Losing Love

16

Hope's POV:

It's been 12 days since Ryder died and I've spent all my time in bed at my parents house with Nora and Kyle. It's winter break so Kyle is back home for now.

I haven't spoken to any of the guys since I left, but Nora, my family and I are going to New York for Christmas. Today is the 24th of December and it's 11:09am.

"What about this dress?" Nora questions as she lifts a purple long sleeve dress from my closet, this was the last one left and I shake my head no. She places it back neatly and releases a long breathe while jumping on to sit on the bed next to me.

"Hey" she whispers softly, "he wasn't the same person" she lifts my head up with the end of her index and middle fingers and wipes a stray tear with the pad of her thumb. I flash her a small closed-mouth smile before gathering my emotions up and bringing myself back to normal.

"Let's go shopping" I request and she nods in agreement, grabbing her bag from the table.

We're in a random store looking for dresses. We agreed that if we don't find anything here then we could continue our shopping in New York.

"Find anything?" I nudge Nora, to which she just shakes her head.

We head outside and walk out the doors when I feel a hand grip around my wrist. I get pulled into a hard chest and shriek when I almost fall. Through the motion, I spot blonde hair and my heart skips a beat.

I look in front of me and Nora is turning around. Her eyes widen in shock when she faces me.

Matt is standing behind me, holding me close to his chest with a small knife pressed close to my throat. I look around to see a crowd of people all looking at the scene, some people are dialling, what I hope is, 911. He screams violent threats at Nora while she begs him to let me go.

It felt like a lifetime.

"YOU EMBARRASSED ME" he yells in anger. At this, Nora stops crying and looks me in the eye with an idea, before turning to face Matt, "I-I love you" she says straight to his face in a nervous, yet blunt tone.

Matt's body tenses up as he loosens his grip on the knife. I take this as my cue to grab the knife from out of his hand and throw it away. I hear the clink of steel hit the hard ground. I pull myself away from his grip and run as far away as I can from him. To my luck, I see at least five police officers climb out their cars with guns held firmly in their hands. Two of the officers spot me, one male and one female, and run up to me while tucking their guns back in their belt.

"I WILL GET YOU BACK NORA, YOU WILL REGRET THIS YOU FUCKING BITCH" Matt howls, his neck going red in fury as he's pushed into the back of a police car.

After an hour of getting checked by the paramedics, I'm free to go. One of the people in the crowd knew my parents and called my dad so now my parents are here. I never told my parents about what happened to me in New York, they don't know about Ryder or about how he tried to kill me. I feel bad considering my parents and I used to be so close, but I figured they would worry too much and I didn't want to put them through that. The police wanted to question Nora about Matt but my dad got her out of it.

Nora and I are heading to my car to go to New York and my parents are behind us going to their car. They'll be joining us in New York later in the day.

I hear faint whispers of my dad speaking to my mom, I overhear one sentence. "It's time we tell her", I can't hear much after that.

Tell me what?

I hop into my car as my parents look at me with a worried expression. I look back at them. "What?" I snap. My parents heads turn to each other, my mom shakes her head at my dad and he nods and turns back to me. "Nothing sweetie, I love you. Be safe and call if you need anything." He happily exclaims. I give him a small smile, "I love you too" and I close my door.