Maybe, Someday (Hosie, Legacies)

Let Me In || Part-2

When she was in wolf form, she trotted up to the brunette and licked her face playfully. Josie ran her hands through Hope's coat and chuckled whole-heartedly.

"Go! You wanted to run." Josie muttered through squeals of laughter as Hope continued to play with her.

Eventually, Hope took off in a dead sprint. She ran around the clubhouse several times as quickly as she could just to blow off some steam. Then she took one swift lap through the entirety of the woods before returning to the clubhouse, to Josie, panting loudly and completely spent. She hadn't run that hard in a while. She usually just ran for fun. Tonight she ran with purpose. She needed clarity. She needed to wear herself out. She needed to not think for fifteen minutes. Or at least she hoped it wasn't very long, because she didn't want to leave Josie alone for long.

When she returned, the girl was curled up in the middle of the floor. At first, Hope assumed she was sleeping, but her shallow and uneasy breathing told her otherwise. She rushed to her. She nudged Josie with her snout and crawled into the brunette's arms. Josie's trembling immediately slowed as she wrapped her arms more securely around the wolf. Josie sneezed when Hope's fur tickled her nose but then she placed a kiss on the wolf's forehead.

Hope waited until Josie was calm and lucid enough to talk, if she wanted to. If she didn't, she planned to just lay with her until she was okay enough to walk back to the school. Hope lay there in Josie's arms in silence for so long, that her own eyes started to drift closed. But when Josie finally spoke, Hope's eyes popped open and she listened intently.

"For the last couple of weeks...since...you know, I have the same dream. It starts out fine, I'm with my friends, my family and even Josette is there. And we're at my birthday party. There's dancing and laughing. And then, one by one, everyone starts to disappear. First Penelope and MG. Then Josette and you. Then my parents. And finally it's just me and Lizzie. And then she's gone too and I'm all alone. I scream and no one is there to hear me. I look around and try to find anyone who can help me, but it's like...I'm the one who's not there. That's when the dream shifts. And we're at the party again...everyone I ever cared about is right there. But no one sees me. I try to dance with them. I try to talk to them. I try to hug them. But nothing. They don't hear me or feel me. It isn't like I just disappeared...it's like...it's like I never existed."

Hope whined at the admittance. She started to get agitated by the retelling of Josie's dream. It hit her all of a sudden, that her dream might be tied to the charm. Hope considered the fact maybe the charm didn't save her...maybe the charm was the cause of Josie reliving her trauma. If she inadvertently made things worse for Josie, she'd never forgive herself.

"Hey, stop freaking out on me. I'm not telling you this so you can blame yourself or so you can fix it...you promised me last night that you weren't going to try to fix it...that you were just going to be by my side as I figured it all out. That's what I need from you, Hope. Can you do that?"

Hope licked the underside of Josie's chin in response. Then she idly wondered how Josie had still been able to read her so well without the charm. She was still able to sense Hope's racing heart and her agitated state and even acknowledged some of Hope's worse fears. It made her wonder if she even removed the charm after all. Maybe it didn't work. No, she got the spell right. She practiced it intensely ever since she made the decision that she wanted to remove it.

"The nightmares are bad enough. They terrify me and when I wake up screaming...part of me is still scared that no one will hear me. But last night...you did. You heard me even before I woke up. You brought me out of it. And it helped. But sometimes, even when I'm not sleeping...I'm scared that I'll vanish Hope. That someday, I'll just stop existing. And I don't know what's worse. Disappearing without a trace...or having my family not even remember I was there to begin with."