Where Hope Grows Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Discover More Books By Third Cousins

  A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Copyright

  Twisted

  Where Hope Grows

  Book 3

  Coming Of Age Romance

  By: Danica Reid & Third Cousins

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  A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...

  Jason has lost everything. He finally has the college to himself. There isn’t anybody from his past to ruin the character he’s created for himself any more. It’s just him. The funeral is only a few days away. He blames himself. He can hardly see through the darkness of the guilt he’s feeling. Then there’s Lisa. Lisa is the light in the darkness. Lisa is the way back to the daylight. Lisa is the girl that he’s always been looking for and he can’t believe it’s taken him so long to realize that.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Discover More Books By Third Cousins

  A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS

  Copyright

  INSPIRING WORDS

  “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

  - Ferdinand Foch

  CHAPTER 1

  I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep that night, but I did. And she was there. She was waiting for me in my dreams. Her dark purple hair floated around her face. It was like a gentle breeze was playing around her, but there wasn’t a breeze. She was smiling. Her bright cherry red lips were pulled up at the corners, her eyes fixed on me. She was smiling at me. She was happy to see me.

  I walked over to her. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d never felt so happy to see anybody before in my life. I didn’t know it was a dream. I didn’t know that there was a cruel reality waiting for me when I woke up. I stretched my arms out when I got close. I had an urge to throw them around her and pull her to me. It was a strong urge. It was an urge that I wasn’t going to fight away.

  I couldn’t throw my arms around her, though. Every step I took forward moved her further away. I started jogging, but it changed nothing. No matter how fast I went or how much ground I covered, she was unreachable.

  I stopped and looked at her again. Her bright smile was fading away, a serious look taking over her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I managed to ask her. My voice sounded weird. It echoed, but stopped dead at the end of my tongue at the same time. I didn’t even sound like me. My voice sounded weak, scared, broken.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered. Her voice carried over to me with perfect quality. I could hear the same sounds in her voice that I could hear in my own. She was scared, she was weak and she was broken.

  I couldn’t stand it. I had to get to her. I had to show her that she didn’t have to fight her demons alone. I started to run. I ran fast and hard. I ran until I could feel my legs burning and my nose dripping with sweat and snot. I dropped my eyes to the ground that my feet were pushing against. I had to get to her. I had to make everything all right for her.

  After a time I looked up. She was gone. In her place there was a stretcher. I could see the small shape of her body under the pea green blanket. I was too late. She was gone.

  I woke up into the harsh reality that didn’t give her back to me. My bed was soaked. Cold droplets of sweat were falling from my hair and running down my spine.

  The window at the other side of the room was cracked open. A cold breeze blew through it and making my situation ten times worse. I stood quickly and closed the window.

  I was still tired, but my bed was too wet to sleep in. The darkness of night was lifting from the sky outside and I decided I might as well get up.

  I headed to the shower. My skin felt sticky with sweat. My body was tense and ached wherever there were bones to ache. I walked into the communal shower room and found it empty. I’d never used the room when it had been empty before. It seemed creepy almost. The lonely dripping of the shower heads, the silent echo that followed.

  I focused on the sound of my feet sticking to the floor. I turned on the shower and pulled off my towel, so I could step under the already steaming water. It felt good. It felt better than it should. I closed my eyes and let the last twenty four hours slip away from me. I blocked out Sophie from my mind. I created a world where she didn’t exist, but everything else including myself was the same. The hot droplets of water beat against my tired skin. The aching in my bones turned dull and then washed away completely.

  It wasn’t until I stepped out of the shower and the cold air snatched at my warm skin, that my mind went back to the dream I’d had and the events that had brought me to have it.

  I dried myself off. I hadn’t paid much attention to how long I’d been, but there were drifters starting to enter by the time I was leaving. I could tell from their tired faces and slumps in their backs that they had early classes to get to and that they weren’t just chippy, morning types of people. I let my mind focus on them for a while. I wondered what classes they were taking and whether they’d been up partying the night before. I thought about where in the country they’d come from and what kind of families they went home to on Thanksgiving.

  By the time I got back to my dorm room I’d given each of them full back stories. Back stories, which probably didn’t even come close to the truth, but had kept me occupied enough to not fall apart for just a little bit longer.

  “Jason?” I heard a soft voice call out from behind me.

  I thought about just continuing to walk on, as though I hadn’t heard my name being called. They hadn’t sounded very confident anyway, so maybe they weren’t even sure if it was me and I’d get away with it.

  A quick patter of feet told me otherwise, though, and I stopped and turned, before they had a chance to reach me. “Oh,” I said with surprise, when I took in the freckled nose and dark brown hair of the girl I’d met over at Sophie’s dorm. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I don’t think I ever caught your name.” I took a tighter grip on my towel.

