Chapter 25 Hope
HOPE
It’s Friday evening, when I come downstairs for dinner—not because I wanted to but Mom insisted. She took the day off from the hospital for Dad. She said the three of us haven’t eaten together in a while. What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been trying my best to avoid sitting at the table with him.
The second I got home she had a long chat with me to not skip tonight’s meal. I tried reasoning with her but it was useless. It was like what happened two weeks ago had been wiped off from her memory and she couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to have dinner with them.
The moment I enter the kitchen, the atmosphere changes. A dense cloud of tension hangs in the air, ready to bring down a storm.
Dad’s gaze locks on me like a laser. Hate and anger swirling in those dark irises.
Confusion prickles my head as I try to wonder why he hates me? I’ve never done anything to hurt him. I get good grades, stay out of trouble and have a good reputation. What is it then that I’m lacking? Why does he look at me like that? What is my fault?
“Hope, don’t just stand there. Take a seat.” Mom reprimands as she passes close, giving me a quick nudge.
I hesitate, which goes unnoticed by her but not him.
He smirks.
With a troubled head, I sit across from him—not that I have much of a choice. There are four chairs, two on one side and two on the other, facing each other.
“I bet you’re hungry,” Mom muses, standing over the stove and tasting the gravy off the spatula.
She gets busy with preparing the food and the silence follows.
With each passing second, my heart rate rises until it feels like the organ is beating in my throat and not my chest.
Anxiety wraps around me like an ever-growing vine, its branches getting tighter and fierce. My breathing reduces to shallow pants with oxygen scarcely entering my lungs.
“How’s school?” Dad asks, leaning back in his chair that creaks under his weight. He is tall and built, with strength that can easily break someone like me.
I can never think about standing up to him. Because in the end, I will be the one to get hurt.
“Good,” I mumble and reach for the glass.
He watches me closely. “How are your grades?”
“Good.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t be a smartass. Answer the questions clearly.”
“Hope,” Mom is behind Dad so he doesn’t see the pleading look she sends me. “Tell us more, honey.”
My hands start shaking under the table. So I clasp them together, but then my fingers begin to fidget with each other. An itch that refuses to go away no matter how much I rub the skin.
I want to get out of here.
I feel scared.
That storm cloud isn’t growing away. It’s only getting darker.
Something is going to happen.
Taking a deep breath, I answer him.
“School is the same. Um…nothing new.” I elaborate, knowing that what I said is basically nothing. The problem is I can’t manage my head to function. It’s too busy fighting off the anxiety attacks.
He arches an eyebrow. “Got any friends? Or are you still a loner?”
I think of Marie, Sebastian and Heath. My friends.
Everything in me wants to protect them so I shake my head.
Dad scoffs, calling my bluff, but doesn’t say a word.
“Dinner’s ready,” Mom chirps and presses a kiss to his cheek. “I made the gravy just the way you like it.”
“Thanks, sweet.” He grins at her.
“Do you need help, Mom?” I stand up before she can refuse me. I can’t sit still and watch him, not when he looks at me with such a steady, dark gaze that makes goosebumps rise over my arms.
“Yes, she does,” Dad glares at me. “Be useful and help her.”
A shiver rolls down my spine. The sensation so sudden and strong it further puts me at unease.
Instinctively, my gaze meets Mom’s and she looks at me as if nothing is wrong.
Shoving down the disappointment, I scurry towards the cabinets and take out plates and cutlery.
I linger, dragging time out like it might agree to stop for me, but eventually I run out of it.
There’s only three of us, not six. Returning to the table, I place the plates down one by one, then the cutlery.
Then I’m left with no option other than to sit and eat with them.
Mom sits next to him and looks happy as she leans over and kisses him.
I avert my gaze and find a spot in the old, weathered table, its surface rough and scarred with years of use.
“We should eat,” Dad announces.
Mom fills his plate first, then hers, and at the very end, mine.
It’s probably nothing but it bothers me. She used to fill my plate before hers. But tonight she didn’t.
The gesture is small and insignificant, but it holds the mark of change that things are different. Love is different. Our relationship isn’t what it used to be. In the past few months it’s changed more than it ever did in the past decade or so.
The clink of the forks and knives shatters the silence and the stillness of the room. The noise is as sharp as a needle as it weaves through the storm cloud, making it about ready to rain.
The anticipation nearly kills me.
“Did you see the boy?” Dad asks. His tone laced with suspicion.
