In the Hope of Memories

Chapter One-- Erik

"Um." I take a step back. "I'm Erik. I'm here for the party. It's here, right?"

He gives a small, defeated sigh and starts closing the door. I stick my hand out to stop him. "Wait," I say. "I'm looking for Hope. She dropped by an invite that said she'd be here."

And it's like those words flip a switch, because the dude looks up and stares at me with eyes that are full and round and dark, dark brown. He sort of reminds me of a cherub from a Renaissance painting, except he's a little more gaunt and a lot more African American.

"Hope is dead," he says.

He talks in a total monotone, like he's stating the day of the week or his favorite ice cream flavor. I wait for him to crack a grin and tell me it's some sick joke, but he just starts closing the door again.

"Wait!" I slam my hand against the door to stop it from clicking shut, wincing as the splintered wood digs into me. "I'm looking for Hope. Hope Jackson. She said she'd be here."

He shakes his head. "She's dead."

My heart stutters a fast and hard beat, like it does right when I get tackled on the field. "No. No, she's not. She's the exact opposite of dead. Today is her eighteenth birthday. Her birthday party is about to start right now."

Official Reason Number Infinity it Sucks to Be Going Blind: When you can't see right, you can't stop a fist from colliding with your face. The dude's knuckles crash into my jaw, and I yelp, more out of shock than pain. I'm about to pound my own fist into the freak when he starts talking again, this time in a tone that's actually kind of pissed.

"She's dead, you jerk! You really think it's funny to joke about that?"

"I'm not joking!" I rub at my jaw with the back of my clenched hand. Part of me is itching to mess up this guy's face, but a larger part is starting to panic. "You're the one with the wrong info," I say, silently praying I'm right. "Hope isn't dead."

The dude stares down at his hand and slowly curls and uncurls his fingers, like he can't quite believe he just threw a punch. Then he whispers, "You're not messing with me?"

"No! What kind of sick joke would that be? Like I said, I'm just trying to find her birthday party. I got an invite from her, I swear. It said to come here."

"Oh."

Apparently, this conversation isn't weird enough for him, so he has to add in some awkward silence. Fan-freaking-tastic. Just when I'm starting to think he's slipped into a coma, he says, "Sorry I punched your face."

I take a deep breath. "Just tell me where her birthday party is, okay?"

"I told you, there is no party. Hope is dead."

"Christ, are you seriously going to make me explain this again? She's not dead. It's her birthday today. As in the day when you celebrate a person being alive."

"It would have been her birthday," the dude says, slipping back into his strange monotone. "But now she's dead."

The seriousness in his voice makes my gut twist, and for a moment, I wonder if maybe he hurt Hope. My hand edges toward my pocket, but just as I'm considering grabbing my cell phone and dialing 9-1-1, I see a tear trickle down the dude's cheek. It looks strange on his expressionless face, but another quickly follows, and then a third. He sniffs and turns away, wiping his right eye on the battered sleeve of his hoodie.

"What happened?" I ask, my voice a cracked whisper. All sorts of scenarios rush through my head—Hope's plane crashing on vacation, a car accident, getting caught in a wrong-place-wrong-time shooting...

"You don't know?" the dude asks.

"No. Was it in the news?"

The smallest beginning of a frown tugs at his lips. "Of course not. Why would the news report about a stroke victim?"

"Stroke?" I repeat. "She had a stroke? What...why? What triggered it? She's a health freak."

He blinks slowly and then says again, "You don't know?"

I shake my head and rake my hands through my hair. "No," I snap, looking up at clouded sky and away from his tears. "Look, I don't know what the hell happened to her. All I know is that she's been in Europe for the past month, and she was supposed to get back from vacation this week, and her birthday party is supposed to be here."

"Hope hasn't been in Europe," he says. "She's been in the hospital. I talked with one of her nurses earlier this morning. She had a major stroke two days ago. It killed her instantly."

All this he says in that creepy, emotionless voice of his. But tears keep streaming down his cheeks, and I get the feeling the smallest puff of breath would send him toppling over. I'm not feeling so hot myself—my lungs are choking on nothing, and as I rub my forehead, I feel my hands shaking. No. No, they're not actually shaking, because this can't be real, because I have to be hallucinating, because Hope can't be dead.

"How do I know you're not lying?" I demand.

"Look in today's paper. Her obituary is in there." He cringes. "They spelled her middle name wrong. I think her foster mom did it on purpose. Hope wouldn't have wanted me to think that, but I do."

"Aiden!" The voice comes from somewhere inside the house, and it's slurred and angry sounding. "Aiden, who's at the door? Who're you talking to?"

Aiden. Oh, shit, I know who this dude is. Hope talked about Aiden a lot—he's a co-worker at her school's tutoring center. She'd said he was kind of quirky, and I should have guessed that Hope's definition of "quirky" is my definition of "weirdo with stupidly sad puppy eyes." But Hope also said Aiden was a good dude, so I'll trust her on that. I think I have to. After all, she's dead, and it's rude to disrespect the dead, right?

I heave in a breath and brace my hands on my knees. Usually, I enjoy my ability to remember quotes from stuff I read, but now I'm hating it. Because the only quote I can recall is, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." I used to think C.S. Lewis must've been drunk when he wrote that, because grief is what happens when you lose something and can't worry about it anymore.

But no. Now I get it. The world just did a complete one-eighty without any sort of permission, and I have no idea what happens next, or if it's even possible for anything to happen next, and this is freaking terrifying.

Aiden starts closing the door again, but I say, "Wait." I'm not sure how he even hears me—my voice is a pathetic whimper. But he pauses right before the door shuts. "Hope wanted me here," I say. "She gave me an invitation to this address on this date."

Aiden goes silent for a long moment. "It must have been a mistake. Maybe she accidentally said something she didn't mean to."

"No, you don't get it. The invite came this morning."

"That's not possible. Hope's been dead since Thursday."

"It was in her handwriting," I insist. He just stares at my shoulder and starts edging the door closed again. I blurt out, "Would you just wait? Just for a minute? I'll show you the invite. You're that dude from her tutoring job, right? So you'd know her handwriting if you saw it."

Aiden shakes his head, but I can't tell if he's answering my question or trying to deny the entire situation. I want to join him, to just shake my head until I convince the world that this reality is unacceptable, that something needs to be fixed so Hope can come back.

But then Aiden clicks the door shut, leaving me alone on the porch with this broken reality that has no fix in sight.

***

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