The Hour of Dreams Read Free Page A

old me again. No thanks.”
    The conversation was all happening so fast, and in a very uncomfortable location. Sure, I didn’t have a solution or experience with such a situation, but my senses were clinging to her and I didn’t want her to leave and go through it by herself.
    “I’ll help you do whatever you need. Just take it easy for now. You have time to decide. And you’re right. He was wrong. You deserve more support than that. We’ll fix it. Okay? Just go home and relax.”
    “I can’t relax.”
    “Just let me think of something. I’ll meet you later, okay?”
    It took her a few moments to answer, but she finally gave me a maybe and drove off looking more pitiful than I’d ever seen someone look.

Chapter 3

WORRIES
     
    B ack inside, I told Mr. Healey that Dawn wasn’t feeling well, and I avoided him the rest of the day. Simple tasks became tedious, as thoughts of Dawn stayed on my mind. She was pregnant. I’d grown to love Dawn and her family and had considered us close. How had I not known? Although we had never talked about how serious she and Jackson were, looking back, I guessed it was obvious. But the fact that she'd been pregnant for the last seven weeks hadn’t been obvious. Or had it, and I'd just missed it?
    Thinking back, we’d worked together three days a week, and I hadn't picked up on anything unusual. Guilt started to permeate my stomach; I'd been such a poor friend. I looked at my watch, counting the minutes until the end of my shift.
    Wes and I were supposed to go out to dinner, but, not wanting to leave Dawn to handle this alone, I called him and canceled. He said he would stay late at the lab and get some work done. My worrisome self would have liked to give more thought to what he was doing there, but I was too relieved about having the chance to find Dawn without feeling bad about standing him up.
    This time, when my shift ended, the Tahoes were an unwanted addition. Danger was the last thing on my mind at that point. I just wanted to help a friend, and their presence felt invasive. I turned up the radio as if it could make them go away, and used the temporary relief to think about what to say when I got to Dawn’s.
    By the time I arrived, a light drizzle had started, so I turned on my windshield wipers and crept down her narrow street, looking for her car. Danny’s pickup truck was there, but her Honda was nowhere to be found, and she wasn’t answering her phone. Any other time, I would’ve considered it no big deal, but not tonight.
    The rain started to pound on my windshield, and the rain and I had never been best friends. The warm, dry confines of my home were calling to me, but finding Dawn felt like a necessity. The longer it took, the more guilt emerged, causing me to doubt our friendship even more. We’d been friends for more than a year now, and the only places I knew her to hang out were her house, Jackson’s, or with me and Wes when we were doubling. Other than that, I had no clue where she could be.
    The rain was not helping matters, and now I had to turn the radio off just to think. I was coming up blank, so I started thinking about what I would do if I were in her shoes.
    Of course I would be devastated if that happened to me and Wes reacted like Jackson had. There was no way I’d be convinced that he’d put his lacrosse career ahead of our baby’s life.
    It was those doubts that made me think that Dawn wouldn’t believe it either. She was really upset and crushed by his reaction, but I thought she would give him another chance to change his mind. I turned my car around and headed toward his house, which was only about ten minutes past hers.
    By the time I reached his long, winding street, the rain had lightened some, but not much. I could at least see out of my side windows, but it wasn’t easy. Dawn’s car was dark blue, which blended in with the night just perfectly, so I crept along the street at a snail’s pace, glancing out each side, trying to locate