Hope and Faith

SIXTY-SIX: HOPE

Nothing was the same after that. Hope never knew what it was like to experience true heartbreak until the night that Faith broke hers.

She always assumed that her life would be simple and unproblematic. She would marry Matthew, they would have their careers, raise their children, and there would never be anything to contemplate. Oh how ignorant she was. She was just a child for goodness sakes. She didn't know anything about the world. About the problems and tragedies that occurred on a daily basis. She didn't think about heartbreak or consequences – she only saw the good. She only ever saw the good, in both the people and the world.

How ignorant that ideology had been. How unfortunate that her parents had raised her to be so kind-hearted and good, never quite knowing how to deal with the dangers she would one day face.

That night at the lake broke her. It took her places she never knew she could go. And they was so low, those places. So low and dark and deep that she truly believed she would never escape from it. Never believed that she could find the light or the happiness again. She spent her days crying, alone in her room with the door locked. Her parents thought that she was going through something, but what that was exactly, they didn't know. Perhaps they assumed she was finally seeing the error of her ways, realizing her foolish mistakes, finding her path back to Matthew. Let them think that, Hope thought. She couldn't care what they believed. She couldn't care about anything.

September arrived like an unwelcomed hug. Quite ironically, it was raining that first day, which only added to Hope's depression. She couldn't get her mind off of Faith, couldn't free herself from the thoughts in which she had imprisoned herself. Every waking moment was spent thinking about Faith, thinking about everything they'd been through, and finally, thinking about how she had simply ended it all like it was nothing. As though Hope and their time together truly meant nothing.

Her heart was heavy and her stomach was ill. She couldn't eat, she couldn't drink, she could hardly breathe. All she wanted to do was lay there and die. Is this how all heart break feels? She thought to herself. Because if that is the case, then I never want to love again. It's not worth it, she thought. Not worth the pain and the suffering.

But deep down, she knew that wasn't true. She knew that she was only lying to herself to make the truth easier to bare. Because the truth of the matter was this: loving Faith Everett was the best thing that could have ever happened to Hope. It changed her life for the better, opened new doors and showed her new possibilities. She didn't know she could have such a different outlook on life. She didn't know it was possible to laugh and love another person so much.

Loving Faith was so different than loving Matthew. And it only became clear to Hope then, lying in bed, thinking of the both of them. And that was when she knew the truth: What she had with Matthew was not real. It was an illusion. A very beautiful, reassuring illusion that made Hope and everyone around her feel safe and good and special. But alas, an illusion nonetheless. And Hope knew deep down in her heart that she couldn't simply stay with Matthew because it was easy. She couldn't stay with Matthew because he was her supposed soulmate, or because they had promise rings, or because everyone in Meadow was expecting them to wed in a year. No. She couldn't stay with him, because her heart belonged to somebody else. And no one, not even Matthew, could ever replace that.