“No,” I say, glancing at him for a mere second, then going back to moving the gravy around in my plate.
“You shouldn’t. He isn’t good for you,” he adds.
He’s not the one who’s not good for me.
But I say nothing.
“You know that, don’t you?” He probes me when I don’t reply.
I give him a nod.
“Your father is right,” Mom chimes in with a blank face. “Boys are nothing but trouble. It’s better that you stay away from them.”
“If he doesn’t then I will make him,” he reminds me.
A wave of protectiveness washes over me as I tightly hold the fork and think about scratching him with it.
Just as that thought crosses my brain, shame riddles me weak.
I’m thinking about hurting someone when it’s something I’ve never thought about before.
What is happening to me?
Am I changing?
Is that okay?
“That won’t be needed,” Mom assures him.
Dad stills. Slowly, he turns his head and faces her, “What did you just say?”
Mom looks up, eyes filled with a splash of panic. “No-nothing!”
The knife clatters on the table as his hand reaches forward and grabs her hair. He tugs roughly, making her let out a cry.
“Think you are the only one who can make decisions around here, huh?” He yanks her head. “Just because you make money doesn't make you the boss. My word is the law. Do you understand or should I remind you?”
I sit and watch as my whole body goes numb.
“Maybe I should remind you!” Standing up, he starts dragging her towards the sink.
“This is all your fault. You make me behave like this,” he spits at her.
“Alex, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Mom begs while crying.
He jerks her head back, making her look up at him. “This is you protecting her, isn’t it?”
She shakes her head. “No—”
“You pretend to love her when you used to hate her.”
“Stop, please.”
“You were the one—”
“Stop it!”
“I see. You haven’t told her the truth,” he snarls.
Turning his head, he looks straight at me. “It’s time you learn the truth.”
Those words break my bubble, and I quickly stand up, hoping to help Mom but his serrated glare keeps me rooted in my place.
“Alex, please…” Mom whispers.
Dad looks me dead in the eye. “You are nothing but a mistake. An accident.”
“Alex!” Mom calls his name to warn him but he slaps her across the face.
“Shut your damn mouth!”
She whimpers, leaning against the sink and staring at the floor.
He stares at me long. Not a flicker of regret or sorrow crosses his face; nothing tells me he’ll ever second-guess his words.
“When your mother got pregnant in college, it was a drunk mistake. One wasted night that we don’t even remember because we were too intoxicated.
No plans or anything,” he explains. “I wanted to get rid of you because we were young and had nothing, but she decided to keep you. She said we’d make it work.
So I dropped out and started working jobs to support her, but it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was enough. And then she suggested that we elope. Did that too, but nothing changed.”
“Alex. Alex. Alex,” Mom keeps mumbling his name.
Dad’s gaze burns. “You understand why I hate you. It’s because you’re a mistake. You weren’t supposed to happen.” He breathes. “A fucking mistake. That’s all you are. A mistake.”
Mistake.
Mistake.
Mistake.
That one word keeps looping over and over in my head.
Mistake.
I wasn’t supposed to happen.
Mistake.
I wasn’t conceived because they wanted me.
Mistake.
I was born because my parents were drunk.
Mistake.
I’m not a choice or a decision. I’m nothing.
Mistake.
He didn’t want me.
I wait for my heart to break, it doesn’t.
It gets eerily quiet inside my bones. No sound or noise. No breaking or mending. Just shattered pieces lying on the floor as blood drips down from my chest as my heart bleeds.
My chest feels heavy, swollen—like it's been flooded with blood instead of breath.
“Because of you I didn’t get a degree. Because of you, I started working. Because of you we moved to this fucking town. Because of you we’re in this mess. Because of you…” he keeps talking. He blames me for everything because apparently I’m the root of his problems.
I tune him out and look at Mom who is watching me.
Truth glistens in her eyes and I don’t need to ask her anything.
What he said is true.
“Listen to me!” Dad slams the table and everything rattles.
I jostle, and look at him.
His eyes look dark, although they are light in shade. His face is composed of anger and his mouth is pulled in a scowl.
“What are you looking at?” he snaps.
I shake my head and look down in my lap.
“Alex—”
He turns and raises his hand to hit her.
“Don’t!” I yell at him. “Don’t hurt her.”
Shock spreads like a cold winter breeze through my system, freezing everything and turning it into ice.
But I refuse to just stand and stare this time.
I won’t let him hurt Mom.
My hands clench into fists by my side as rage courses through my veins like a stream of molten hot lava. It melts the ice and disperse the heat making me move.
