Chapter 13 Hope
HOPE
I get twenty orders when I check Heath’s phone after school.
We’re parked outside a department store from where I’m supposed to get the beads, strings, letter blocks, wrapping supplies and twines to pack the orders.
I was going to walk from school to here but Heath insisted to drive me.
“Is something wrong?” he asks when I don’t speak and keep staring at the screen.
“No,” I say, keeping the explanation to myself but then I remember that he’s my boyfriend.
Heath Travon is my boyfriend.
Unbelievable, I know.
I truly believe I’m in a fictional world.
This is a main character moment.
I realize, now that I’m in a relationship I have to talk to him. I can’t keep things from him anymore. All the books I’ve read have taught me that communication is the key.
Besides, it isn’t fair to him. He is here. After everything that has happened. That means something. He wants me and wants to be with me. The concept is hard to grasp but it doesn’t change in truth.
“Then we should—”
“I didn’t think I’d get any orders!” I blurt out.
Keep going. “I didn’t post any videos and posts as you’d told me.
There’s less engagement on my account.” I gulp.
Speak more. “I wanted more orders because that’d mean I’d keep myself busy and not think about stuff at home. ” Finally I dare to meet his gaze.
Heath stares back with a blank look, then his gaze softens and he says, “I like that you’re talking to me more.”
“We are dating,” I mumble.
He shoots me a smile as if the statement makes him happy.
I make Heath happy.
That doesn’t scream burden.
He gets out of the car and comes around to open the door for me. He offers me his hand and I take it. He pulls me out and locks his car.
Together we go into the store and gather the things for the bracelets. At the counter, I take out my wallet to pay but Heath gives the lady his credit card.
When we’re out, walking towards his car, I turn to him. “I can pay now, you know.”
He smirks and looks ahead. “I know.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Next time, let me pay.”
He opens the door for me. “Not happening, Rose.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” he clears his throat. “That’s what happens in your romance novels.”
It takes a minute to understand the meaning. “You don’t need to be like them.”
“You adore them.”
I do. All my favourite fictional men are perfect.
“Yes, but I like you for you,” I say.
The little things Heath does are different because they are only meant for me. It makes me feel special.
“I’m not trying to be them. I’m taking cues from them because this is the first time I’m in a relationship. I don’t want to make fucking mistakes or mess up. You deserve better and I promised to be better for you.”
My mouth hangs open in shock.
Heath closes my mouth by giving a nudge under my chin. “I’m aiming to be your number one. You won’t even consider those men.”
“They have their own girls.”
“Yes, but you will be mine.”
How I force myself to sit in the car and not have an attack from the butterflies in my stomach is beyond me.
My pulse flutters at the rate of their wings.
It’s a miracle I don’t pass out from being flustered.
—————————
By the time we roll into the driveway of his house, the sun is disappearing into the horizon. The picture behind his extravagant house in the sky is breathtaking.
The tall, wide white mansion itself looks like a piece of art.
I’ve been here a lot of times now, but I still can’t get over how beautiful and lavish this place is and how normal it is for Heath to live in it.
For someone like me, who’s spent most of her life struggling for money and living in a house with rooms that don’t even measure up to a single room in this house, it’s intimidating to be around things that cost thousands of dollars.
The second I’m inside the house, I freeze.
Something feels different.
I don’t know if Heath recognizes it or not.
The number of times I’ve been to his place, I’ve never smelled notes of vanilla scent in the air or aroma of freshly baked cupcakes from the kitchen. Kelly doesn’t bake. Also, there are fresh flowers in the vases.
“Heath, is that you?” I hear a female voice that I’ve never heard before.
Heath goes rigid. “Fuck!”
Quickly, he presses me to the nearest wall by putting a hand on my stomach. His touch permeates tingles under my skin and I let out a shaky breath.
Yes. Totally normal for a girlfriend to get this much affected by her boyfriend’s touch.
Heath keeps his hand on my stomach, unaware of the reaction he initiates in me and looks around the corner for someone.
My heart is beating too fast for me to ask him who is that.
“My parents have come back,” he tells me, still keeping an eye in the hallway.
His parents are here.
Oh my God.
The first emotion to consume me is anxiety—and it’s the only one that stays. No sign of excitement for me. I’m too busy panicking at the sudden bomb that Heath drops on me.
