The Elites

Betty

"But if I showed up at your party
Would you have me? Would you want me?
Would to tell me to fuck myself
Or lead me to the garden?"

"Betty" – Taylor Swift

"Are you stalking me or something? Have you been here ever since I left for my boxing lesson?" Hope snaps when she gets out of her car. Ok, maybe waiting in front of someone's house for them to come home is kind of creepy but I need to talk to her. Hope grabs a bag out of the boot of her car and walks to her front door, ignoring me.

"Hope, please, I'm so sorry I hurt you. I can't and won't defend my behavior, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least tell you how sorry I am" I say, I'm not going to blame this on Courtney because the only person who is to blame is me.

"Hunter told me everything, she cares about you so I'm assuming you've never betrayed her" Hope snaps. She probably pictured me during her boxing lesson, she's furious. "Go find something else to annoy, you can probably find a rabbit if you look around the property."

"I was angry, ok? You sent so many angry messages over the weekend about the diary, so I just assumed it was either your way of getting payback or trying to scare me into returning the diary" I reply, trying to keep my tone calm. I don't think I have much right to be mad at Hope, but she needs to at least understand why I thought she was responsible.

"If I wanted to scare you into the diary, I'd do much worse than that" Hope snaps, glaring at me. "You have no idea how scary I can be." Hope can get uncontrollably angry so I'm sure that I would be quite scared if she was determined to get the diary back, but a part of me knows that Hope would never do anything terrible to me.

"I gave Melissa the diary to try and keep you safe. You can be angry at me all you want, but I couldn't forgive myself if you went missing again and I knew I could have done something to prevent it" I say, her being safe is more important than her trusting me, despite the fact our relationship means nothing if we don't have trust.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm furious about the diary, but this is about the fact you told Courtney I was adopted! Did you think about the consequences? If my dad's parents were still alive, they would never forgive my parents or look at me the same!" Hope says, she's full on yelling now. She clenches her fists and her eyes are hard and unforgiving.

Susan mentioned that Hope's grandparents would never have forgiven them if they discovered Hope's adoption. I somehow forgot all about that, I didn't think of how things are different in multi-millionaire families, or at least the Flynn family.

"I didn't think about that" I say quietly, I didn't think about how it could affect Hope's family dynamic. I should have thought about how Hope's brothers don't know, it should have been up to Hope to tell them, they shouldn't have heard it from someone at school.

"Mason and Logan rang mom at lunch, Juliet! They heard it from their friends, not their own family" Hope says. I close my eyes. Why didn't I think about Hope's family? It somehow completely slipped my mind. "I told Salvatore because I had to, but I wanted to pick the right moment."

I took away Hope's choice. I can't defend what I did, I believed all along that Hope should have known about her adoption so she could decide if she wanted to seek out her birth parents. I wanted her to know so she could make the decisions, and now I've taken away her ability to decide if and when she tells her brothers.

"I'm sorry" is all I can come up with, wishing with every inch of my being that I could say sometime helpful, something better than a simple apology.

Hope takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky. "I shouldn't have sent you so many angry messages, I understand why you stole the diary, but I really wish you hadn't of told Courtney that I'm adopted and given her proof." The diary incident is forgivable because my intention was good, but revealing her adoption isn't, I did that with the intent to hurt Hope like she hurt me, but ironically, she wasn't the one who hurt me.

"Is there anything I can do to make you realize how sorry I am? I won't say I never meant to hurt you, because I did, but as soon as I did it, I felt terrible and I realized that I didn't want to be the cause of your suffering. I made a promise to keep you safe, and then I exposed one of your darkest secrets." I wonder if we can get over this. Would I forgive Hope in this situation? I honestly have no idea how I would feel or react.

"I know you're sorry and I appreciate you coming here to apologize. I already lost my sister and I don't know what will happen with my parents, so I can't afford to lose you too, I need you" Hope admits, surprising me. She still trusts me, at least somewhat, because she's telling me how she truly feels. I never imagined that I'd be the one to bring down Hope Flynn's walls.

She's lost Eleanor, and she's traumatized, so it makes sense that she still wants me in her life. Apart from her family, I'm the only person she knows who has lost a family member, we understand each other, and we support each other.

I step towards Hope. "I need you too." I think we're both as broken as each other, we both have scars that will never fully fade. We understand how painful it is to lose someone, how a part of us will always be empty because you can't replace someone who meant the world to you.

"I didn't think I'd get through this, but you've helped. I was adopted to give hope to my parents, and you've given hope to me" Hope admits, I wonder what sort of hope she gave her parents. I'm not going to ask; she'll tell me one day if she wants to.

"You're stronger than you know. You feel like you'll never heal, but you will. People mend at the broken places and get stronger, you're not broken forever" I say, and I grab Hope's hand, she smiles at me. I'll show Hope she was right in giving me another chance.

"We don't have any leads, but I think maybe mom or dad told someone something that lead to what happened. They knew I was adopted and the only people in this state who knew were my parents. I say we head to dad's office and see if we find anything" Hope declares, a determined look on her face. I nod in agreement, it's a solid plan. Somewhere along the line, someone found out Hope was adopted and decided that they needed Eleanor out of the way.

"We'll go whenever you want" I tell Hope, she's not breaking into her dad's office alone. "There's no way you're doing this alone." I doubt it'll be dangerous, I more think Hope may need emotional support if she does find something.

"Mom's in London and dad's in New York, we can do it tomorrow after school" Hope decides, I nod in agreement. I don't know what we'll find but I hope we find something that can help us get Hope's kidnapper behind bars where he belongs.

*Author's Note* What do you think they'll find?