A Hope Unseen by Jamie Leigh (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

Jesus, um… I know and believe you died for me, but then you came to life again. I know I am a handful, and I know I have done wrong and cut myself, but I want to stop so can you come and live in my heart and be with me forever and ever and if you can thank you amen.” Now, Jake and Josie stayed friends for a long time. Three years of joy and laughter had gone by, but even though they didn’t know it a time of heartache was ahead for the both of them.


By now Josie was sixteen. Tommy was nine (almost ten as he would say) and Jake had just turned seventeen, and they were now in high school and there “you always have to be the best of all” they would say, “you have to be popular to make it” they would say but to be popular you had to have a popular boyfriend or girlfriend but Jake and Josie were never really into being with the popular people. Josie was very pretty. She was more pretty than all the girls in the school (you can imagine how much the boys hated Jake because she always spent every spare moment with him), but her beauty came from the inside out it wasn’t from looks it was from her heart that made her so beautiful. One day she decided that being beautiful wasn’t always a good thing. “They keep looking at me Jake. I don’t like it,” said Josie a little scared. “Well, neither do I,” answered Jake. “But your beautiful Josie you can’t change that” he said to her. “Stop it” she pushed him with a smile, “Your just saying that” she told him with all seriousness. “Well, I say do you call me a liar miss?” he said jokingly, “Then how so do you explain why Bobby Worthington has not taken his eyes off you for the last week and a half?” he asked her with a smirk on his face. “What!” she exclaimed annoyed he would tease her like that. (For Bobby Worthington was the boy whom she had a crush on for six months, and she declared that she loved him) “How could you tease me so?” she probed him angrily “look for yourself Josie. He is coming over even now,” Jake whispered to her. And so he was, to her surprise. She was feeling foolish now for not believing her friend. She sank back in her chair, “I'm sorry Jake, and I thought you were just being cruel, but I see now you weren’t. Will you forgive me?” she asked him most sincere “of course I will” he whispered right before Bobby got there. “Hey Josie,” he said to her kind of smitten. “Hey” she answered (she was so nervous that was all she could get out) “so would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight?” he asked her. “Sure I’d love to,” she answered with a huge smile. “Well, I’ll pick you up at six then,” he gave her a smile, turned around, and he was gone. “Breathe Jo” she could hear Jake telling her. She hadn’t noticed, but she was so excited she forgot to breathe. “He asked me to go to dinner with him!” she shouted gently. “I can’t believe it … will you help me pick out an outfit for tonight?” she asked Jake in a begging voice. He was happy to help her get ready in any way he could. “Have a good night sweet heart” Josie’s mother shouted on her way out. “Night Jo,” said Jake’s voice. Before long, the two started hanging out all the time. They had gotten really close and everyone started calling them a couple, all except one. Jake was happy for her, but he found himself constantly waiting for her to see him again, even just a call or a glance. He never noticed how much he really liked her in that sense. He never thought he would (when they were young other kids would make fun of them and say they were going to get married and the both of them always thought that was gross but so much changes from fourteen to seventeen), but now he found himself missing her being with him all the time. “She is happy with him. He is what she always wanted just be happy for her” he would tell himself, so he just stayed out of her way but as always stayed close behind. One night he noticed her leaving on another date with Bobby, but something felt wrong the only way he could explain the feeling was when you are lying in bed, but you can’t get to sleep because you have a feeling something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know what. He thought it was just because he was jealous, so he did nothing. That night he couldn’t go to sleep, he kept waiting for the sound of a car but there was none. The street was dead silent. “She’s just carrying it out a little late tonight that’s all.” He tried to convince himself that there was nothing wrong, but the feeling was still there and no matter what he could not get rid of it. Finally, he decided to get up and look out the window and when he did he caught a glimpse of the clock it was three thirty in the morning he knew he had to go find her, but he didn’t know where to start so he got on his knees right there and prayed, “Lord, please help me to find her, you know where she is. Keep her safe, show me where she is.” He started out in his car just on the main roads going back and forth all over the highways, but he found nothing but there was a bridge he crossed many times and after about an hour, he felt the urge to go look down under it so despite his fear for her, he went down under the bridge and there was a small stream running. He found a rock and sat down a moment and saw something on the other side of the stream it looked almost like a crumpled up animal, but as he went to get a closer look. He saw it was no animal but a person as he saw it the memories of his mother’s beaten body came flooding to his mind. Tears started down his face as he rushed over to where the limp person lay but when he got close enough to touch it, he saw that he knew this girl, and that she was no ordinary girl, but she was Josie! He couldn’t bear it, but he took off his shirt and wrapped it around her weak body and carried her carefully to his car. As he drove her to the hospital, he tried to talk to her to try to comfort her. “Maybe she can still hear me,” he thought to himself. “Stay with me, Josie” he would say, “we are almost there, don’t leave me Josie. I love you, please stay with me.” When he got her to the hospital, they took her in right away. He was left in the waiting room worrying so much he couldn’t stay still. He decided to call Josie’s mother, but she did not answer. After two days of him coming and going the nurse finally came out and told him Josie was awake wanted to see him. “Thank you God,” he whispered he stood up nervously and followed the nurse when he got to the room, he was not ready for what he was about to hear.


