Under The Mistletoe

2| Rumor

Chapter 2: Rumor (Blake's POV)

I walked into the house completely covered in sweat, my hair was damp too, and I was stinking. 

"Blake!" I entered the kitchen, taking my earphones out. "I need your help. I made too many of these today." My mom works in a catering company. "And I'm giving them out around the block. The only house left is Mr. Kingston's, will you go drop it off, please?" 

"Right now? Mom, I'm covered in sweat, let me take a shower," I replied, heading for the staircase. 

"No, Blake. Right now! It'll be dinner time soon, it'll go to waste then." 

"What if he isn't home?" I know he works late. 

"Then leave it on his porch with a note. Here, I already wrote one," she said, handing me the tray of lasagna with a sticky note stuck to the top. I set my phone and earphones on the counter and grabbed the tray, groaning in protest. I was heading out when she stopped me. "I feel like there's something you should know before I send you there..." She was mostly mumbling to herself but that's all I could make out. 

"Mom, are you okay?" I chuckled. 

She seems so nervous. "You know about Hope, don't you?" 

"Hope? The one who left? What about her?" I asked, my smile all gone. 

"She's back." I stared at my mom, not knowing what to say. "She's been back for a while," she sighed, "She was by my work today, I saw her outside. You should know before you go on over to her house. If her dad isn't home, she'll answer the door." She dusted her hands, placed them on her hips, then looked at me. "I've heard a rumor that her father asked her to come back. I guess it's not such a rumor if he's confirmed it though," she shrugged, getting busy with work. 

I stood there for a minute, not knowing what to do. I just picked up the lasagna tray, deciding to leave it on the front porch and not even risk ringing the doorbell. I'm not ready to see her again. Things were a mess with the way they happened, let me tell you how that was. At least from my point of view. 

We hung out the night before she was leaving. Only I didn't know she was leaving. I remember going to the arcade with her. This was two years ago, that was our idea of fun, all right? 

It still is but whatever. 

We were hanging out and I remember kind of forcing her there because her mom had passed away about two months before that night and Hope was keen on locking herself up in her room and never coming out. I just wanted to help her cope so I was taking her everywhere, seeing her every day, getting her food, toys, candy, trying to make her smile. And for the first time since forever, she smiled that night and she laughed. And I thought I did something. But apparently not. 

Because the next morning when I went to her house, she was gone. She had left the city and gone to the opposite coast. Her dad told me that she wasn't able to handle things very well after her mom's death and she wanted an escape so she enrolled herself at a boarding school in New York, and left. At fifteen years old, she left. All on her own. 

He said one of her aunts within New York was going to be keeping an eye on her and basically being like her parent there and she wasn't going to come back until she thought she was ready to. I really thought she was never coming back. I believed the death of a parent isn't something you ever get over, so I thought she was leaving and starting a new life for herself. But I'm guessing she was either ready to come home, or she missed her dad, or he really asked her to come. 

I stopped in front of her house, seeing the lights on inside. I slowed down my speed and left the tray on their porch table, deciding that I'd ring the doorbell and then run as fast as I could. Which is very cowardly of me. I was about to ring the doorbell and sprint, but I didn't. I walked down the porch and over to the side of the house where the kitchen window was.