Hope's Chance (4 page)

His second was not what I had wanted to wake up to.

I will see you tonight whether you like or not.

Wow! It seemed like a threat. However, I was in desperate need of a shower.
So
I decided to ignore his texts and only respond to
Rylee
’s.

Surprise me. Call me in a few hours.

Chance

Well, today had been an interesting one. I had the day off. I got walked in on naked. I met a girl. A girl walked out of my place frustrated. I saved the girl from a creep
. I watched the girl drive away.

Considering the last month of my life consisted of being around my sister and her father figure boyfriend, it was a eventful day. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Was I nice enough? Could I have been nicer? Would I ever see her again? Would she talk to me if she knew the truth?

The questions
burned through my mind, like the cigarette I never did smoke today. When I had arrived home all I could think about was her sweet smile and how scared she looked in that situation on the side of the road. I didn’t even want to think about what could have happened to her if I hadn’t been there.

She needed to be more careful. Just because there were a lot of country back roads, didn’t mean it was a safer place to be. She could be lying dead in a ditch right now.

I turned on
the local baseball game and lay
down on the couch. I had finished off the bourbon three hours ago, and all that was left in the fridge was flat container of coke and two bottles of water. I would have to go into town tomorrow and grab some groceries. I couldn’t continue to rely on my sister for everything. I needed to get it through my head that my past was buried two states away from here. Nobody knew me and I could be myself finally again after so long.

Just knowing that scared and excited me at the same time. I hoped that this would be the fresh start that I needed, God knows I had waited long enough for it.

When I woke the next morning, I felt unrested. The majority of the night had been filled with dreams of that girl Hope. Before I became some
pedophile
, I needed to find out everything my sister knew about her. I couldn’t believe she had been holding
out
on me. Why hadn’t she mentioned that Mr. Ryan has this smoking hot daughter? She obviously knew that she was coming over yesterday, but insisted on calling her “an important person”. I had to wonder if my dear sister was purposely keeping her away from me.
It was probably because she was a minor. I didn’t know any girl my age that wore ribbons in their hair.

Now that I think about it, I hadn’t seen any pictures hanging anywhere in the house. Buffy said they still had a huge storage unit that they needed to unload, so perhaps they were in there, but it was still strange. Why keep it a secret? Did they really think it was necessary to hide her existence from me?

I started feeling like they didn’t trust me at all. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but after everything that had happened to me, I couldn’t help but feel a little bent out of shape about it.

When I heard the door open and close I sat up, realizing I was still on the couch, instead of in my bed. I picked up my cell phone and noticed it was nearing ten in the morning already. My sister came prancing in like she had been up for hours. “Good morning sleepy head. Time to get up. Mark and I have big plans for us tonight.”

She handed me a cup of coffee and I could tell from the color of it, she had added cream and sugar just how I liked it. “Thanks for this.” I said as I took my first sip.

She sat down beside me and put her hands on her knees. I had to let out a chuckle when I noticed her entire outfit was in fact pink.

“What is so funny little brother.”

“Oh, it’s nothing really. I was just thinking about something that happened yesterday. On television.” I added the last part so she would let it go.

“So, anyway….Mark and I found this great little place across town. It is a restaurant that has a bar side with dancing. We decided that we are going to go check it out tonight. I am so excited.”

“Well that is good sis. I know how much you want to get out and meet new people here.” I said through sips.

“Oh that is the best part. Mark insisted that you come with us. Eeeek! I am so excited. We talked about it last night, but I didn’
t wan
t to come outside and wake you. Plus, I wasn’t wearing any clothes at the time.”

I set my coffee down on the table. “Ugh! Really? I don’t need that morning visual Buff. Damn!”

She smacked me on my leg. “Shut up Chance. You wouldn’t be complaining if you were in my shoes.”

“Sometimes I think that hair of yours has caused you permanent brain damage.” I blurted out.

She rolled her eyes and started running her hands through her hair. “Whatever!” She stood up and headed toward
the door. “We are leaving at eight
. Your better be ready, because if you aren’t we are coming in here and draggin your ass
with us.”

“Oh, I’m scared of that threat.”

“Seriously Chance, do it for me at least. Try!”

“Fine Buff. Whatever. I don’t think I ever had a option anyway. I live under your roof and have to abide by the rules.”

She leaned her head back in the door, as she stepped the rest of her body outside. “Just be ready when I said.” She walked away and I picked up the coffee again, but as soon as the door closed it re-opened. “Oh and Chance, no drinking today. I can’t have your ass all incoherent before we even leave for dinner.”

I shook my head once I knew she was gone.  The last thing I wanted to do was go out with my sister and her boyfriend dancing. I hated to dance, and more importantly watch how my sister did it. Every guy in that bar would be mind fucking her. It was disturbing as all hell.

C
hapter 5

Hope

When
Rylee
finally called
me
she said she had a way for us to have a “real good time” tonight. I rolled my eyes while talking on the phone with her, but made her promise it had nothing to do with
Trevor
. He was getting on my nerves and I couldn’t shake the way he sounded in that last text message. Maybe I was just interpreting it wrong, but I was
leery
still.

