Losing Hope

Chapter Forty-nine-and-three-quarters

“I thought she said she wasn’t going this weekend,” I say to Sky as we walk through her front door.

“I begged her to go. She’s been stuck to me like glue for days now and I told her if she didn’t go do her flea market thing, I’d run away.”

We make our way to Sky’s bedroom and I close the door behind us. “So does that mean I can get you pregnant tonight?”

She turns around and faces me, then shrugs. “I guess we could practice,” she says, smiling.

And we do. We practice at least three different times before midnight.

We’re lying on her bed, tangled together beneath her sheet. She’s holding up our hands, which are clasped between us, and she’s staring at them. “I remember, you know,” she says softly.

I tilt my head until it meets hers on the pillow. “You remember what?”

She pulls her fingers away, then she wraps her pinky around mine. “This,” she whispers. “I remember the first time you held my hand like this. And I remember everything you said to me that night.”

I close my eyes and inhale a deep breath.

“Not long after Karen brought me here, she asked me to forget my old name and all the bad that went along with it. So I thought about you . . . and I told her I wanted to be called Sky.”

She lifts up onto her elbow and looks down at me. “You were always there, you know. Even when I couldn’t remember . . . you were always there.”

I push her hair behind her ear and kiss her, then pull back. “I love you so much, Sky.”

“I love you, too, Holder.”

I pull my arm out from under her and roll her onto her back, looking down at her. “Will you do me a favor?”

She nods.

“From now on, I want you to call me Dean.”