Page 91 of Catch and Cradle

I’m so sorry, Hope. I was so scared of the past repeating itself I stopped paying attention to all the signs telling me just how different and amazing the present is. You didn’t deserve that. You deserved to have me take your hand and share it all with you: the good and the bad, the fear and the joy.

I have never seen you as anything other than amazing, capable, and strong. You shine in every part of your life, and I’m sorry for handling things in a way that made you doubt how much I respect you. I want to untangle all the knots in this chain and make everything clear.

So here’s how this works: we’re going to do a new lacrosse drill I’ve come up with—a catch and cradle chain, specifically. If you’re up for it, you can take this ball and cradle it out of the locker room to your first partner. They’ll give you the next part of this letter and cradle the ball while you read, or they can read it out loud to you. I’ve told them all that’s okay. I want this to work whatever way is best for you. Then they’ll pass back to you, and you’ll continue up the chain.

I’ve thought about you at least once a minute every day, Hope. You’ve changed so much for me in such a short amount of time, and I want you to see that. Whatever else happens, you deserve to see just how wonderful you are.

Bye for now,

Becca

“Now she’s coming!” A shout from down the line makes me snap my head up, but there’s still no sign of Hope. “She’s still in the building, but she’s started!”

I didn’t think my heart could manage to climb any higher up my throat, but it does. My breath is coming in short little spurts now, and I force myself to shut my eyes and slow everything down.

All I can do is my best. All I can do is present her with the truth and make peace with whatever happens next.

Head up. Heart strong.

I still don’t have the patience to just stand here waiting for her to arrive, so I keep myself busy by reading through the rest of the master copy of the letter Hope will be receiving bit by bit.

You deserve an explanation for everything that’s happened, but I can’t do that without first telling you exactly what you mean to me. The absolute worst part of this mess is that it’s made you feel looked down on. Hope, you are one of the most looked up to people I know—not just by me, but by the whole team. Some people shine in a way that makes everything around them go dim, but not you. You light the world up. Cheesy? Maybe, but it’s absolutely true.

I noticed you the first time I saw you. You have that effect on people. I’m not going to lie and say a big part of that wasn’t your kickass lacrosse skills (yes, I’ve always thought you were a star player, even when I was calling you a troll). I’m also not going to lie and say a big part of that wasn’t how gorgeous you are and how dangerously cute you look in your glasses (yes, I was very into you even when I thought there was a zero chance probability of it coming to anything). Neither of those were the main reason, though. When I looked at you, even from the very start, it was like I felt this nudge at my back urging me towards something different. It was like I could sense my course shifting inch by inch every day until I finally collided with you.

I’d been pretty set in my course for a long time before I met you. I did everything I could to bring security to what was a pretty insecure life. I wanted things and people I could count on, and I see now I tried to achieve that through control instead of the one thing it really takes to rely on others: trust.

I scan through the next few paragraphs, wincing as I wonder what she’ll think when she reads them. I wrote out the story of my history with Kala, the disaster that was my first year, and the way things blew up with Lisa and the team. Every words was like pulling teeth, but when I had it all down on paper, I realized how much better I felt with it all out of me.

Hope deserved that from the start, but at least she has it now. There’s still no sign of her on the field, so I keep making my way through the pages in my hands.

I know you probably still have questions, and I’m happy to answer them, but when it comes to that day with Kala, I still have the same answer: I was helping a friend when she needed me. It wasn’t right to lie to Lisa about being busy studying, and I won’t be doing that to anyone again, but I will always protect Kala’s privacy. I understand if that isn’t enough of an explanation for you, but I hope you can believe it.

After that, I doubled down on living my life with the tightest control I could manage. I held onto the few things that hadn’t been blown to bits and told myself nothing would make me let go.

That’s not a life, though. That’s not living, and every minute I’ve spent with you has made me see that more and more. Life changes. It’s always moving and shifting, just like the sea or the sky. The world grows and evolves, and we have to grow and evolve right along with it. Counting on people isn’t about asking them not to change; it’s about trusting them to keep being there for you even when they do change.

Hope, just by being you, you’ve shown me how narrow the life I was living was, how stuck I was. I kept my head down, but you lifted it up. I’m ready to change, and I realized so much of that just by being around you.

The thud and clatter of a lacrosse ball hitting someone’s basket reaches my ears just before I get to the final few paragraphs—the ones I plan to read to Hope out loud. I follow the sound down to the end of the field and gasp when I see her. She’s just made it around the corner of the athletics centre, and she’s got her head bent over a piece of paper while Paulina stands grinning at her and cradling the ball.

Her glasses are missing; she must have already put her contacts in for practice. Her teal-tipped hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s wearing leggings and a baggy UNS sweater. Even now, I can’t stop myself from getting a little dazed by how sexy the whole ensemble is on her.

She finishes reading and stuffs the paper in the front pocket of her sweater. I watch, frozen in place, as she catches a pass from Paulina and starts cradling in turn. I expect her to run to the next girl in line, but instead, she stays right where she is and peers across the field.

She’s looking right at me.

I gasp again.

She’s too far for me to read the details of her expression. I can at least tell she’s not glaring at me, which I take as a good sign, but she’s not smiling either. From where I’m standing, her face looks oddly blank, like she hasn’t worked out what she’s feeling yet, or like she’s trying to hide it.

We’re locked in place for a few seconds. I notice the team members on the field all looking back and forth between us, but all I have eyes for is Hope. For those few seconds, it’s just us on this field. It’s just us in this world.

She’s made it this far. Something sparks and flares to life in my chest as I start to believe there might still be a chance.

The moment breaks, and Hope continues making her way up the line. She gets closer and closer, passing off with each teammate and reading the note they’ve been given or listening to a few as they read out loud. She doesn’t look at me again, but now that she’s only a few metres away, I can watch the shifts in her features as she reads. I see her eyebrows draw together and her forehead crease at times, but I also see the corners of her mouth lift and the way she raises her hand to her lips every once in a while.

I’m so focused on every miniscule detail and what it might mean that I don’t register how close she’s gotten until she only has one note left before mine. Jane is positioned a couple metres ahead of me, and before I have time to turn into a crumbling pile of nerves, Hope is taking the ball from her and turning to me.