When Josie woke up, she didn’t recognize where she was. She looked around and heard something beeping and realized she was in the hospital. She then heard voices, “She is awake” they said and a nurse came in right away, “Excuse me,” Josie said quietly “yes?” replied the nurse in the same soft tone “how did I get here? Josie asked very confused. “Well, it was a young man named Jake” the nurse answered her. Josie’s face immediately brightened up then immediately clouded over and the nurse could tell he was close to her “Would you like me to bring him in?” inquired the nurse “Yes, please,” Josie said in a whisper. It wasn’t long after that he stepped through the door so tall so handsome she thought to herself, but she had not paid attention to him. It had been almost three months since she last talked to him, other than a hello or good bye. She was so ashamed she couldn’t look at him, but she heard a familiar voice call to her, “hi, Jo” he said just like he always did. She felt her body tingle like it used to when she saw Bobby. She finally got the courage to look at him in the face, and she saw the love in his eyes once more, the same that was there before (but it almost seemed different to her). She knew he wasn’t mad at her. “Oh, Jake” she said with a sob, and she burst into tears, “hey, it’s okay I'm here now” he tried to comfort her. “It was awful” she told him with a struggle, “Why couldn’t I stop him? Why did he do it? I thought he loved me.” She cried even harder, just then the nurse came in “Sir, I need you to step out please. We cannot risk her getting upset.” She said hastily rushing him out. So he left the room after calming Josie down. Right outside the door was the doctor; he was waiting to talk to Jake. “Son,” he said, “We need to talk. I suggest you sit down.” So Jake took a seat. The doctor looked at him for a minute “Do you know what happened to your friend, Mr. Walker, is it?” “Yes sir, that’s my name and no sir, I don’t know what happened to her, but if you know sir, will you please tell me I need to know.” He said firmly. “Settle down, son, we know what happened, but we need all the information we can get” the doctor declared, “son, your friend, Josie Monsore, was a victim of rape” the doctor said with all seriousness “I know it’s not what anyone would want to hear about Josie or anyone else, for that matter, but it’s true” he stated grimly. Jake’s face was as white as snow. “You mean to tell me someone forced themselves on her?” he asked with such wide eyes you could see the pain as clear as day. “I'm afraid so” answered the doctor “and there is more we believe the girl … is with child” it was almost too much for Jake to take in at first then he asked the doctor if he could see her again “go right ahead she is waiting for you” he replied.


Once again, Jake was in the room where Josie was lying helpless and scared. By now, her mother had come and gone to get her, a few things, and it was just he and Josie. He looked at her beautiful face bruised, cut in a few places as she was sleeping, he would stroke her long hair just talking to her about times they had together or what he had wished would happen in their future someday asking her what she thought could have happened if he told her how he felt about her or what would have happened if he had just followed her because he knew there was something wrong, but the hard part was that she could not hear any of what he was saying. When she woke up again he was right there she looked at him, and everything came flooding back to her