Abandoning my position, I rush to her and try to help her sit down. Upon close look, I notice her split lip and bruised cheek that seems to be swelling a little.
Despite my anger, I care about her. I know she loves me in her own way and I can’t just leave her.
I’m acting purely on my instincts that are tied to her because of the motherly bond. She’s done plenty of wrong things, but she also stood by my side plenty of times.
“Mom, are you okay?” I reach for her. “Stop crying, please.”
Before my fingers can wipe away her endless stream of tears, she slaps away my hand.
“Get away from me.”
I frown, not understanding her one bit.
When I don’t move she shoves me. Hard.
I fall on the floor on my back, stunned.
A chuckle bounces off the walls as Dad walks over to me and stares down at me.
“Would you look at that? She doesn’t want you either.”
I look at her but she doesn’t.
Sitting up, I reach for her again. “Mom, I can—”
“Get out.” When I don’t move, she screams. “Get out of this house!”
Get out of this house.
Surely she means going to my room.
Right?
I sit and stare at her trying to understand her.
“She said leave,” Dad repeats.
I sit still.
With a sigh, he makes a move to reach for me but in a flash, she stands up, grabs my arm and pulls me up harshly. Dragging me out of the kitchen, she leads me to the front door and pushes me out on the porch.
“Stay out,” she says in a serious tone.
“What?” My voice is thick with disbelief.
Her gaze is sharp as it cuts me. “I said, stay out tonight. You’re not staying here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you here.” She looks at me, eyes brimming with tears—rage burning behind the sorrow.
I shake my head. “You can’t kick me out. I don’t have anywhere—”
“I don’t care.” She screeches, her fingers reaching for her hair. “I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with you.”
“Deal with what?”
“You,” she says slowly.
“Mom—”
“Maedrian come inside right now!” Dad’s voice booms from the inside.
She holds the door, her frame leaning against it as if she can’t stand on her own. She looks weak and tired. Bruised and battered.
I didn’t think I’d see her like this again.
I thought she’d be safe.
I assumed things were fine between them.
It was all inside my head. Everything is the same.
Things are back to how they were.
THUD
The door closes and the lock clicks.
For a brief second, I can only stare—paralyzed by disbelief.
Then, raising my hand I knock. My fist collides with the wood, hoping to land a sharp, echoing rap, but the sound is a soft thud that is barely audible.
Crisp, cold air whips past me, wrapping me in chills that make my bones shake.
We’re in the middle of October, and the temperature usually drops at night.
I lean against the wall, listening to the silence. A few minutes go by and yelling starts. I can’t make out what the words are but it’s mom’s speaking and she’s mad.
Once she calms down she’ll invite me back in.
Kicking me out on the porch was just her being—
Being what? I ask myself for an excuse.
Tears prick my eyes and I feel helpless, confused and cold.
Running my gaze around, I study the neighborhood, that is blanketed in darkness and sleeping houses. No stray dogs or cats roam the streets, no crying child is throwing a fit or light is turned on. No one is awake.
CRASH
Something breaks inside and more arguing follows. With time their voices get louder and angrier.
I don’t think I can sneak in, because they're banging doors and moving around.
A tear rolls down my eye. Then another. And another.
When another crash sounds in the living room, I jump and rush down the steps and into the driveway.
I turn around and analyze the surroundings, feeling panicked out of my mind because I have no idea what to do.
“What are you doing out here, girl?” A familiar voice speaks from nearby.
I look over and find Nadina, standing on the porch holding her crane. She’s dressed in a nightgown and slippers. Her thin wavy hair swept away from her face and tied in a braid.
“Nothing.” My voice cracks as I sniffle.
Her gaze pins me down, and I feel myself almost breaking under the weight of shame.
Can she tell that I’ve been kicked out of my house?
I hope not.
She taps her crane. “Come here.”
“It’s alright. I’m going inside any minute.” I offer her a weak smile, the corners trembling with uncertainty as tears burn my eyes.
Her lips presses together.
More voices and louder arguments spill out of my house, carrying every word into the street, making me shift from one foot to the other.
I refuse to look at the elderly woman who’s boring her gaze into my frame like she can see through my DNA and knows what kind of people made me.
Made me? No. I was something that came about.
A mistake.
That’s what I am.
Tears spill down my cheeks and I angrily wipe them away.
“Come here and wait,” Nadina says adamantly. “Until one of them comes to get you.”
What she doesn’t know is, no one is going to come get me.