Echoes

Expectations

In a flurry of motion from her apartment front door to her bedroom closet, Hope kicked off her pumps, tossed aside her professional black handbag, and doffed most of her office attire. In a rare moment of forethought, she had hung a few of her best dresses at the front of her wardrobe, and she paused a moment to pick.
After holding each across her body in view of her full-length mirror, and checking the color and amount of skin each would show, she made her decision: a sleeveless hunter green number with a high neck, cut-out bodice, and form-fitting skirt that reached below mid-thigh. She slipped into the dress and struck a few poses in the mirror, confirming her initial assessment: fetching, playful, sexy, fun. Derrick would absolutely love it.
The clock showed 5:28, giving her just over an hour before Derrick picked her up. She pictured his eyes bugging out of his head and hurried into the bathroom to finish getting ready for their dinner date.

---
A quartet of Echoes followed Forsephore through the Plaza outside the Hub. Though they smiled and chuckled in quiet conversations with each other, the heavy emotional weight of their surroundings kept their voices to hushed tones. The wreckage of forgotten dreams and deferred desires lay strewn about them, not just in physical forms of dark, emaciated Withers and translucent Fades, buut also in images of dead Echoes etched into the black marble.
Forsephore helped who she could, and light trickled from her gray skin in liquid streams of energy, filling the hungry and desperate with Inspiration to hold on longer. Always Forsephore touched the Withers and Fades who listened, restoring the lost and mindless to an awareness of their continued existence. And her eyes glistened at so many expressions of what might have been possible once, but now would never come to pass.
Some dreams weren't meant to be. She could almost hear Sevnynate's harsh voice whisper, "You can't save them all." And Forsephore knew this. When the Prime took certain paths and made firm decisions in life, by necessity some doors and possibilities closed. But a fear drove Forsephore to action: was the Prime choosing her course of her own free will, with faith in her capability and potential? Or were other voices overriding Hope's self-confidence, forcing her to settle for less than the best?
Some voices, like Sevnynate's, held almost total sway over the doings of all Echoes. All the Alphas kowtowed to the Chief, save those Forsephore put in power. And even those shrank back from Sevnynate's sharp, critical tongue. With that kind of environment in the Prime's soul, how could any but the most banal dreams survive?
One step at a time.
She found a Fade she remembered from her early days in the Plaza, one of the few that interacted with Forsephore and reminded her of something greater than mere survival. This kindly version of Hope seemed little more than an outline in midair, her form as transparent as her glasses. She held an elementary school curriculum binder in her ghostly hand.
As Forsephore imparted a measure of Inspiration to the Fade, the Echo solidified but remained dim, as though an artist pencilled in shading and depth onto the image. Doubt whispered in Forsephore's mind. Did she waste the reserves of Inspiration she carried? Was there any likelihood that Hope would one day become a school teacher? Probably not.
But one kindness deserved another. And having been among the forgotten, Forsephore refused to ignore the plight of the needy.
Another realization came to her. When she ministered to others, she remembered more of her past than ever before. And while she wanted to believe her generosity was genuine, the motives behind her actions might be less altruistic than she'd like to admit.
The Fade hugged Forsephore close in a warm, tight embrace. "I remember you..." she whispered, then pulled back to stare into Forsephore's eyes. "Don't throw away your light on the doomed," she said, a stern coldness in her voice. "Do whatever it takes to restore yourself. That's the only chance any of us have."
Forsephore nodded, feigning understanding, and backed away.

---
"Babe," Derrick said, "I know, your blog post is goin' viral or whatever. But are you gonna play with that phone the whole way to the restaurant?"
Hope gasped and shoved it into her purse. "Sorry, hon." When had she taken it out again?
When it was blowing up after I put it away the first time. In the last hour alone, she'd received so many shares, re-blogs, and re-tweets that Hope couldn't slog through all of the email notifications. Even with Derrick being half an hour late, Hope didn't get through a third of the stack.
She thought of the ridiculous view counter and all the likes her post had garnered. Some time in the morning, while she was at work, it went past friends and family--even beyond social media acquaintances she'd connected with. Her self-confident, assertive declaration struck a chord with women of all ages, and comments full of praise flooded her blog.
Lots of trolls too. The site software did a good job weeding out spammers, but hateful comments had to be dealt with in person.
A problem for later. Tonight is about me and Derrick.
Derrick slowed his Corvette to a stop at an intersection. "So what do you think? Isn't that great?"
Hope blinked and turned to face him. "Uhh... Red light! Kiss me."
Derrick laughed and leaned over, giving her a peck on the lips.
"Oh, come on," she said, pulling him in for a long kiss.
He went along for a few seconds, then tried to draw back. "Mmph... bbph... Babe, it's green."
A horn honked behind them, and Hope glanced back. "Let 'em wait."
"Uh, no," Derrick said with a laugh. He peeled out and zipped down the street away from the car and its angry driver. "So, you know, my new PR on the bench? What do you think about that? I shattered the old one by ten pounds."
"That's awesome, hon."
"Aww, come on, Hope. What the hell... I knew you weren't listening."
"Ten pounds," Hope said. "That's great. I heard you."
"Goin' up by ten pounds is weaksauce. The first time I told you, I said twenty-five." He jabbed a finger in the air at her. "But somebody didn't hear that, because somebody wasn't listening."
Hope sighed and rested her face in her palm. "God, Derrick, I'm sorry. You're right. I've been so distracted. I was just telling myself that tonight was gonna be all about you and me--"
"It's okay, babe," Derrick said, though his chuckle sounded forced. He gave her a playful tap on the arm and grinned. "Glad to have your attention back in the car, back on me, where it belongs."
"You bet," Hope said. "My eyes and my mind are totally on you, hon."
"I hope that won't be all that's on me..."
Hope feigned feeling scandalized and play-slapped his shoulder. "Oh my God! You're incorrigible."
"Incorrigi-what?"
"You're bad."
Derrick grinned again, that heart-melting smile of his, radiant like a floodlight, and pulled into the restaurant parking lot. "You don't know the half of it."
Hope read the flickering neon sign and her smile faded. "Speaking of bad... ew. You're taking me to Chao's?"
Derrick found a spot and killed the engine. "What? This place is great! Chef Reinholdt did one of his fix-'em-up reality shows here." He popped open the door and got out before she could respond.
Hope waited a moment for Derrick to get her door, then realized he still stood on his side of the car. The sudden disappointment stung, but Hope pushed it out of her mind and exited the car.
Everybody knew chivalry was a thing of the past, maybe even a holdover from patriarchal misogynist social norms. Derrick was just being progressive.
She joined him on the other side of the Corvette, he set the alarm with a chirp, and they walked into Chao's.