For All You Have Left

Chapter Eighteen Hope

“Lada, I had an extra coupon for that toothpaste you like, so I picked you up a tube,” Hannah says, charging into my apartment.

She stops when she sees Jorgen in the living room.

“Oh…hi,” she stutters apologetically. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know Lada had company.”

Jorgen laughs. “It’s fine. How are you, Hannah?”

Hannah looks as if she’s trying not to blush. She still turns into a thirteen-year-old, smitten school girl around guys that look like Jorgen. I’m not much better sometimes, but she’s definitely worse.

“Great,” she says and then absentmindedly sets the tube onto the counter.

I reach over the sink in the kitchen and pick up the toothpaste. “Thanks, Hannah.”

She looks as if she tries to respond to me, but instead uses all her efforts to fall gracefully into one of my barstools. I, meanwhile, catch Jorgen pointing to his eyebrow, eyeing Hannah and miming the word same. He has this goofy, surprised look on his face. I quickly lower my eyes and try to hold in a laugh, and I think Hannah notices.

“So, what are you two up to?” she asks.

I look up at Jorgen again. He’s still wearing that goofy grin.

“Nothing,” we both say, almost simultaneously.

Hannah sends me a suspicious look.

“No, seriously, we both just got off work,” I say.

She nods her head and pushes her lips together, seemingly satisfied.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaims. “Lada, remember that book I said I wanted to borrow of yours — that one about the guy from Missouri. Can I borrow it?”

“Uh, sure, it’s on the shelf over there.” I gesture toward the living room. “Jorgen, can you grab it for her. It’s the one on the end with the tan-ish cover.”

Jorgen examines the shelf for a second and then slides a book toward him, sending something falling to the floor.

It catches Hannah’s attention, and I watch her face quickly turn curious as Jorgen reaches down to pick up the object.

“You still have that thing?” Hannah asks.

I look at what’s now in Jorgen’s hand.

“Hannah,” I whisper, trying to get her attention.

It doesn’t work, and she continues.

“We call that Lada’s hope,” Hannah says, gesturing with her eyes toward Jorgen’s hands.

Jorgen looks at the book.

“The pin,” Hannah clarifies. “Of Saint Michael.”

I watch as Jorgen’s eyes travel back to the pin in his hand, and I think that Hannah’s done.

“We have no idea where she got it from,” Hannah goes on. “It was just there that day.”

I freeze. I literally stop moving, breathing, all of it. In exactly five seconds flat, my mouth has gone completely dry, my mind has flashed to a blank canvas and I have lost every single one of my words — Every. Single. One. I wait for Jorgen’s eyes to find mine. They do only seconds later. He looks slightly confused.

Hannah doesn’t say anything else, and I’m more than thankful. At least she stopped at that. At least she spared him my whole life story. I’m still going to kill her, but at least she stopped before Jorgen had to witness it.

Silent moments pass, and I’m pretty sure just enough go by to make it awkward. I can feel Jorgen’s eyes still on me, while my own gaze has fallen to the pin in his hand.

“Well…I…just wanted to drop off the tooth…paste,” I hear a small voice utter.

For the first time in almost a minute, I notice that Hannah is still in the room.

“I…should get going. Lada, call me later.”

I stare straight through her then as she backs away from me and toward Jorgen. I know she realizes she has said too much.

“It was nice seeing you again, Jorgen,” Hannah says, sliding the book out of his hand.

Jorgen seems to snap out of a trance just in time to acknowledge Hannah, and then Hannah’s gone, and it’s only Jorgen and I left in the room.

I take a breath and let go of a sigh.

“Okay,” I say, “so Hannah didn’t give the pin to me. Someone else did, but I don’t know who it was. And it was a long time ago.”

He’s staring at me when I finish, and he seems pale and a little like he still doesn’t fully believe me.

I feel really stupid for lying to him in the first place. I feel even more stupid after having been caught in the stupid lie. But I feel bad too because I know I’ve skirted the truth yet again. There’s more to the story, even though I really don’t remember exactly how I got the pin. Like Hannah’s big mouth said, it was just there. But the thing is, I’ve only known Jorgen for a little more than a month now. I’m just not ready to tell him the whole story.

My stare catches on the empty counter before I meet his eyes again. They still look off somehow.

“Jorgen?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, setting the pin back in its place on the shelf.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He makes his way over to me without saying a word, then stops right in front of me.

“What?” I whisper.

He doesn’t seem mad or weirded out, but I feel as if he should — at least a little. I did lie to him.

In the next second, his arms are around me, and he’s squeezing me into his body. My mind races, and I try to figure out exactly what’s going on before I just give in and slowly wrap my arms around him too. I hold him tight, inhale the sweet smell of his cologne and press my hands flat against the muscles in his back. I feel as if I’m literally melting into his embrace when I hear him whisper into my hair.

“Will you come home with me?”

He pulls away from me and holds my shoulders in the palms of his hands.

“Across the hall?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs once and then slowly shakes his head.

“No, home,” he says. “The county fair’s next week. Will you come with me?”

I search his eyes until I feel genuine excitement coming to life on my face.

“Okay,” I agree.

He gives me this look then, as if he’s waiting for me to change my mind or something.

“Really?” he asks.

I nod my head and start to laugh. “Yeah,” I confirm.

A wide grin lights up his face, and then he pulls me into his arms again.

I’m not completely sure what I’ve just agreed to. It sounds awfully close to something you’d do if you were in a relationship. And though I’m not completely opposed to the idea, I’m pretty sure a real relationship with Jorgen Ryker or anyone new, for that matter, is next to impossible in my situation.

Jorgen leaves, and I find myself gravitating toward the pin on the shelf. I pick it up and caress its indented surface with my fingertips. I don’t keep anything from my old life where I can see it, but I do keep this out. Hannah was right. It was my hope; it is my hope. I didn’t think of it that way at all when I first had it in my hand. But now, looking back, it really was my hope — my tiny glimmer of hope — like something was telling me to keep going, to keep fighting, to fight back, to live. And now, I think, it’s kind of become like a testament to human survival for me — like it reminds me of just how strong we really can be when we have to be and that just when we think we can’t possibly go on, we do.