Rylee
finally arriv
ed at my house around six p.m. S
he was wearing a regular looking
sun dress
. It was close to the blue one I had worn yesterday. But, once she made it into the confines of my room she slipped it down revealing the tightest, skimpiest thing I had ever seen. It was black and opened up on the sides from her rib cage down to her hips. Large metal buckles were holding it together.

Rylee
was a gorgeous girl. She had dark hair, almost black and dark brown eyes. Her father was from Pakistan and she got his dark complexion. Our friends hated being around the both of us, because we were so much darker than all of them.
I was always thankful that I got that trait from my mother. Her dad was of Cherokee descent and he had passed down the creamiest brown skin a girl could ask for. I hadn’t even had to go tanning for the prom, like all of
our
other friends did. Instead,
Rylee
and I would go to the ice cream shop and get milkshakes while we waited on
the
other girls.

“So what do you think?”
Rylee
asked while smoothing out the platinum colored dress.

“You look hot, but I
didn’t
have anything like that. Where did you even buy something like that?” I asked.

“At my mother’s
shop. Girl, you would be surprised what people turn into the second hand store. Anyway, I was working for my mom last weekend in the back. All of these bags had come in and I grabbed as many as these babies as I could and shoved them in my purse.” She explained.

“There are more? You have got to be joking?”

“Girl, I’m not! There was an entire bag. A few of them I wouldn’t even wear.”

Considering what this one looked like I was afraid to imagine what those must have been like. “So where are we going anyway, cause I can’t imagine wearing that
to the
big five.”

The big five was a group of fast food places all in the same block of each other, in the middle of our small hick town. They made no sense, but seemed to remain open anyway.

“Silly girl, it’s a secret.” She threw some bunched up fabric at me. “Now pick which one you are going to hide under your clothes
,
so I can start on your hair and makeup.”

I held the fabric in my hand. “You have got to be kidding. There is no way in Hell I am wearing either of these.”

“Trust me.” She said as she primped in the mirror. “You are gonna fit right in where we are going.”

I stretched out the two dresses across my bed. For me to be even considering either of them was against my religion, and I didn’t mean that in any biblical way.

The lime green dress was tight and short, but draped down in the front. I wasn’t sure I had a bra that I could wear, and I was too big to be without one. “This is a no!”

“Fine then it is settled
. You are wearing the pink and black one.”
Rylee
interrupted.

“You know I hate pink.” I slammed.

“Too late. Now, hurry up and get it on so we can get ready.” She ordered.

I shook my head and grabbed the small fabric into my fist, heading toward the bathroom. Once inside I held it up against my body. It looked too small but once I got it on, it fit against every curve of my body. I wasn’t modest, but there was a whole different level of confidence needed to pull off wearing something like this. When I looked in the mirror
,
I noticed how the pink wasn’t as much as I had originally suspected. The center of the spaghetti strapped dresses front and back were black, but on each of the sides were bright pink. I guess it was made to accent the person’s curves. From the way it draped down in the front, it made my breast almost double in size. Finally, before I put another dress over it, so that my mother wouldn’t see, I bent over to do the ass check. Of course, in doing so, as I feared, I could see my white lace panties.

I still had no idea where we were going. There was nothing to
do
in this town and we were way too young to get into either of the bars here.

When I walked out of the bathroom I was wearing a normal summer dress. It was yellow with white daisies all over it. I headed in to the bedroom and
Rylee
rolled her eyes. “What?”

“You weren’t even going to let me see it?”

“I didn’t want to get caught. My mother would kill me if she saw me wearing something like that. Are you going to tell me where we are going?” I asked as she sat me down in front of my mirror and started messing with my hair.

“No, it is a surprise. Just be quiet and let me do my magic.”

“Fine, but my mother will suspect something if you cover my face in makeup.” There was no way I could go out of the house with as much makeup as
Rylee
wore on a normal basis. My mother would have had a heart attack.

“I will do your makeup once we leave stupid. Geesh give me some credit. I got a diploma too ya know.”

I rolled my eyes and sat back in the chair as
Rylee
curled my hair. When it was all said and done I looked like I was headed to a photo shoot.
Rylee
was pleased with her work, I could see it on her face.

I slipped on a pair of sandals and she rolled her eyes again. She reached into her giant purse and pulled out a pair of black high heels. “You will be wear
ing these once we get out of
this church house.”

“Shut up, she isn’t that bad.”

“Oh yes she is.”

My mother was taking a nap when we headed out of the house. She barely opened her eyes to kiss me goodbye, as I told her I would be staying at
Rylee
’s house overnight. We made it out of there without any extra questions, which was a first.

Chance

My sister had barged in my place three times during the day. A few times I just wanted to get on my bike and leave, but I really had no place to go. She knew how I was feeling about going out in public. I hadn’t done it in so long now. I could only assume she thought I would break down and go completely crazy.

To be honest, I didn’t really like being around people. After what happened to me, I couldn’t trust anyone. My friends had
showed me that.

I looked through my closet, realizing I hadn’t even unpacked any of my nice clothes. Before everything happened, I had lots of fun events to attend at Penn State. My rich girlfriend had taken me shopping and left me with a closet of designer clothes. I grabbed one of the boxes out of the back of my closet and started looking through it. I found a few v-neck t-shirts that were still folded nicely in the box. I was amazed considering all I remember was throwing things in boxes when we moved.