Love Always Wins| ✓

31|° a stroll

[new chapter! quite long, but I hope you enjoy!]

HER SHOULDERS feel as light as feathers.

At this moment, Hope could sprout wings and soar high above the clouds. There's a boulder that she has let go from her conversation with Collins —one she had no idea weighed her down so much. But that's the thing with weights, isn't it? When you have no clue what it feels like to live without them, you conclude that carrying said weights is the only way. Because sometimes, people live in cages because they have no idea that there's life outside said cages.

Hope has found the life outside her cage —the sun caressing her face, the wind playing with her hair, the lights casting a soft glimmer down on her. One thing is sure; life is better outside the cage than inside.

She picks up a forgotten hymn, turning it over in her mouth until she gets used to the rhythm and although the tune isn't the most rhythmic thing, it still sounds comforting and relaxing to her.

The evening glow of the disappearing sun paints the sky in careless yet sharp strokes of faint red, orange, yellows and some purples. She sighs contentedly, regarding the majestic beauty of the retreating sun. It's almost as if it wishes to depart just as grandly as it appeared.

Idly, she starts to consider the mannerisms of the sun; many would regard the sun proud but Hope views it a little differently. The sun has acquired mastery over its own self in such a manner that it needs no reminder of when to appear or to retreat. It sits high on its throne, far above mortals, illuminating their paths and their lives in ways even they don't know they need. Validation, or lack thereof, does not deter it from fully performing its duties. It does not seek to dominate, but only to do its part, leaving the rest to the moon and the stars.

What would happen to this fragile world if men held the power of the sun? Hope idly wonders.

Before she can process through her idle thoughts, she picks up her phone and dials Sly's saved contact.

She waits through five annoying beeps before Sly picks up. "Nice of you to remember that you have a sister."

Her voice is light and her person chirpy and Hope helplessly smiles. Sly's moods shift faster than the phases of the moon.

"Hello to you too, Sly." Hope smiles. She can't remember the last time she had a civil conversation with her sister or the last time she smiled while speaking to Sly but — dammit — it does feels nice.

"Ebu send me some two thousand shillings hivi," Sly says, her voice coming out through what Hope assumes is a mouthful.

Classic Sly.

"Wewe ndio working class," Hope returns, walking the clean campus pavement. You are the employed one.

"Yeah," Sly agrees, "I get paid once a month, it's more like slavery."

"Well, the month just begun, so you are loaded."

"Once a month payments mean overspending and bad financial decisions. Honestly, I have no idea why this system trusts me with so much cash, all at once."

Something in her statement brings back a memory that Hope has been trying to hold back. Her heart clenches and a wave of heaviness rises above the feathery lightness of her earlier mood.

Ahead of her, the sun sinks behind the horizon, leaving only the traces of its presence.

The light gets sucked away, as if it's too fickle against the darkness pushing down on it.

Her dad losing his job, her dad turning into a violent drunkard, her dad going to rehab, her mom crying, a stack of papers, a gathering, a—

No. No. Not this. Not now. Not here. She begs, suppressing the tears that threaten to spill.