I didn’t expect to meet his parents because he told me they never visit. So I never prepared myself for what would happen the day they would be here and I’d have to meet them.
Subconsciously, I tame my hair the best I can. As for my face, I know the mascara and lipgloss I applied are still there so I look somewhat good. I glance down at my clothes and wince.
An old white sweater and faded jeans. They don’t look good.
Before I can dwell on my outfit, that voice speaks again.
“You’re back from school.” That woman speaks and I know it’s his mother.
Heath and I have been friends but I’ve never seen a single photo of his family.
I don’t know what his sister looks like or his parents.
I know his heart and his mind, but there’s still so much depth to him that I need to dive into and explore.
What I know is surface level and it’s not enough.
I want to know him on a deeper level like he knows me.
A muscle ticks in his jaw at her statement and he nods. Even from his side profile I can tell that he doesn’t like her. There are no strong feelings that should be there for the woman who’s his mother. A distance worth miles seems to between them by the look of blankness in his gaze.
Uncomfortable silence hangs in the air like a thick fog and makes it hard to breathe. Tension is so thick I fear it won’t be cut with a knife, saw or anything sharp.
Knowing as little as I do, I interpret that things are not good between his parents and him.
From what he’s told me, he hates them for leaving him and Emery.
The few times he talked to me about them there was so much hatred, pain and disappointment in his gaze and voice that it broke my heart.
It felt like he had truly given up hope on his parents and considered himself alone. For him, they didn’t matter.
“I made some cupcakes—”
Heath’s fingers gently dig into my flesh. “I don’t eat cupcakes.”
There is a long pause before his mother speaks again. “I didn’t know that.” She sounds hurt.
“Of course you didn’t,” he replies in a bitter tone that I’ve rarely heard him use.
“I can make you something else. Perhaps, we can make it together and—”
He quickly shakes his head.
She clears her throat and when she speaks there’s hope in her voice. “Let’s eat lunch together. I’m sure—”
“I have things to do.”
“Oh, okay,” she sounds wounded, as if those words slashed her skin and made her bleed.
I don’t need to turn the corner and see that she is hurt.
From the sound of it, she was looking forward to spending time with Heath, but he didn’t want to. He doesn’t want to talk to her or be near her.
This hatred is different—I didn’t know there are various kinds. Heath doesn’t want to physically or emotionally hurt her. He just wants to stay away from her and keep adding distance between them.
Her steps recede and the distance between them increases.
When she’s gone, he grabs my hand and leads me to his room.
The lock clicks and he slumps against the door like the weight has been lifted off his shoulders. The tightness to his face and the anger in his eyes are present as he stares past me at the windows.
Putting my bag and the stuff on the floor, I near him.
“Are you okay?” I don’t know why I ask him when I already know the answer.
He isn’t okay.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs, bending down his head so that his face is tucked in the crook of my neck.
For a long moment he doesn’t say a word and just breathes.
With each inhale and exhale I feel his breath brush against the sensitive places of my skin—ones I didn’t even know about—and I try to suppress a shiver.
“You don’t look fine,” I say.
I reach up and tangle my fingers into his hair. The strands are soft and rough in places, exactly like him.
Heath doesn’t reply. Instead, he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me flush against him. Our fronts are pressed, and I’m infused in his warm and solid body.
“I will be, because you’re here,” he tells me.
A blissful feeling blooms inside of me.
I’ve never been a source of someone’s comfort—I’ve never been anything much to anyone really. When you’ve led a lonely life you start to wonder your place in the world. I always thought mine didn’t exist. But being here with him, I realize I do have a place and it’s beside him.
In the past months I’ve only seen him being my rock where I could land and crash and he’d put me back together. But now I’m starting to see that perhaps I can be his rock too. I can be place where he runs to cry and let it all out.
“She was your mom.”
“Yes.”
“When did she get here?”
“This weekend. She came with my dad who got me out and took care of the case. He’s the reason why I’m not going to trial and facing a new set of fucking problems.” He pauses. “They said that they are moving back, but I don’t believe them. They’ll leave like they always do.”
“What will you do if they stay?”
Heath hugs me tight. “Be very fucking mean to them so they leave.”
“Do you really want that?”
“Yes. I don’t want them here.”
“Your mom seemed nice.”