Losing Hope

I’m not fucked up in the head. I’m not deranged. I’m not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m just a brother who loved his sister more than life itself, so I get a little intense when I think about her. And if I cope better by telling myself that what she did was noble, even though it wasn’t, then that’s all I’m doing. I’m just coping.” I allow her time to let my words sink in, then finish my explanation. “I fucking loved that girl, Sky. I need to believe that what she did was the only answer she had left, because if I don’t, then I’ll never forgive myself for not helping her find a different one.” I press my forehead to hers, looking her firmly in the eyes. “Okay?”
    I need her to understand that I’m trying. I might not have it together and I might not know how to move past Les’s death, but I’m trying.
    She presses her lips together and nods, then pulls my hands away. “I need to use the bathroom,” she says, quickly slipping around me. She rushes to the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.
    Jesus Christ, why did I even go there? I walk to the hallway, prepared to knock on the door and apologize, but decide to give her a few minutes first. I know that was really heavy. Maybe she just needs a minute.
    I wait across the hallway until the bathroom door opens up again. It doesn’t look like she’s been crying.
    “We good?” I ask her, taking a step closer to her.
    She smiles up at me and exhales a shaky breath. “I told you I think you’re intense. This just proves my point.”
    She’s already herself again. I love that about her.
    I smile and wrap my arms around her, then rest my chin on top of her head while we make our way to her bedroom. “Are you allowed to get pregnant yet?”
    She laughs. “Nope. Not this weekend. Besides, you have to kiss a girl before you can knock her up.”
    “Did someone not have sex education when she was homeschooled? Because I could totally knock you up without ever kissing you. Want me to show you?”
    She falls onto the bed and picks up the book that she read to me last night. “I’ll take your word for it,” she says. “Besides, I’m hoping we’re about to get a hefty dose of sex education before we make it to the last page.”
    I lie down beside her and pull her to me. She rests her head on my chest and begins reading to me.
    • • •
    I ball my hand up into a tight fist and keep it at my side, doing everything in my power not to touch her mouth. I’ve just never seen anything so perfect before.
    She’s been reading for well over half an hour now and I haven’t heard a damn word she’s said. Last night it was so much easier to pay attention to the actual story because I wasn’t looking directly at her. Tonight it’s taking every ounce of willpower I have not to claim her mouth with mine. She’s propped against me with her head on my chest, using me as her pillow. I’m hoping she can’t feel my heart pounding right now because every time she glances up at me when she flips a page, I squeeze my fists even tighter and try to keep my hands to myself but my resistance resonates in my pulse. And it’s not that I don’t want to touch her. I want to touch her and kiss her so bad it physically hurts.
    I just don’t want it to be insignificant to her. When I touch her . . . I want her to feel it. I want every single thing I say to her and every single thing I do to her to have significance.
    Last night when she told me she’s never felt anything when she was kissed, my heart did this crazy thing where it felt bound, like it was being constricted, just like the lungs in my chest. I’ve dated a lot of girls, even though I might have downplayed that to her. With every single girl I’ve been with, my heart has never reacted like it reacts to her. And I’m not referring to my heart’s feelings for her, because let’s be honest, I barely know her. I’m referring to my heart’s literal, physical reaction to her. Every time she speaks or smiles or, God forbid, laughs  . . . my heart reacts like it’s been sucker-punched. I hate it and like it and somehow have become addicted to it. Every time she speaks, the sucker-punch in my chest reminds me that there’s still something there.
    A huge internal part of me was lost when I lost Hope, and I was convinced Les took the very last contents of my chest with her when she died last year. After being with Sky these last two days, I’m not so sure about that,