Falling for Hope by Natalie Vivien

Lindsey were drenched, but Amy had held the kitten beneath her
jacket, and the little thing was hardly damp at all.   Amy placed the kitten gently on the floor and asked again, when
no one answered, “Guys, did Hope come back?”
    Aspen wandered into the kitchen
with a big yawn, still wearing her pajama bottoms and tank top.   “I haven’t seen Hope,” she said sleepily,
opening up the refrigerator door and staring into its depths with wide eyes, as
if hypnotized.   The bolt of lightning
and roll of thunder made her jump a little, and she looked less sleepy when she
shut the door, turning back to face Lindsey and Amy.   “Why?   Did she go
somewhere?”
    “She went out hiking this morning,”
said Amy, throat tight as she glanced down at her watch.   11:50.
    “She’s not come back yet,” said
Irene from the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a steaming cup of
coffee.   She glanced up at Lindsey and
Amy.   Her brow was etched with worry,
and that’s when Amy’s stomach sank.
    If Irene was worried about Hope,
there was definitely reason to worry.
    The rest of the women congregated
in the kitchen, pouring cups of coffee and murmuring softly.   Amy stood beside the kitten, feeling her
stomach sink lower and lower, balling her hands into fists, waiting for the
clock to tick to noon, because if noon came and Hope wasn’t back yet, that
would mean...  
    The door to Chris’s bedroom opened
wide.
    Chris stood in the doorway, leaning
against it, one arm arched over her head as she stared out at the women
gathered in the kitchen with a frown.   She straightened when she spotted Amy and came over to her, hands buried
in jean pockets, her frown deepening as she tossed her carefully styled cowlick
of blonde hair out of her eye.
    “What’s this about Hope?” she
muttered, as Amy stared at her warily.
    “Hope went out for a hike this
morning,” said Amy, her voice catching as both she and Chris glanced out the
window at the torrents of falling water.   “She said she’d be back by noon, but she’s not back yet.”
    Chris eyed the wall clock.   “It’s eleven fifty-eight.”
    Amy blinked at her,
incredulous.   “This is a really stupid
time to make jokes,” she muttered, tightening her hands into fists again.
    Chris shrugged, her face still
contorted into an ugly frown.   “Yeah,
well…” she growled, and the words trailed off.   She glanced down at the floor, her shoulders lowering a little.   “Look, I don’t want to worry you, but…Hope
would have known to come back.   She’s my
bestie, right?   We’ve hiked those trails
a hundred times.   We know the trail
protocol.   She would have seen the
storm.   She would have known to
come back.”
    Amy’s heart rose up into her
throat.   “What are you saying?” she
asked, and Chris shook her head, glanced toward the rest of the women, who were
all listening.
    “Look, if Hope isn’t back yet,
something went wrong,” Chris said, voice rising.  
    Irene bit her lip, shaking her head
as she stared at the wall clock.   “I
think we should go after her,” she said quietly.
    “I’ll go get the flashlight from
the truck,” said Lindsey, her voice uncharacteristically shaky.   Amy stepped out of Lindsey’s way, feeling
wooden, numb, as Chris watched her, as Chris’s
features—uncharacteristically—softened.
    “Look…”   She worked her jaw, gazed past Amy, out toward the woods that Amy
could hardly make out beyond the rain.   “She might have missed the signs.   She was probably…lost in thought, not paying attention.   She might have just kept hiking—”
    “Amy.”   Irene was shrugging into her jacket and pulling a baseball cap
over her hair.   “Have you tried calling
her cell phone?”
    Amy shook her head miserably.   “She left her phone on the dresser last
night,” she said, remembering her alarm when she’d seen the phone there that
morning.   “Cell phones don’t work very
well on the mountain, anyway, so