  “Lisa,” she said with a soft smile. She was smaller than me, although in all fairness, most girls were. She was smaller than most, though. It made the way she looked up at me cuter than it should have been. Her warm eyes glancing shyly through her thick, long eyelashes made me feel like I was drinking hot chocolate and looking out over a snow-covered mountain range.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her, when I realized she seemed to have forgotten that she was the one who’d started the conversation. It wasn’t as though I was overly in a rush to be anywhere, but I could feel people’s eyes burning into my skin as they passed me in the hallway and I wanted to get away from that.

  She nodded and then her shoulders slumped a little. “It’s weird,” she said. “I didn’t really know Sophie, but I’m really sad. I just keep thinking about all the times we passed in the hallway and stuff. Like, I should have said something to her. I should have invited her out or something, but I didn’t. I just always figured that she kind of liked being alone. You know. She had that kind of vibe, I guess.”

  I could feel my eyebrows pulling together in a frow
n, as I reached out and put my hand gently on her shoulder. “Lisa, none of this is your fault,” I told her firmly. “Sophie had all kinds of bad things happening in her life and she couldn’t cope with it all. That isn’t anybody’s fault. It isn’t even her fault. It’s just how fate dealt her hand and we’ve got to accept that.”

  I wanted to believe what I had just told Lisa. I wanted to make my own brain listen to the advice that I was handing out. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t ignore the part I’d played in Sophie’s final days.

  “I know, but I don’t know,” she said shakily. “Maybe if I had talked to her, then she would have known that she had a friend?” Her eyes were starting to brim with tears. I could see the sparkle of sadness and I fought the urge to look away.

  “She had a friend and it didn’t stop her,” I said. “She had me and it wasn’t enough. You can’t spend your time thinking about the different paths that you could have taken. We are on the path that we each took, and there aren’t any turnoffs which lead back.”

  She nodded into my chest and then sniffled, before taking a step back. She glanced up at me nervously and gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sure you’re feeling crap enough without having some random girl crying all over you.”

  She lifted her hand up to her nose and wiped it quickly, before realizing what she was doing and quickly hiding it behind her back. Her cheeks blushed pink and I couldn’t contain my smile.

  “You’re not some random girl,” I assured her. “You’re Lisa.” She gave me a watery smile. “I know that it’s hard to accept that there’s nothing you could have done. I know it’s so much easier to focus on the things that maybe you could have done, but when has the easy way ever been the right way? You helped her in all the ways that you could. You helped me find her. You gave her an extra sunrise and you should never forget that.”

  She thought about that for a minute and then focused on me again. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be okay,” I said, because I didn’t want to make a big deal about what I was feeling inside. “It’s just going to take some time.”

  She nodded. Her eyes were full of understanding. It was strange. I barely knew her. She was just the girl who had helped me when I’d needed it.

  It didn’t feel like that though. I felt as though I was standing with a friend. I felt as though I could break down in tears and there would be no judgment passed.

  “Was she your girlfriend?” she asked me quietly, as though she wasn’t sure whether it was okay to ask or not.

  I shook my head. The image of Sophie leaning in and kissing me in front of the ocean rushed through my mind and then vanished, leaving only an empty feeling and the question why.

  “We weren’t even close friends,” I explained. I didn’t have to explain. I didn’t have to explain the strange relationship that I’d shared with Sophie, but I wanted to. “Do you want to go and grab some coffee or something?” I asked, because I wanted to get out of the hallway, but I knew that I didn’t want to end our conversation.

  “Sure,” she nodded quickly. Then she smiled a small smile. “But only if you get dressed first.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Dillan wasn’t in the room when I got back. His rumpled sheets were the only sign that he’d been there at all that night. I wondered where he’d gone. It was still early and none of his classes started before lunch.

  I threw on my clothes and scanned my side of the room for my wallet and my phone. They were on my night stand and I grabbed them quickly and shoved them into my pockets, so I could head back outside to meet Lisa.

  My hand was on the door handle, when it started to shake with the force of whoever was knocking on it. I opened the door and found a graying man standing outside.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, because I had no idea who he was and I was pretty sure that he probably had the wrong room. “I’m just heading out,” I added, so he knew to hurry up the explanation.

  “Are you Jason?” he asked me in a somber, serious voice.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m Jason.”

  He nodded and reached into his jacket pocket. A slither of white flashed against the black of his suit and I realized it was a piece of paper.

