Page 1 of Never Too Late

Prologue

Sophie

I hated every inch of Hopeful.

It was nowhere near as awesome as Denver was. And none of my friends were here.

I didn’t even want to think about why I was stuck living in Hopeful.

Even in my twelve-year-old mind, I knew without a doubt, if I did, I would crumble and nothing and no one would ever be able to put me back together.

“Come on, Sophie,” my grandmother whispered. Even she had trouble speaking at a normal volume for the last ten days. “Let’s get you settled.”

I stood still by the door. I didn’t want to get settled. I didn’t want to even be here.

I wanted to go home. To my friends. To them.

My grandmother ignored the fact I stayed where I was, silent and not coming inside, and moved farther into the house, pulling her coat off her shoulders.

She didn’t look back at me, but she stopped by the wall, looked to her right and froze.

I knew why that was, and just a fleeting thought closed my throat and started to burn.

At the sight of my grandmother bringing her fingers to her lips, kissing them lightly, and then those fingers moving to the frame that hung on that wall only to touch it for a second opened the floodgate and tears started gliding down my cold cheeks.

“Gran?” I croaked. At the sound of my broken whisper, Evelyn Moore did something I never saw her do. She bowed her head and her shoulders started shaking uncontrollably.

I’ve never seen her cry before.

I took a step toward her but didn’t get any farther.

That was because she curled into herself, her arms still trapped by her coat that was hanging loosely off her shoulders and down her back, wrapping around her.

And then. God, then, a wail that resembled a wounded animal tore from her chest.

“Granny,” I called, but she didn’t respond.

Her back to me, I could see she pushed her arms out and in front of her, and in the next second her fists slammed into the lower part of her abdomen.

I watched stunned as she repeatedly punched her stomach.

“God,” she wailed, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I ran to her, threw my arms around her middle, and buried my face in her back.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, standing in the middle of the hallway, crying.

After a while, she pulled me gently around her, bent over, and took my face into her hands.

“No more,” she whispered, whipping the wet from my cheeks. “No more of this, my Sophie.” I watched as the tears clung to her wet eyelashes. “There will be a time when you will feel like you can’t breathe from how much you miss them. And it’s okay to cry if you need to.” I focused on her eyes that were shining with the love she felt for them. “But we will never again let the grief cripple us like this. We had our moment of complete desperation, we gave in to the overwhelming pain just for a second. But we also put them to rest, we said our goodbyes. And they deserve for us to live the best lives we can, carrying them with us every step of the way. We owe them that. I promise you, my girl, I will help you out of this darkness that you’re in now.”

I turned my head and looked at the picture that pulled such a visceral reaction from my grandmother just minutes ago.

In it, they were smiling.

It was a random photo of my parents.

They were sitting together on the couch in my grandmother’s living room.