Fighting For Hope

Chapter Twenty One

"I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil."

—

HOPE'S POV

Justice was a perfect word. In the form of a name, it is the definition of respect and fairness. It fits the innocent child who deserves happiness. Like a chiselled segment to a matching piece in a puzzle, it fits astoundingly.

"Justice?" Tyler raised his eyebrow. I suppressed a smile. I was quite ecstatic with the name I selected.

Tyler had planned to have lunch with Hailey after bringing Ashley to the doctor. The visit ended before anticipated; hence he journeyed to the hospital. He strode in before an indissoluble scar engraved on Calvin. Tyler suggested that I should grab lunch with him and Hailey, who has yet to arrive.

"Justice is a magnificent name. I don't see why not. I love nouns as names, not because mine is, of course. For example, Constance. That's such a pretty name," I babbled. "I find it stranger that Calvin and my mother would let me choose his name."

"Not really. I think your mother genuinely cares about you," Tyler replied.

I scoff, staring at him incredulously. "My mother, who so kindly murdered my father cares about the daughter she shares with that same man," I said with my every word dripping with sarcasm.

"That's not what I meant—" my sentence was interrupted as a brunette strolled into the restaurant. Hailey's eyes lit up swiftly as she spotted her brother.

"You guys are inseparable," she exclaimed as she settled down, promptly reaching for the menu. After a while, she motioned to the picture of a dish. "I'm ordering this," she said before flipping it around for a wider variety of meals.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Tyler asked with hostility, not disguising his detest for Ajax one bit.

"You seem to despise him," she said, looking up from the plastic sheet with a wide array of meals. "What exactly happened in the past?"

"Your boyfriend might be an illegal underground fighter," he said bluntly, causing me to look over to him with a face of puzzlement. "He's the man I fought with that time father signed me up for the fighting competition. He was quite a star there."

Hailey appeared to be conflicted about the fact for a brief moment as silence dawned on us.

"I know," she said, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. "I didn't want you, Mom or Dad to know about this."

"How long have you known?" she questioned. Her brother did not respond. He almost seemed reluctant to believe that Hailey still accepted someone despite knowing his true colours. But I saw the situation differently. I related it to myself and Tyler and how he still stuck with me even after knowing my wretched past.

"Even before you told the family about him," I helped answer when Tyler kept silent.

"Were you with him when they first met?" she turned to me, desirous for a reply. I simply nod, feeling slightly regretful for interjecting. I would then have to entertain a few more questions.

"He's a decent man when you get to know about him. Is it just what he does which cause this uneasy tension between Tyler and Ajax?" she posed yet another question. I shrugged, not knowing what precisely to respond with, it was Tyler who loathed him. He had his sentiment.

"It's his character, he thinks so highly of himself," Tyler said, causing two heads to be turned in his direction.

Hailey's expression shows that she contradicted her brother's statement. She said, "He was arrogant when I first met him, but he is capable of changing. I can promise that!"