  “I have this for you,” he said, as he held out his hand with the slip of paper in. “It was found in Sophie’s room when they were clearing out her things. It was addressed to you. The police had to open it to check the contents, but I can assure you that no one else has seen it.”

  “You’ve already cleared out her room?” I asked. Sophie had only been taken away the night before. Wasn’t it too soon to clear out her room? What had they done with her things? Her father was in prison waiting for his trial and her mom was dead. Who was going to collect her things? Who was going to make sure that the things she cared about most, continued to be cared for?

  The man looked uncomfortable about my question. “It’s the college’s policy to ensure that all rooms are cleaned out within twenty four hours of a student leaving,” he explained.

  “She didn’t just leave, though, did she?” I said bitterly. I knew deep down that it wasn’t his fault. I knew that he probably played no part in having her room cleared out, but I needed someone to blame. I needed someone to point my anger at, because otherwise I was going to go crazy.

  “I’m sorry that you lost your friend,” the man said and I could tell that he was breaking from his normal routine. His dark, coal-like eyes were full of empathy. I wondered whether he’d perhaps lost someone in a similar way. “You have this, though,” he said, as he brought my attention back to the letter, which was in his hands. “You still have something to hold to.”

  I took the letter and nodded. “I’m sorry, I know it isn’t your fault,” I said, because I couldn’t stay mad at him. He’d suffered, too. I could tell.

  “It’s always hard at first. Just don’t let yourself get pulled in by the anger. Sometimes there is no one to blame. Sometimes things happen because they’re meant to happen. The answer isn’t always clear, but life is a puzzle like that.”

  It was strange that he’d said it like that. He was right. Life was nothing but a puzzle. Sophie had been the hardest puzzle of all.

  The sheet of paper in my hand felt dry against my skin. My thumb ran over it. I could feel the small dents in the paper from where Sophie’s pen had dug too deeply into the paper. They were her words. They were possibly the final words that she had ever given and they were to me.

  “Thank you,” I said to the man, before I closed the door and walked over to my bed.

  My throat felt dry, as my legs gave up and I fell down onto the mattress. The paper was still in my hands. My eyes were glued to it. Sophie had left me a message. She had thought about me. She had something to say which was so important that it couldn’t go unsaid, even though she thought her life could go unlived.

  I forced myself to put the piece of paper into my bedside drawer. I wasn’t ready to read it yet. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her. She’d given me a choice and I was choosing, to hold on.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Is everything all right?” Lisa asked me when I pushed open the dorm door and walked outside into the bright sunshine. The weather was the same as it had been the day before. It felt wrong, though. It felt like the sky should be gray and the clouds forcing down rain to wash over the awfulness that had passed.

  “Sure, everything is fine,” I assured her. She looked dubious, but nodded.

  We started walking up the path that led off of the campus and into town. “You seem a bit shaken,” she said after a while. “If you don’t want to get coffee, it’s fine. I totally understand,” she said intensely, so I knew she was being serious and that she wouldn’t take any offence.

  I smiled at her. I could tell that it was tired smile. It was something that I couldn’t help. I was tired. “I want to get coffee with you. It’s just this guy just came to my room. He gave me this letter than they found in Sophie’s room when th
ey were clearing it out. It was addressed to me.”

  “They’ve already cleared out Sophie’s room?” she asked with surprise.

  A warm feeling swelled inside of me. Lisa was on the same page. She thought like me. She saw the world through the same perception filter that I had. “Apparently it’s the college’s policy.”

  “You would have thought that they could make exceptions, though.”

  How was it possible? How was it possible that my liking for Lisa grew with every word that she said and all the words that she didn’t? How had I not seen it before? How had I not seen how beautiful she was?

  She glanced over at me. I was sure that she could feel my gaze burning against her cheeks. She smiled softly and tilted her head. “What are you thinking?”

  I could answer any question, but not that one. I couldn’t tell her that I was wondering what her lips might taste like against mine. I couldn’t tell her that I was wondering what shampoo she used and whether I’d be able to nestle my head in her hair as she slept. The way she slept. I couldn’t tell her that I was thinking about that, either. My mind had created its own, adorable image of her face at complete peace. “Just stuff, I guess.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Is it weird if I go to the funeral?”

  I shook my head. “It would be nice if you went. Sophie didn’t have many people in her life who cared about her. She may have never known in life that you did, but I’m sure that she does now. If you want to be there, if you want to say goodbye to her, then that’s what you should do.”

  “Do you think it’ll be in her home town?” she asked.

  I hadn’t thought about it. Everything was still so fresh. All the important questions hadn’t even entered my mind yet. I was still stuck with the questions that would never get answers. I was stuck with the questions that I could only ask Sophie. “Probably.”