Read Never to Hope for Free Online

in order to get through a rough spot in her life. Even though I still hadn’t told her my real name, or anything even remotely relevant about my life for that matter, I’d always felt protective of her. We’d kept in touch after she left but hadn’t spoken in a month or so.
    “Hey, how are you?” Madison asked. I shook off my morning grumpies when I heard her voice.
    “Good, good. Everything’s…” I debated telling her about Carter but decided against it. There wasn’t much to tell, other than the fact I had a new friend who seemed to like me -like me. She would probably give me some spiel about why I should give it a go with him, and I didn’t want to listen to it from her. It was better to just avoid the topic altogether.
    “Good?”
    “Yes, smartass. Now are you going to tell me why you decided to wake my tired ass up on a Wednesday morning?”
    “Haven’t talked to you in a while. Wanted to check in to make sure everything’s okay.”
    “Yes, Mom, I’m fine.” Madison was less than a year older than me, but she was a natural-born mother. She apparently had no problem using that skillset on me. “How’s everything with you?”
    “Everything is wonderful. Well, for the most part anyway. Kristy is still making life hell, but that’s to be expected.” Kristy, Madison’s life-long nemesis, was a complete psycho. “Peyton is getting so tall and is doing really well in her new school,” she continued. Her niece, Peyton, was now in the third or fourth grade. I’d only met her once when they came for a visit, and she was the cutest kid I’d ever seen. If I ever had a daughter, which I most likely wouldn’t, I’d want her to be like Peyton.
    “That’s the school that specializes in helping kids with dyslexia, right?”
    “Yep. The teachers are great. Her reading score went up three grade levels during the first semester.”
    “That’s awesome!” I enjoyed hearing about her family. Living vicariously through her was one of the things I liked most about our chats. “How’s the little guy?”
    “He’s great; getting huge. I’ll email you some pic—Hold on a sec.” She covered the receiver and spoke to someone in the same room for a few seconds. “Hey, sorry about that. I have to go. Talk to you later?”
    “Sure. Thanks for calling.”
    “Of course. Take care of yourself.” There she went with the mothering again.
    “You too. Bye.”
    As soon as the call was disconnected, I sat up in my bed. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep now; I was already too awake. My phone said it was close to eleven, which was what time I normally woke up, but I hadn’t fallen asleep until almost six this morning. My brain just wouldn’t turn off when I got home from work.
    After taking a shower and getting dressed, a leftover bagel began calling my name from the kitchen. Sitting on the counter next to the bakery bag was the unopened letter from the university. My fears about the decision it contained came back in full force, so I did the cowardly thing and turned my back to it.
    A knock sounded on my door just as I was about to start the coffeemaker. Carter was looking back at me when I squinted through the peephole.
    “Hey,” I said when I opened the door.
    Still standing in the hallway, he smiled and held up a backpack. “Are you hungry? I thought we could have a picnic in the park today.”
    “Have you slept at all?” Even though he said he didn’t sleep much, it would have taken some time to prepare a picnic lunch.
    “I got home early last night. The thing I was working on wrapped up at four, so I just took a couple of vacation hours instead of finding something else to do.”
    “Didn’t you just start there recently? How do you have vacation time already?”
    “Our union contract gives us a pool of time up front.” He hoisted up the backpack again. “So, what do you say?”
    “That sounds an awful lot like a date,” I replied, stepping back to let him into the