Hope And Faith ✓

7. Hope

"Then why does no one here in town know you exist?" I tried to keep my tone as even as possible but it was shaky, I mean I don't know what I would do if I found out she had been lying to me.

It would be Jacob all over again.

I watched her tense for a moment before she took a step back. Two steps. And she looked like she was remembering something, I couldn't put my finger on what before she snapped her head to mine.

"Come on for a second. I want to show you something."

I never got to know what she had wanted to show me.

We had exited the park and made a turn, I was following her with no fear. I mean she had warned me when we first met to never talk to strangers but who am I to listen? She was probably a stranger like all the rest but right then standing behind her seemed almost natural.

Before we could make it any further though she had paused. Like she was having an internal battle and wasn't sure what to do. For a moment she looked lost and then clenched her fist. My eyes had fallen to them.

They had gotten better, the bruises were almost gone and her skin there was a pale shade of red, it didn't look as painful as it was before and something told me she had not treated it, she had waited for it to heal on its own. Something about that bugged me, unsure as to why I looked at her to see her looking at me.

"Here, this is my number," she passed me a small paper. "I'll try not to disappear this week, I apologise for bringing you out here for nothing." She nodded at me and quickly walked away before I could process what had happened.

The way she had used 'apologise' instead of 'sorry' didn't go unnoticed by me. And her abruptly leaving like she was realising she had made a mistake bringing me here made me feel defeated. Just when I thought we were taking a step forward, making some type of friendship or rather building some trust we had taken a million steps backwards.

I pocketed the paper and sighed. There was nothing I could do about it, it was her life to live, I didn't want to interfere or be that nosy little brat that she couldn't get off her neck.

I wanted to be more than that. My phone buzzed and lit up and I stared at it.

New message from Sabrina.

Hey girl, it's been a while. Wanna hang out?

Even though I knew our entire friendship was fake and I knew I deserved better I did the one thing I always did; go for second best.

Me: Sure! What do you have in mind?

The moment it was sent I suddenly felt caged. Like I was locked up and couldn't escape. But this was my reality, I always loved second best. Loved fake. When you went for fake it wouldn't hurt you because it was never real.

I guess I was trapped before I even realised it, I was trapped to myself.

••

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. When I wasn't staring at it I was looking at my phone waiting for Faith to answer my calls.

It had only been a day and here I was, back to texting her.

I felt unwanted when I was with the girls. It was more like they could easily brag about having Hope Manchester as their friend, but I couldn't do the same because that would be me making things more real.