Chapter 4 Hope
HOPE
“Oh my! What the hell happened here?” Mom’s worried voice enters my ears, and her touch sweeps over the top of my head, pushing away the hair from my face. “Hope, wake up, honey.”
I flutter my eyes. Her face is the first thing I see as I look up at her. It takes me a whole minute to realize that my head is her lap and I’m lying on the floor.
Lifting my hand, I bring it to rub my eyes but pages smack me in the face. Pushing my hand away, I study the pages. Slowly it all comes to me what happened.
Bright morning light streams in and fills the room, highlighting the mess. Pages are scattered in every direction. There are small piles amidst that mess—that was me trying to align pages to make the books complete. The bottle of glue is open and the tape is undone beside the pile closest to me.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep or how I fell asleep. I was sure sleep was the last thing that would happen to me after everything that took place.
Mom cups my face, her thumb caresses the graze Dad gave me on my temple. Her eyes fill with remorse.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Dad,” I tell her, brimming with hope that maybe this time she’ll believe me.
Her gaze search mine, disbelief lingering in them, as if I’d have the audacity to lie to her.
“Your dad did this to you? Are you serious?” she asks, her thumb touching my cheek where he slapped me. I bet it’s still red and swollen.
“I’m telling you the truth. He did this to me,” I say. My throat bobs with emotions that I try my best to throw down.
Mom stares at me. The wheels turning in her head in thought.
A whole minute passes and she doesn’t speak a word, so I pull my head out of her lap and sit up. Every muscle in my body screams. It hurts everywhere. But strangely it doesn’t matter anymore. In the past few months, pain has become a normal thing for me.
It’s surprising how much a person can change in a small amount of time.
“Hope…” Mom reaches for me but I grab her hand and put it on her lap.
“It’s fine if you don’t believe me.”
“That’s not true. I believe you… I just… your dad would never…he never hit you.” Her voice breaks as she speaks. A second later, her sniffle eats away the uncomfortable silence in the room.
I turn my head and catch the sight of her crying.
“Alex would never do it to you. He promised me. He told me.” A sob breaks out of her. “I begged him to never go near you. I asked him so many times. He told me.”
Her tears fall like raindrops as they hit the floor and create a puddle of pure despair and heartbreak. Her body shakes as she sits kneeling next to me and completely breaks down.
My hand itches to reach for hers and hold it to provide comfort, but the past few months flash through my mind.
All those moments when I tried to reach her in hope that maybe she’ll do something, and when I did she broke my trust. When she rejected me, she shattered something deep inside me.
Making me believe that no one would believe me if I told them.
Mom cries while I listen to her. Until I can’t.
Against my absolute resolve, I reach for her, because at the end of the day I love her.
Ever since I was a kid she’s the only one who’s been there for me.
With no friends or siblings, she’s stuck by my side and we used to do everything together.
She loved me, cared for me, and protected me.
Despite the distance that has come between us in the past couple of months, what she’s done for me over the years is not something that I can ever pay back.
“I’m sorry for letting this happen to you,” she whispers.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I should have believed you when you told me. I just never imagined that Alex would hurt you.”
Yeah. Me too.
“Dad has changed a lot. He’s not the same person anymore.” Not that he was good before. He used to abuse Mom. I watched things that I shouldn’t have. Everything he did changed my perspective on love and relationships.
Love starts off as a bright shade of red, but with time it turns maroon and then black. Darkness encapsulates it and it morphs into something that only brings pain and emptiness.
That’s the definition of love for me.
The kind of love I’ve watched my whole life.
One that I don’t want for myself or anyone.
“He feels the same to me,” she murmurs, touching her wedding band with a tenderness that reflects her deep love for him.
“When he walked through the door that morning, my heart started beating the same way it did when he first set his eyes on me. There was something about him that pulled me to him and in one month I fell in love with him.”
Mom smiles sardonically. “I had promised myself that I wouldn’t get involved with a guy until I had completed my studies and was working, but all my plans went down the drain when I met your dad.
His bad reputation attracted me. He was the complete opposite of me yet we fit together so well.
I knew I was with the wrong guy but he felt right in all the right ways.
I was a different person with him. So I didn’t hesitate when he suggested that we get eloped.
I was in my last semester of med school and I had a lot going on, but the idea of spending the rest of my life with him was more appealing than getting a job and achieving my dreams.”
My heart was in my throat. This is the first time Mom has ever told me their story. I’ve known parts here and there, but never the whole thing.
