Hope Bound

Chapter 6

A month passed by. Hope and Ronny are not in touch, not at all. Ronny tries to contact Hope a few times, but fails. She still loves Hope. She is so much in love with her that, she has decided to avoid Theo completely, out of jealousy. She can't seem to talk to the guy who is dating the girl she loves the most. Ronny withdraws from her old cirlce of friends and gets busy preparing for her GMAT. She has also been applying to some of the best colleges abroad, as suggested by Hope. Now that she doesn't have Hope in her life, she doesn't want to study in NYC. She knows that there is no one to protect her from her stepdad. So, she thinks it's best to leave the city and study abroad.

Hope on the other hand, is dating Theo. They both are planning to pursue MBA in the same college in New York. Hope misses Ronny a lot. Whenever there is some new gossip, she feels like picking up the phone right away and calling Ronny. She misses Ronny in everything. Theo seems to be head over heels in love with Hope. He pampers her a lot and loves her too much. Theo has no idea why Ronny avoids him and why Hope and Ronny are no more friends. He tries to find out as he really cares about Ronny, but neither Hope would say anything to him nor Ronny would pick up his calls. Hope too likes spending time with Theo, but deep within she feels that, somehow, Theo is not her soulmate. Apparently, the two made out twice , but Hope never lets him make love to her. She is kind of unsure about him. That thing about Hope makes him chase her more. She is definitely a tough cookie, is what Theo thinks.

One night, Theo inivites Hope to his place for dinner when his parents are not in town. It seems that lately, Hope's parents have become quite lenient and they allow her to go out with Theo so she can be happy and stop mourning her brother's death. Her parents, too, have no idea why she is not in touch with Ronny anymore. So, Hope goes to Theo's place and they have dinner together. Theo decides to cook dinner for her. He cooks some spaghetti Aglio e olio for her and tries his hand at making an apple pie and serves her with a glass of red wine. Everything seems to be very romantic. He then turns on some good music and offers her a hand to dance with him. Hope is not so romantic by nature; or maybe its just Theo she doesnt want to be romantic with. But anyways, she dances with him and then suddenly Theo kisses her. He first kisses her slowly on her lips and then carressing her lips with his finger, he kisses her again, this time passionately, leading to a deep long smooch. He then holds her by her waist, makes her lie on the couch and starts kissing her more, whispering, "I love you" in her ears. She reciprocates too, but not willingly. Somehow she is never so comfortable with Theo. Obviously she kisses him but none of the kisses she has had with him could leave an impact on her. She never feels special kissing him. Suddenly something hits her, she doesn't know what. She immediately withdraws herself from Theo.

Hope says, "I am.. sorry.. I am not feeling too well..I think I am gonna leave." Theo is literally confused, because sometime back she was completely fine. But he gets concerned as well and says, "It's okay baby..we can do this later...c'mon I will drop you home." Hope feels guilty for ruining the night for her boyfriend but she feels so dead that she can't wait to be home.

Hope is home now. She is feeling low and missing Ronny. She shakes herself up and wonders why on earth is she missing Ronny so much. Flashes of their movie outtings, their fights, their sleepovers and their first kiss keep flowing across her mind. At times she just feels like running away from everything- from her family which is incomplete without her brother now, from Theo and especially from Ronny. It's not like she doesn't love Ronny. Because if she hadn't loved her then it wouldn't have been so difficult for her to be withTheo. But the fact that she doesn't want to face Ronny is symbolic of her love for Ronny. It's just that she doesn't want to accept it, and she is running away as usual. She wants to be normal and straight. Hope has always been a simple, normal girl who doesn't like experimenting. Yeah, you can definitely call her boring.