HOPE

Chapter 16

I stand there, shell shocked. I can't move, I can't breath. All I can see is that woman. I've look everywhere to see this face. After all my tires to find her and didn't succeed, I kept an image of her in my mind so that whenever I miss her, I can think about her, so that I won't forget her. 

When I got out of bed this morning, I never thought that today would be the day I finally find her. 

I searched as well as I can, but I never cared to  look at a place like "this" for my mother. 

"Ho- Hopey." Her eyes are shinning with tears. My vision gets blurry as well. 

She hold out her hands and come forwards, expecting a hug but I fall back from her. It just happened. 

Hurt flash through her features. She drops her hands and move back. Her smile vanishing off her face. 

"Don't call me that." I whisper. I know it's not the first thing you should say to your mother when you see her in 4 years but I just can't help it. She cant "Hopey" me like nothing's wrong, like nothing happened. 

We just look at each other without saying anything for some time, until Dave clears his throat. I even forgot he was in here. 

"Do you two know each other?" He asks. 

I always looked like my dad more than my mom, so I guess Dave can't see our relationship. Well... Now with tattoos and piercing on my mother frail body, there's hardly any resemblance at all. 

"Dave, could you give us a minute?" She doesn't take her eyes away from mine as she speaks. Neither do I. I just can't believe that my mom is standing right in front of me. 

I can see from the corner of my eyes that Dave looks between the two of us with a confused expression and mutters something under his breath, before leaving us alone, closing the door behind him. 

She begins speaking soon after. "Hope, honey. Let's sit and talk shall we?" 

She move her hands in the direction of the chairs. She sits down and I do the same, leaving an empty chair between us. She notices that. 

"I can understand why you need space." 

I can't utter a single word. It's more like I have no idea what to say. I'm mad, sad, angry, happy and surprised, all at the same time. 

"Honey, you can't hate me for leaving you. I couldn't live with your father anymore. I just couldn't." She shakes her head and looks down, like the single thought of living with my dad scared her. 

She looks up at me after awhile. "Please, talk to me Hope. Say something." Her hands, which are intertwined in the lap, are visibly shaking. But she squeezes them hard together to make it stop but that helps only a little. 

"And yet, you left me with him." My voice is low but I know she heard me. 

She doesn't say anything for a while but just look down at her hands. 

"You looked just like him." It was barely audible that I'm not even sure if I heard it right. 

We stayed quite with none of us speaking, but then she broke the silence. "I missed you." 

I couldn't say the same to her. I mean, I did miss her but it's not this person. It's the mother I had before. 

"Well.. I guess you didn't miss me much." Tears roll down her cheek. "I know I didn't treat you well after Hannah..." 

I haven't heard my sister's name in years but it still hurts, hearing it now. 

"She died so suddenly, I couldn't.. I can't... It's so hard." She is crying now and so am I.