Rejecting Hope (Old Copy)

Chapter Forty Seven - "But there's a catch."

(Aurora)

Fear... it swallows you up, consumes you whole and then spits you back out into the darkest of places, that you've wished you'd never known. I have known this very feeling for so very long, I think to myself as I pull my shirt down and over my bare skin. That I have started this game to rid myself of this feeling. To keep calm... I list my reasons of why I might feel this way, in order to try to understand it.

Fear is when you run away, I can see myself running away from Hope. Fear is when you're scared to love someone, I remember the first time that he had told me that he loved me. My hand's begin to shake, why isn't this working? Fear is when the sky turns grey and I remember that day that I had attempted suicide by running my car into that tree. Turning around I take one last look at my room, there isn't much I'm going to need now is there...

Fear is when you lose your loved ones, I remember my mothers death. I look upon Hope's sleeping body as he lies upon my bed. He looks just as vunerable as he always has and suddenly I feel the biting edge of anxiety, that if I don't take as much time as I can to look at him then it's more time wasted than I can even bare. I start to walk towards him... Fear is a feeling of danger, I remember my fathers deathly grip upon my throat. I kneal down before Hope in his unconcious state I trace his lips with my forefinger wanting so badly to kiss him. Those lips that I've learned to love, the only lips that mine has ever touched. I want to touch his face, but I resist... I can't wake him up. I just can't bring myself to do it and luckily for me... it's still dark outside and I'll be long gone before the sun has even had the chance to arise.

Fear is when you aren't brave, I think about the fact that I just can't bring myself to wake him up or even tell him of what's about to happen... Looking at the clock now, I'm still awestruck that I didn't have even a minute of sleep last night, for all night long... all I did was just stare at him. It's five o'clock in the morning now, which means that I only have but fifteen minutes left and truth be told, Jansen didn't come home at all last night either. But I'm alright with that, because I knew that he wasn't going to come home...

Fear is when you're afraid of saying goodbye, so leaning in I take one last kiss from Hope, light and faint so that he doesn't awake, but somehow his body still reacts and when I withdraw I see him smiling and I feel guilty instantly. But I can't help myself, so I lean in once more and kiss his forehead as the tears begin to stream down my cheeks.

"Please forgive me, my little dream cloud..." I whisper for fear is the feeling of anger and I feel this the most as I pull away. I walk over to my drawer and take the pre-written note that I had made out of it's drawer. I take one last look at him before I run down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Fear is when you can't behave, I remember Lacey crying when I was in the hospital after my suicide attempt. I have always been a burden upon those that I've loved, I've never really behaved well... have I?

Moving to the counter I remember my mother cooking pancakes at the stove and then I remember him there... with that smile of his and I... I can't think about that, I only have five minutes left now and I'll have to leave here at any second, oh how my heart is beating faster than ever and I can hardly breathe. I jerk the draw open and start to search frantically for some tape... anything, and suddenly there's something sharp and I jerk my hand back to see but crimson blood oozing from it. An omen, a foreshadow that is to come... I just ignore it and look back into the drawer to see it's source, broken glass... images of my mother falling and suddenly I'm in tears. Stop it, don't let your fear consume you, stop it!

But I can't, because what he has done is unfair! He has made me live for so very long, only to never really be living at all. I find the tape and strip long strands. I made a deal with the Devil and he has played his hand. It is unfair and it is unjust, that I must go to protect the ones that I love. But it is sick because he has shown me life... right before he has to take it all away. Taping the letter to counter top I hear a creaking of the door in the living room and my heart stops... 

Fear... tell me, what is to become of us?

The footsteps echo closer and I turn away from the door, I did not want to see this come, not now, not ever and furthermore... but I know that it will. No matter what, I refuse to break... I refuse to let him see me scared like this... because allowing that is the same as letting him win. Fear is like being lonely and I feel that more than ever now that I know that I am surely one of the doomed. For no one can save me now. The footsteps stop, but I keep bleeding. "Are you ready?" The voice crackles and I turn around to see that of a deranged mans face, the face of my father.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I whisper and he nods for me to follow as he begins to walk out the front door and I do. But on the way out... he stops halfway across the yard and I can't help it, I begin to let my terror show. For the fact that I never know what's going to happen next with him is what scares me most and the next thing I know is that he is walking steadily towards the tree between our houses and my heart is screaming and pounding against my chest, No!!! He knows Hope is there! Don't hurt him! You promised you wouldn't hurt him! But the noise has stopped when all of a sudden his voice creeks out. "Your mothers flowers..."

Oh God no, his head turns slowly to look at me. "Tsk, tsk little Arie... didn't you know that you can't keep someone alive after they've already died? It's better that people aren't reminded of her and her memory must die with her!" All it took was a moment, a moment of hysterical quiet laughter of my father as he jumped around stomping out the very lives of the flowers that I've kept alive for so many years in her memory. They may of been just flowers, but they were the only thing that I had left of my mother and the way that he was killing them was like killing me too. It took every thing to have kept myself from screaming, but I did so... to keep Hope safe.

So while my father crushed every single leaf of hope that I had left, I fell to the Earths ground and sobbed. Fear is like not being able to reappear, I think as he grabs my arms and drags my body back to the black sullivan car and suddenly I'm refusing to go down without a fight. I'm kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs and he nearly shoves his hand down my throat so that the nieghbors nearby won't wake up and hear. But I fail the moment he jerks the back door open and throws my mangled body into the ground of the car and as I try to get up and fight back in my desperation... it was too late. For the door has slammed closed and there is no lock for me to pick... I sit there... breathing heavily for I am suffocating and suddenly I wonder why I had choosen to fight back so late or to fight back at all in that very matter.

I hear my father slam his door and start the engine as I think of one last thing as my heartbeat begins to consume my very being... Fear is death and death is fear...