Hope

Many thanks to neuroparenthetical, who edited this story.

[All characters are 18+.]

[No sexual acts or intimate anatomy are depicted.]

Hope was different from all the rest -- tall and fair, with a porcelain doll face and shortish black hair. I first saw her in the school yard. I was in high school at the time. She was the same age as me. I was smitten from the moment I saw her. From that day forward, I never stopped trying to get closer to her and learn more about her -- soak every sight of her. She was smart, bubbly, and easy-going. Soon after she had transferred to my school, she established herself as the number one female athlete. She became a favorite of both the teachers and her fellow students.

Needless to say, her orbit was very crowded. Boys, especially, would do anything to get her attention. That alone should have discouraged me to try to get closer to her, but her beauty was such that I could not be deterred.

We were in different classes. That was a situation that could not be tolerated. I schemed and badgered my parents and all the teachers that knew me to get a transfer. Naturally, I claimed the reason to be different from wanting to be closer to Hope. For some reason I had it easy. Three months after I'd first seen Hope, we were classmates. A month later, we were best friends.

From then on we were together every day. I would walk her home after school. We'd go to the library together. We often did our homework side by side. I would be at her place and she'd be at mine. We were always at the park together, rollerblading in the summer and ice skating in the winter.

Hope was always very candid and she would talk openly about any subject. Despite that, and all the time we spent together, we never got sexually intimate. She did not have a boyfriend and never appeared to be interested in having one. Of course, I considered myself her boyfriend of sorts. Still, we did not even kiss -- I mean, open-mouthed. We just had kiddy kisses -- on the cheek, sometimes on the lips. I asked her about sex, and it seemed she knew a lot about it.

We were eighteen and making plans for college, like anybody else. Then school was finally over. We graduated. It was summer and we had it all to ourselves -- or so I thought.

One day she told she wasn't going to college. I was shocked. Her academic results were top notch. Every college would have wanted to have her, and I knew for a fact she had been offered several scholarships. She told me she'd put it on halt -- that she'd put everything on halt. I told her that was crazy. She said that's what she wanted. She said that everything she wanted was at home. I asked her about love and romance. She told me she had a man. I'd suspected that much. I asked who he was. She laughed. She told me I was her best friend. Then she told me she was having sex with her father.

I was dumbstruck. We did not talk much after that day. I could not comprehend what she'd told me.

I haven't seen her since that summer. I went to college. After graduating, I got a job, and I've had a mediocre career ever since. In the meantime, I married, got kids, and divorced.

Last summer, I was back in town after a very long time. I was thirty-three. The kids were staying with their mother, so I was very much a free single man -- the child support I was paying notwithstanding.

One day I was walking past a small bakeshop in the town center, like I had done many times before. I don't eat pastries and such, and thus I'd never paid attention to it -- until that day. For no particular reason, I looked inside.

I saw Hope. She was working there, selling cookies, pies, muffins, pizza slices and whatnot. I stood there and watched her, unable to move. She was as beautiful as I remembered, only she'd become an adult woman. I thought her beauty was arresting. When I finally collected myself enough to act, I stepped inside and said hi. She was glad to see me.

I asked her to meet later -- to talk and catch up. We had a long chat at a small cafe that same day. I gave her the condensed version of my life story. She gave me hers. Ever since high school, she had been her father's wife. She'd never gone to college. The bright young woman that everybody had assumed was destined for a stellar academic and professional career had remained nobody. She'd moved between menial jobs like cleaning places, waitering, and retail. She'd even worked on a farm and on construction sites several times.

We've met a couple more times after that before she invited me to her place. I wasn't looking for that, but could not find an acceptable reason to excuse myself. There, I've met the father. I must have hated the man prior to seeing him. I haven't analyzed my feelings, but I was full of hostility towards him when I arrived at Hope's place. I found him to be a decrepit old man -- seventy at the very least. He was feeble and his hands were shaking badly. I could not hate him any longer. If anything the situation seemed ridiculous: comical and sad at the same time. A terrible waste.

The third time I went to Hope's place I found myself alone with the old man. His daughter had left to buy something from the convenience store at the street corner. He asked whether I wanted her. He said she had told him I was single. He said he was too old and she needed a man. He told me she liked me and that he'd be happy to see the two of us together.

A month later I married Hope.