Her cheeks turn red, and she looks young. As if I’m seeing the eighteen year old version of her that met Dad in college. “Then we had you… and… I… we were overjoyed even though we were young and had nothing.”
I clear my throat, and say, “Then how did you manage everything?”
Mom cups my cheek—the one that isn’t bruised—and says, “I love you more than anything in the world, Hope.”
I frown, purely surprised by her words, because her actions towards me have been completely opposite.
“Now, tell me what happened? Why did he hurt you?”
I pull away from her touch and fidget with my hands in my lap, my anxiety multiplying by a factor of hundred. But I give her a brief summary of everything that happened. The moment I mention Heath she sighs and shakes her head as if it justifies why Dad hurt me.
“I told you to stay away from that boy, then what was he doing in your room so late?”
I freeze under her scrutinizing gaze. “He wanted to talk to me.”
“What could he have to say?” Mom presses, long gone are her affection and softness.
“I don’t know,” I blurt out in panic. I can feel the strong and rapid drumming of my heart in every corner of my body. The anxiety that had ebbed before returns now in full force.
Mom watches me intently. Her gaze is so sharp and fierce that it tears down my walls and looks at my heart that contains all my feelings for Heath. Like, care, worry and love. It’s all laid out in front of her in the open and I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life before.
“Hope, do you like this boy?” Each word is spoken slowly and carefully, as if she’s scared to hear my response.
I’m equally scared to reply because I know what’ll happen.
My gaze averts from her to the pages covering my bedroom floor.
The books I cherished so much are now torn pages.
The one thing I love the most in the world was damaged by one parent, and now I’m standing on the precipice of allowing another thing that I like—a person—to get ripped apart from me because of other parent.
The irony makes my heart ache. It physically hurts to even think about Heath bearing more burden because of me.
“I don’t,” my voice is steel as I lie to her face.
Mom stares at me. “You do. I can see it in your eyes. Perhaps, you feel even more than just like for him.” She shakes her head, disappointment glistens in her eyes. “I never thought you’d lie to me, especially for some guy.”
He’s not some guy.
I want to scream those words at the top of my lungs.
“Feelings are a passing thing. Whatever you feel for him is invalid. You can get rid of it.”
I don’t want to get rid of it.
“It’s all hormones, honey. You’re at an age where your body is going through many changes and this infatuation or whatever the hell you want to call it feel towards this boy can be ignored. Your feelings can be ignored.”
I look up to her.
My feelings can be ignored.
It means they hold no important value to be treasured, but rather to be tossed away or erased completely because they are invalid.
Mom clasps my hand and I jolt at her warm touch.
She cups my face with the other and looks deep into my eyes.
“It’s your first time with a boy. It’s the thrill and excitement that’s pulling you towards him.
He doesn’t care about you or love you. He’s just playing with you, and before you know it you’ll fall in love and get eloped—”
We both stiffen at the same time.
Mom is seeing me in her.
She thinks Heath and I are the same as her and dad.
I refuse to believe that. Because what I feel for Heath and what he feels for me is real, pure and strong. He isn’t playing around with me. If he wanted to, he would have made sexual advances at me. If anything he’s taking things at my pace which is basically turtle pace.
“It’s not like that with us. Heath really likes me. You have to believe me.”
I know I’m making a mistake telling her about this but she needs to know. I can’t let her paint Heath in a bad light. He is a good person.
“Last night when Dad attacked me, Heath pulled him away from me and hit him for me. He protected me!” I tell her.
“It wasn’t because he cares about you but because he wants to isolate you from everyone you love.”
My eyes widen in shock. “He would never do that.”
Mom rubs her temple. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but you have to know that I want the best for you, Hope.”
“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have let Dad live here or ask me to stay away from Heath. You would have believed me and trusted me. But you don’t.”
“And I have good reasons not to because I’ve been where you’ve been,” Mom argues and sits straighter. “I can ask you to stay away from him, but I know you won't so be prepared for the consequences when they come your way.”
She stands up and looks down at me. “As for your Dad, I’ll talk to him. What happened last night won’t happen again.”
She walks, stepping on all the pages in her path knowing how much it hurts me. When she’s at the door, she looks back at me. “If you’re wise, you’ll listen to me. I know what’s best for you, Hope.”
The thud of the door closing echoes in my ears as I contemplate what to do next.
I’m falling in love with a guy who can’t be mine. Still I want him.