Rejecting Hope (Old Copy)

Chapter Two - "Memoirs of a Fallen Hope." <3

(Ariana)

I close the door to my room and find silence. I don't scream and I don't yell. I just slide down to my knees and cry, it was as simple as that. Ezra knew what he had done to me. He knew it the moment he had mentioned anything that pertained to my "father". But to have shoved that word so carelessly into my face... "abuse."

The tears come hard now but I held my eyes shut. It looks like I broke my promise to never cry yet again.

Getting up, I lean over the bed. Grabbing my favorite sweatshirt for comfort, I hug it to my chest and inhale deeply, I knew that it shouldn't comfort me as much as it did. But it always does, and I focus my mind solely on its smell.

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

It smells like the ocean but with a citrus twang to it. Like the beach, but a beach that had a beautiful orange orchard next to it, just off the coast. It was the same smell, that I had been engulfed in just a few minutes ago. The smell that is now faint upon my clothes from when he had embraced me, and maybe that's the reason why his smell is so intense right now. The scent fills me with a strange sense of happiness, and I am happy that his smell hasn't completely dissipated yet. Because it is the last piece that I have, of him.

Inhaling just a little bit deeper, I clutch the object closer to my body and I never plan to let it go. I can see his beautiful smile now, it sleeps deeply within my memory, I shiver. Terrified at how my heart never ceased to race at the mere thought of him. 

         Even after all of these years, do I still?

But my mind rushes in before I could even wonder that far off the deep end.

                               "No."

               The word works itself wretchedly into my head and out of my mouth. In defiance at the mere question that my heart had even dared to make. My chest begins to painfully ache.

        I am physically unable to let myself finish that previous thought. A hand touches my shoulder then and I think it's my stepfathers. 

"Arie?" a voice whispers. "Please, don't cry."

       That voice. I think to myself, tired of what is to come already. I jump up so that I am out of his reach and we start our usual routine.

        "How did you get in here?" I draw out the words bitterly.

          "Jansen..." He begins, the words trailing off, and his eyes lock onto the object that I clutch against my chest. "Is that?" He begins to say softly as he sits down on the bed next to me.

"Is that... my old sweatshirt?" I look away from him and grasp the object even tighter to my chest. It almost felt as if my life had depended on it. But his eyes had kept piercing into me with such a mixture of sheer curiosity and what... worry? His mouth opens up,

         "Even after all of these years, Ariana? I just, I can't believe that you would still have that." He's in disbelief, something is burning in my throat, something that is rising in a chain reaction of hot and salty. I push myself off of the bed before new tears could manifest.

'You always were, such a mess.' Something in the back of my head whispers to me. It was the voice of a man. A voice I hated more than anything or anyone, 'I raised you better than that, pull yourself together.' It echoed.