I Let Myself Hope

4 ● Jesper ● 17.07.2027

July 17th, 2027

Jesper, New York

It was Jia's birthday today, and just as we promised her, we were all supposed to come to the house for a little garden party. If I'm being honest, I hated coming here ever since the wedding, because it only reminded me of that day, and I hated thinking about it. For some reason I wanted to forget about that day, even if it was my wedding day, even if it was supposed to be the best day of my life.

It wasn't. It so wasn't, because it was the day that I basically lost Yohan. It's been hard and I've been depressed ever since, but I tried to cope as best as I could. For example - I spent a lot of time at the hospital. Even though I kind of hated being the chief, I took the job seriously, and everyone told me that I was born for it, apparently, so I guess I did something right.

The other thing I've been doing quite often was visiting Joey and Sam. It wasn't about Samantha at all, I still kind of hated her, but I did this for Joey. Basically, after Yohan's surgery, I felt bad for the kid and I pitied him that he was going to grow up without a father, and considering the fact that I was Yohan's husband, I kind of felt responsible. That's why I decided to build some kind of relationship with Joey, I wanted to be like a father figure for him, I simply wanted him to have someone to rely on, someone who would teach him things and all that.

I have to admit that it's been helping with coping, a lot. I liked the fact that I was raising him into a boy that Yohan himself could raise, and I could see that Joey genuinely liked me and he was grateful for my visits, he was simply happy that he didn't have to do it alone, that he didn't just have to sit at home with his mother all the time, which must have been exhausting, I presume.

That's why I kind of wanted to include him in the family, since he was still Yohan's kid, which meant he was still family, so I invited them to Jia's seventieth birthday. Besides them, there was obviously Jisoo and Cooper, and Malcolm as well.

When it came to Malcolm, he wasn't exactly family, but I kind of treated him like that and Jia did too. To be honest, I think Jisoo was actually the only one who still held a grudge against him. I figured it was probably because of personal reasons, so I didn't want to dig deeper into this. And despite of Jisoo's protests, Jia and I always invited Malcolm to family gatherings, because we were actually all he had, since he wasn't in contact with his own family at all.

"You know, it's weird that you're the only one left here," I told Jia, while I was looking at the pictures that hung on the wall in the kitchen, while she was cutting some vegetables with Malcolm by the kitchen island.

Minseok died, Yohan has been in the hospital for years, and Jisoo moved out to live with Cooper a few months ago, which left Jia all alone in this big house. It must have been really lonely. I know I am lonely at my own house, and it's not as big as this one.

"I still don't understand why Jisoo had to move out and go live with that wanker," Malcolm spoke, his voice laced with bitterness. I guess it wasn't really a surprise that he wasn't very fond of Cooper. "I mean, seriously, she's a bloody tosser! How could she leave you all alone in this house, while you were still grieving and all that? That's just nuts, she's a terrible person. Who would leave their own mother in need to go-"

"Dude, I think you need to calm down," I stopped him, shaking my head in disapproval. Everyone kind of knew that Malcolm didn't like Cooper, except Coop himself. Turns out that Jisoo didn't even tell him anything about her history with Malcolm, so he literally didn't know anything about their relations, therefore Cooper didn't have any problem with Malcolm whatsoever. But Malcolm? Well, everyone knew about his feelings for Jisoo and some of the history they had. No wonder he hates the guy Jisoo is dating while they still have some unresolved issues.