn’t come here demanding to talk. It’s time for you to accept it too.” She left him standing there and walked toward the path in the woods, her head lowered, her arms wrapped around herself.

Cooper marched back to Katie’s house and slammed his fist into the porch column. The wood cracked underneath his knuckles. He pulled on the door, but stopped. His motion seemed pained when he turned back, dipped his chin, and placed his hands on his hips. Katie had told Asher no one was waiting for her, but everything in Cooper’s crestfallen posture indicated he wasn’t going away without a fight.

Asher watched her disappear behind the tree line. Caramel hair and dark blue shirt, long legs and worn-out tennis shoes. She looked delicate and lost.

He’d wanted to rescue her, but he didn’t know her. Didn’t know anything about her.

Even worse? That was exactly what she wanted.

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