Her Hope

Chapter 1

The darkness keeps surrounding me like the cold unforgiving ocean that is somehow managing to drown me in it even though I am a good swimmer. It's like a never ending cycle of vicious nightmares that will haunt me forever, and instead of trying save myself, I start wondering if this will finally be the end of everything, of the life that I was thrown into without my own permission.

However, my moment of wondering is brutally ended when I feel a hand holding tightly onto the tattered shirt I am wearing and pulling me upwards and into the cold air that nibbles onto my bare hands. Looking around, I find a girl my age talking rapidly and asking me if I am okay, yet the words fail me, for I can't find it in me to open my mouth and tell her that I am okay, or at least my body is, but as for my mind, that is a totally different story.

I slowly force my limbs to move and leave the tremendously cold water that swallowed my body. A few moments passed before i finally felt the solid ground underneath my feet. I knew that the strange girl was following me out of the water while asking all those endless questions about my well being. But, instead of answering, I ignored her and made my way out of the beach that we were currently in. After all, she doesn't know a thing about me nor will she ever do.

I could hear her asking me for the number of any person that she could call to come pick me up, but sadly, I have no one and I know it though I can't say that I've made my peace with it because it makes me realize that I have no one to turn to when life toughens. I have no one to ramble to and tell my whole life story, and I definitely don't have anyone to come pick me up, but to be honest, maybe it's better that way. Maybe I was born to be alone forever. I was always alone from the moment that my mom left me on the doorsteps of the orphanage to the moment when I graduated with no one to congratulate me or cheer on me, and finally, to the moment when the only home that I knew, the orphanage, threw me out knowing that I had nowhere else to go to.

I knew that I had to get her off my case if I wanted to go find a place to sleep in without her following me, so I finally stopped in my place and turned around to answer a few questions to get her to leave me alone just like I was always meant to be.

"Look, I was just having a midnight swim, and I got lost in my own thoughts," I snap at the girl while trying to think of a place that I could spend the night in before getting up again to search for a job. A job that could turn my life around and give me a chance at sleeping with a full stomach for once in my life.

"I just want to make sure that you're okay. I was taking a walk on the beach when I saw a hand making its way out of the water, and for a moment I thought that I would not be able to save you and that you would drown" she said quietly as if she was afraid that I would get angry at her and burst into a fit or something.

"I am fine, and I wasn't drowning as I said before, I was swimming, but I have to go now, and I bet that you have to go too, it's too late," I said calmly. The gears were still turning in my mind trying to remember the safest place that I could spend the night in. I could go sleep behind that famous diner, but the owner spotted me last time and threatened to call the police on me, and I can't afford to get in trouble, especially since I have no one to post my bail money. I could stay in the alley behind the cinema if I find no one there. Yes, the alley it is.

"Well, as you said it's late, so why don't I drive you home in my car? It has a heater, so we can dry before catching a cold." She offered cheerfully while looking extremely hopeful as if she was waiting for the announcement of a winner in a competition that she was extremely sure she'd win in.

"No, my house is just around the corner, so I'll walk," I said and then I began making my way to the alley, or as I'd like to call it my home for the night, but I had to get my tiny bag. That bag contains my two other shirts and the only other pair of jeans that I've had since i was seventeen.

Leaving the confused girl behind me, I crossed the parking lot to pick my bag up from behind the rubbish cans where I left it to go on my 'midnight swim'. After finding my bag where I left it, I began walking to reach the cinema, or more specifically the alley behind it.

It only took me ten minutes to reach the alley, and after making sure that it was empty, I changed out of my wet clothes into dry ones. Oh, how I wished I could take a shower to wash off the salt that has been eating away at my skin since I got out of the water, but unfortunately, we don't always get what we want.

I then evened out the only remaining shirt in the small bag and put it down on the cold harsh concrete. Looks like the bag will double as my pillow for the night. I laid down on the floor and looked up at the blinking stars, and for the first time in years, I had hope.

When I went on that swim, I had no intention of drowning myself, but I did want to see if there'll be anyone to save me if I were to drown, and that girl was there to save me, even if I wasn't really drowning. This girl gave me hope that there is someone who cares for me, even if it was a complete stranger.

Maybe one of these days I'll sleep with a full stomach in a comfortable bed. And, with this last thought, I closed my eyes and drifted off into the land of dreams and nightmares.