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Stronger leadership? What did she think we were trying to do? Barter for world peace?
My fingers floated over the keyboard while my mind worked feverishly on a reply.
Then the second response came in.
Followed by the third.
As if they were waiting on me. Perhaps they were together even now.
My disbelieving eyes stared at the screen. All but one of the stakes stabilizing my life had sprung. And the one that was left, the most important one, wasn’t there to ground me.
The lump in my throat refused to budge.
I closed my laptop and stared at the shiny surface.
The job of my dreams was history. My dance troupe kicked me out. My relationship with my mother had grown even more strained and distant after her embarrassing comments to Ares on Christmas Eve. And, thanks to an all-too-brief interlude in Ares’ arms, I was lonelier than ever.
Thankful no one was there to see me break, I cradled my forehead on the table and let the tears fall.
Sorrow for the friends that walked away.
Frustration over the men who wouldn’t see me.
Grief for long lost girlhood dreams.
Disappointment over my spiraling career.
And heartbreak over Ares leaving.
That hole I tried to fill with my dream job expanded exponentially with the loss of dance, and the girls I believed to be my friends.
I palmed the tears from my cheeks and sat staring at my accent wall and the pretty painting framed within it.
I would not live my life encased in beige.
I sobbed, the sound not unlike the bark of a seal. No matter what color I splattered over the walls, my life remained beige, and I couldn’t handle one more solitary minute of it.
I ran through my mental list of who I could call. Ava. Lucky. Minty. Darcy? Even Maeve.
But I wanted Ares.
And if I couldn’t have him, unbelievably, I wanted my mother.
When she opened her front door, she took one look at my face and opened her arms.
I didn’t resist.
For this one moment, I would be just Hope.
Not Hope the mother. (Brayleigh wasn’t with me.)
Not Hope the career woman. (That ship had sailed.)
Not Hope the girlfriend. (That airplane had flown, haha.) I snorted at the thought.
Just Hope.
Broken-hearted. Stripped back. Bared to the bones, Hope.
