Hope Alive

It was a very starry night. I remember thinking at one point, it was the
kind of night that you would see in the season finale of a television
show. The stars above, a bright full moon, and a world of secrets ready
to be set free. The perfect setting for just such a finale.

I was being thrown a going away party because I would be leaving the
next day for boot camp. He had come. He hadn't spoken to me in over a
month. Not since he started dating her. I wondered why he had dared to
show his face, but at the same time I was excited to see him again. That
changed quickly, though, because he spent most of the party pulling my
twin away from the rest of us to talk about his relationship.

At some point in the evening, I got a little over emotional
with some of my friends about things that I worried about. Then he
walked up, and they walked away. I tried to pass by him. He moved in my
way, putting his arms out, blocking me from passing, so he could find
out what was wrong with me. I looked up at him, trying to decide if I
really wanted to say anything. As usual, I decided to tell him, but
wasn’t sure how to say what I wanted to say. Finally I just let the
words spill from my mouth. I babbled on about not wanting to be with my
boyfriend and about wanting to leave with no strings attached. I was
secretly telling him I wanted to be over him finally. I was also hoping
that he would say something to make everything in my world right again.
He took a deep breath as he thought about what he was going to say.
That’s when I noticed the bright, starry, perfect night. My heart
stopped. Was I finally going to hear what I had waited for almost nine
months to hear? Was I going to have a happy season finale?

He started off saying, "I've wondered for the last month, why I never
dated you. You were the best relationship I ever had." He paused at this
point as if trying to decide something, and then he spoke again. "But
I'm going to stay with her. I'd rather settle for less. Don‘t tell anybody I told you this, though." My heart broke in two.

Yet again, he was playing mind games with me. His last kick to me before
I left. He gave me the worst going away present that he could possibly
think to give me. Hope. They were still in high school. They could
easily break up at anytime, and then I would be there to help him. We
would finally be a couple. There would be a new season in which new and amazing things could happen. He didn't care that I would mess up my chances for leaving, just because I had this hope of being with him.

That hope was what really destroyed me.