The Right One

Twenty one

"And what about Hope? Have you been hearing from her? I'm very sure that girl has been avoiding me," she said, ending on a whining note.

Raymond felt the guilt rise even higher. "Hope is fine, ma."

She sighed, and Raymond could feel a lot of tension behind it. "I just sometimes feel really unsettled when I think about her. Call it maternal instincts, but I just worry a lot about my baby girl. I know I probably shouldn't be bothering you with this, but I would really appreciate you keeping an eye on her for me, Raymond. I know you care about her like she's your own sister and there's no one else I would trust with her."

She was entrusting her daughter to him. The same daughter he had way more than brotherly feelings for. The same one he'd almost kissed just the day before. Was this heaven's way of passing him a message? To remind him of how wrong his feelings for Hope were?

He sighed, the sound weighing more than a rock. "I promise to look after her, mum. Nothing would hurt Hope as far as I'm concerned." At least that was true. That was one promise he intended to keep irrespective of his feelings for her.

She was silent for a while before she replied, the words sounding choked as if she was holding back tears. "Hope is a really strong girl so she tends to carry a lot on her shoulders. She's almost exactly like. . ." Her words ended on a broken sob. "Thank you, Raymond."

He wanted to tell her there was no reason to be grateful to him. If only she knew the depths of his feelings for her daughter, she wouldn't be bothered to ask him those favors like watching over Hope was some sort of job for him. It was a lot more than that for him. In a way, it always had been.

"You're welcome, mum, and please don't worry. Like you said, Hope is a strong girl. She'll be fine," Raymond reassured.

"I know. Thank you, Raymond."

Long after the call had ended, Raymond's hand held the phone plastered to his ear, his mind far gone as he sat there in his sitting room, questioning all of his life choices.

He'd thought himself incapable of sleep the previous night after the whole day's event. With the thoughts that'd been running through his head, he'd found it extremely hard to share the same space with Hope, so he'd had to force himself into going to bed early. He'd chosen his spare bedroom after announcing to a reluctant Hope to take his. She'd argued but had eventually given in. He'd fallen asleep faster than he'd expected. By the time he woke up the next morning, she was gone.

Now left with nothing but the emptiness of his house and his troubling thoughts, he started to doubt every decision he'd made in the past few weeks. He and Hope had always been somewhat close, but had it been a mistake letting himself get too close to her to the extent that he started harbouring feelings for her? It wasn't as if he'd known it was going to end this way. Maybe if he had, he'd have been able to stop before it'd gotten too far.

When exactly had he started falling for Hope without realizing it? Had it started when he'd agreed to keep her secret and even gotten her a job? Or had it started way before that? Or way after? Where exactly had he gone wrong that had landed him in the present moment?

He felt torn between the urging to submit to his overwhelming feelings that seemed to be growing at a rate faster than even him could process and listening to the nagging voice continuously reminding him of how Hope had become his little sister right from the moment they'd been introduced. Was he then a pervert for feeling the way he felt about her?

His thoughts were threatening to swallow him whole. He needed an intervention. He had to talk to someone before he finally lost it.

•     ~     •
The minute Efe stepped into his friend's apartment and saw him lying miserably on the bare floor with his eyes trained on the ceiling, he instantly sensed something was very wrong. Not to mention that Raymond had called him prior and practically begged him to come over and asked him to bring a very strong drink. Which was even more cause for alarm since Raymond didn't drink.