Page 41 of Shifted

"You knew Joely's father at 19?" Bella looked surprised by my story. I never spoke of him; he was a love that I lost due to time. "He's from Boston? Is he in the city?” She began shooting her mouth at a rapid-fire speed.

"So many questions, Bella?" She knew I didn't like to talk about him much, so doing it today took her by surprise, "He never showed up, end of story... the END- books over!" She frowned and lifted the ornament in her hands.

"So, what's with the ugly ornament?" she asked. I smiled at the walrus ornament, which had now been painted yellow, making it worse.

"Nothing; it just made me laugh." We walked away from the booth, and in the distance, a ghost stood.

Then it happened, the moment when you feel your heart stop and the earth shake. Her head turned to me in confrontation. My stomach churned at the possibility of seeing her. I almost felt frozen in time. A ghost stood twenty feet away in the distance.

She took a step forward as I stayed still. I then looked at my daughter, who was fast asleep in my arms. Bella looked over to see the shell of a woman in the distance as her eyes peered at me and Joely in my arms. I simply turned away, and before I knew it, a hand touched my shoulder.

"Hope,” A voice that had been absent from my ears for the past eight years. Her voice strained as I froze, and she came to face me.

"Hope," she repeated this time as her voice broke. A ghost that I hadn't seen in eight years stood before me. A woman who was worthy of nothing, I needed strength and composure. My daughter was in my arms, and the villain in my life was just a foot away.

"What do you want, Julie?" Her eyes dropped as I used her name instead of a title that no longer belonged to her.

"Come on, Hope. Can we talk?" She has the audacity to approach me and now requests something of me, something that I never owe her and never will.

"You should've come to talk eight years ago, Julie. I think we should go," Bella said this time. I wasn't going to let my tears come through; she wouldn't see me weak.

"You have a child?" She interrupts as I begin to turn, "How old-" Before she can continue with rage, I cut her off. I didn’t want small talk or to be answering this woman's questions. "Julie, I don't want to talk with you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Hyram you saw me so that we could go back to our lives, the ones where we are both dead to each other." I turned away and left as Bella followed behind.

?

Once we stepped out of the taxi, we made our way into Bella's apartment quickly. She took Joely from my arms and brought her to the guest bed while I collected myself in the hallway.

"Oh, Fuck."

“Fuck,” I repeated as the hot tears trickled down my cheeks. It was happening again, the feelings I buried all those years ago. I thought they would be gone. On the off chance I’d see her, I believed I wouldn’t feel a thing that she wouldn’t mean a thing to me. But she looked well, aged, but well as if she lived in a white picket-fenced home with a happy family. Maybe she did. Maybe she formed a new one. But this was something I never could speak about, even when Bella asked about them. I’d tucked it away and buried it so long ago, focusing on my child.

Only for them to just come back up today to see her, the adult whom I trusted abandoning me. I was the parent in that household, I knew that, but it’s hard knowing that it’s your mother, the one who is supposed to protect you, is the one that poisons you. I couldn’t believe I really saw her, after all this time with my daughter in hand. It felt like an open wound.

But now, as I closed my eyes to cry, all I saw was her. I hadn’t seen any images of her in years; they were left to my imagination, and I pictured her worse. Grandma didn’t display any photos of her, and I knew it was because it still hurt for her after learning what they did all those years ago to me. But she couldn’t close them out now. It was her daughter, she reasoned. But now I only saw her, my mother, put together in the Seaport like a whole new person.

I leaned my head against the wall, and I soon felt another hand on my shoulder. My blurred eyes caught him in my vision, "Hope? What happened? Are you okay?" I shook my head as I sucked in my lips, trying to breathe. But oxygen seemed impossible to access at this moment, like I was drowning, trying to go for my final breaths.

"Hope, what happened?" Theo repeats as I can’t find words to use. My ability to talk felt mute, and speaking seemed almost impossible. Any oxygen that my body would take felt like glass, and before I could move a step, I felt myself pressed against his chest. “Shhh, Hope you're okay." I just sobbed. I sobbed in his arms as I felt so vulnerable. I hadn't seen her since I was just a teenager on those front steps by the for-sale sign. But there she was in Boston, walking around 45 minutes away from the town she left me in.

His hand was pressed against the back of my head as I dampened his black sweatshirt. "I can't, I can't—" I hiccupped as I spoke. I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel such emotions. It had been three years since I'd cried like this, not knowing how to function as a human or quite what to do.

"Just breathe, just breathe, you don't need to explain.” He rocked me in his arms back and forth slowly as I felt safe in his embrace. But she was still the soul vision in my mind as I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to see her anymore, “Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… out 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” We continued breathing exercises as his hand drew circles against my back.

“I- I can’t stop seeing her.” I could no longer close my eyes; I learned something that could defeat Angel. It was my own goddamn mother. She could crush me in a moment of peace or chaos. It’s her who I seek in my nightmares, the feeling of being abandoned all over again.

“Then look at me,” he whispers. His thumb lifts my chin as he smiles solemnly at me. “Don’t close your eyes; just focus on me, okay? She’s not with or around us. She’s gone,” he promises, looking around Bella’s apartment and then at me. “It’s just us, Hope, you, and me,” I nod at his words, and he wraps his arms tighter around me.

"Hope?" Bella stood staring at us from the staircase. I broke apart from Theo and turned to her, moving in and wrapping my arms around her. Sometimes, the ghosts from your past really do come back to haunt you, and I’ve learned that the hard way.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hope Taylor

Four years ago

He squirmed lightly next to me in his sleep. His intertwined hand with mine tensed, and I heard his breath hitch. Then his lips trembled as his breathing tensed, causing his hand to squeeze mine. He backed up against the headboard, still asleep, grasping his chest.

"Love," I say, attempting to wake him. But his rapid breathing increased, and I sat up beside him, placing my hand on his face. Some demon in the night was disturbing his sleep. He was having a horrific dream, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. He was scared, an emotion I rarely saw within him. "Love, it's a dream. You're having a nightmare," I replied, trying to wake him, but tears trickled down his eyes in his sleep state.

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