Happy Hope (Book Two)

Chapter 19:

Amelia pulled the car up in front of my house. One light was on in the living room but who cares about that? The engine cuts out and then the soft music. I didn’t attempt getting out of the car. I just sat there waiting for someone to tell me that I needed to get out of the car. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get out of the car, I just didn’t care whether I sat in the car for the rest of my life.

The car wasn’t so bad. The black, cotton seat was comfortable enough, I had a good view of the quiet, dark street and I could only hear the sound of myself breathing. And Amelia. I heard her take off her seatbelt.

            “Come on, we should go inside.”

I nodded my head, undid my seatbelt, opened the door and stepped out of the car. I walked to Amelia zombielike.

            “She hasn’t died yet,” she murmured as I looped my arm in hers and rested my head on her shoulder.

            “But the doctor said she has less then a month because she stopped treatment,” I said in monotone.

            “It’s her choice,” Amelia responded. It might’ve been her choice but to me that didn’t make it the right one. People would kill to have an extra few months maybe even one more year and yiayia was just throwing that all away. I understood that she wanted to be with Pappou but what about me? What about mum? What about Amelia? We all needed her.

Amelia and I were already in the house and a tired Louis approached us.

            “What happened?”

            “She has less then a month.”

            “Maybe,” Amelia added, “There is a chance that she’ll survive longer.”

            “The doctor can’t guarantee that!”

            “It doesn’t matter. It’s something to have hope in.”

I never understood why my parents called me Hope. Hope sets you up for disappointment. Maybe that’s why bad things kept happening to me. I got pregnant at a young age and I’m not saying that it was a bad thing it just wasn’t ideal or how I planned my life to go. Then Jake died. Then Pappou a few months later.

I remember when Amelia and I were sent to Greece for that summer Pappou taught us how to ride scooters. He bought me a blue one because of my eyes and Amelia a red one because of her hair. He always said Amelia and I were completely different like fire and ice despite everyone saying that other than our looks we were identical. Pappou was the biggest softie. He could only stay mad at me for at a maximum of fifteen minutes. He once told me that love is like finding a red apple on a green apple tree. He also believed that when you die you become a bird because all our life we’ve been restricted to land so it’s only fair that when we die we’re given wings so we can fly.

I believe we turn into stars. I believe that stars are like houses for the dead. Each star is equipped to give you exactly what you want. Each star is infinite. Each family is assigned one star and that’s the star you go to when you die and when there is a shooting star it’s a soul visiting a member from a different family. That’s what I believe. I don’t know why. Maybe because stars are constant and they’re always there even though you can’t see them. Isn’t that what they say when people die? That even though they aren’t here they are always watching over you. I remember looking up at the sky when I was ten and coming up with that theory and I’ve stuck to it all these years.

I vaguely heard Amelia answering Louis’s questions about yiayia but I was barely listening.

            “I’m going to go to bed,” I announced before turning away and walking upstairs but instead of going to my bedroom I opened the door to Sophie and Connor’s room. I watched them sleep for a few seconds before going to wake them up.