Any soft feelings I’d nursed slammed back into hard ones. “I’m not your friend, Hope.”
She sighed as if she’d expected my answer but hoped for something else. “I know.” It didn’t stop her big, innocent eyes staring at me, filling me with yet more guilt.
If she kept looking at me like that, I’d have to leave. If she was lonely without her dad or nanny, then she should make friends with the other students.
Not with me.
Hadn’t she learned that lesson already?
I wasn’t looking for friends.
Ever.
I wanted to get away from her, but she dived into yet another conversation that required little input from me. “Cassie said I can jump tomorrow, now she knows my experience level. Isn’t that great?” She hopped up onto the bales behind her, her silly unicorn slippers banging against the golden stalks. “I can’t wait. Does Biscuit jump, Jacob? I’ve jumped before, but it’s always scary on a new pony.” She plucked a dried piece of grass and broke it in half. “I’m hoping I won’t let Cassie down. Show her and Dad that the lessons he bought me were worth it.”
I crossed my arms, moving to slouch against the stable wall. Despite the dangerous previous topic, I was happy to discuss horses. She made it easy, chirping away like a garden sparrow. “So your lessons over there took you from barely able to steer to jumping?”
She beamed. “Yes! I was hoping I could tell you all about it.”
I should be glad my unorthodox teaching method had shown her a passion for horses, but somehow, it pissed me off. When she didn’t elaborate further, I waved my hand impatiently. “Well?”
“Thanks to you, I love riding. The horse is my friend. I can tell it anything—even stuff I shouldn’t talk about, and they can’t tell on me. Not that you told on me. You didn’t tell anyone what I said.” Her head tilted to the side, her face so young and animated. “You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you, Jacob Ren Wild?” The greenness of her eyes seemed to darken, looking older than her twelve years.
“Don’t use my full name,” I muttered.
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it.”
“But it’s your name.”
“It’s my dad’s name.”
“And your dad is dead.” She nodded as if it made perfect sense. “Okay. From now on, you’re just Jacob.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She paused at the raw warning in my tone. But then she grew brave again, sticking her flat chest out with courage. “Why does everyone do that?”
“Do what?”
“Avoid talking about the dead?”
I tensed. “I don’t avoid talking—”
“Yes, you do. Everyone does. My mom died, too.”
God, she’d done it again; hooked me with hints of inappropriate things. She’d napped beside her dead mother. That was yet another similarity we shared—not that I’d slept beside a corpse—but we’d both seen and touched one.
I’d hugged Dad’s cold body as he was loaded into the ambulance, never to return.
I’d had nightmares over the strange wrongness for years afterward. No one at school had been around a dead family member. No one knew the black emptiness it left you with or how it forced you to grow up.
But…Hope did.
“I want to talk about it,” she whispered hotly. “I want to know why she killed herself, where did she go, is she watching me, is she sorry, does she wish she hadn’t done it, does she miss me, does she miss Dad, will I see her again, does she hear me when I say goodnight, can she see me cantering, is she proud?” Tears glittered but her chin came up higher, crushing my chest with a power only she could wield. “You’re my friend. If I can’t talk about this sort of stuff with you, then I can’t talk about it with anyone, and I’m so sick of not being able to talk about it.” She tugged her hair as if her head pounded with morbid questions. “Don’t you want to know? Don’t you ever stop to ask why?”
I ignored the part where she called me her friend again. My breath came short and choppy. “I know why.”
“You do?”
“Dad died because he was sick. Unlike your mom, he didn’t want to go anywhere.”
I gasped, wishing I could stuff such awful things back into the darkness where they belonged.
But I couldn’t, and Hope crumpled on the bale, her feet stopped kicking and her head bowed. “You’re right. Your dad is in Heaven. But my mom…she’s in Hell.”
My knees wobbled, desperate to run but tripping forward instead and collapsing me beside her on the hay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” I held up my hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
She sniffled, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “It’s okay. I’ve read stuff. I know that suicide is different from dying. It’s a sin.” She shivered as if a ghost tiptoed down her spine.