I can't see but I feel it

 

Hope still wasn't sure why Frankie hadn't confronted Tori. She kept telling herself she really didn't need to know, but when she practically saw him daily, either at the yoga studio or at home she felt she needed to know. After all, he couldn't help but talk of her.

"I don't even know if you know what you are doing it, but you talk about Tori an awful lot," Hope said, wishing she hadn't used the word awful. Of course, it was hard to relate because she didn't want to know anything about Kenny. A part of her hoped he was in jail, but her luck he was hiding out in Mexico with a toddler and had found someone new to help him take care of the kid with another on the way.

Yes, she sometimes had nightmares about this. Even worse, the idea of him showing up. She really wanted to get away, and Frankie might be the only one who could help.

"What?" He was of course, in the middle of stretching on his livingroom floor. She thought he might be doing a marathon of yoga even if he said it helped him to be a better yoga instructor because he hated his job at the hospital.

"Oh nothing," she went back to her What to expect... the last tri-master book. She would be quiet. It was true they lived in separate worlds and occasionally went out together. Usually, grocery shopping.

"If you're asking if Tori's baby is mine, it's not," he announced as if he thought she could figure that part out.

Hope nodded. 

"I don't know what Megan thinks," he asked if she'd said anything to her.

Hope shook her head no. Why did she suddenly want to meet someone who could take her away from all this, into some wild fantasy? Hope squinted then, remembering why she'd gotten mixed up with Kenny in the first place. Truly a dead end, but not really. She patted her stomach and it kicked her back.

A sad feeling consumed her. This was nothing like the life she imagined. Of course, she'd never really imagined one and now it was happening. Hell, it was practically May, she thought. It would be July before she knew it. And she really wanted to have her own place. Nothing was looking feasible these days.

"You don't look happy?" Frankie got up and went to sit on the couch.

"Oh, I'm fine." But she couldn't smile. It was hard to swallow her pride. "I put in a low-income housing application."

"What?" His expression was so how could you.

Even a lump emerged in her throat. Hope couldn't think how it might be. Alone with a baby waiting for a baby snatcher to find her. She nursed her bottom lip.

"I have to do it this way," but she knew any second she might be dripping with tears, and she was. Frankie gave her a hug and let her cry into his tracksuit.