Season Of Love (gxg) | ✍︎︎

14. Getting Deep.

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|  SEASON OF LOVE  |
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"Are you hungry?" Hope asked once they were in her car and headed to a location still undisclosed to Noelle.

"What?" Noelle asked as if she didn't understand the question.

"Are you hungry?" Hope repeated. "If you are, then we can eat first. If not, then we'll eat after."

"After what, exactly? Where are we going?"

"You don't want it to be a surprise?"

"No. I want to know where you're taking me."

"You used to trust me a lot more, you know," Hope teased.

"I used to do a lot of things. So, where are we going?"

"We're going to the ice-skating rink at Woodman Center. It's near Christmas, so I figured we could do something a bit more festive and fun. I'm in the holiday spirit this year."

"We can eat after," Noelle said. "And I didn't think you'd have me doing physical activity, but then again, it's you. I never know what to expect when it comes to you."

"You should know that already, though. I'm full of surprises."

"That you are, because no one was expecting you to come home this Christmas. You never even came home for breaks in college. You've only been home once since you left."

"Yeah," Hope sighed. "And I regret that. I really do. For a long time, I was angry. It stopped me from ever wanting to come back here."

"With me?" Noelle asked in a very quiet voice. "You were angry with me." She didn't ask it as a question because she was sure she already knew the answer.

"No," Hope shook her head. "Well... not really, anyway. At first, I thought I was angry with you. I convinced myself that I hated you for lying to me for months about how things would change. I thought I was angry because we were supposed to go to college together, just for you to break up with me weeks before we were supposed to leave. But as I matured and started to see the world for more than what the young, naive version of me thought it to be, I understood that I wasn't angry at you. I couldn't be."

"Hope, what are you talking about? I'm not understanding what you're saying."

"I'm saying that the world is a cruel place. You voiced your feelings and your fears to me many times, but I never listened. Well, I did listen, but I could never understand fully what you were so scared of. I thought I was angry with you for breaking up with me, but I should have been angry at the world for making you scared to be with me. And when I think back on it, I think that's what I was really angry about the whole time. I was never angry with you. I was angry that people like me... like us.. are made to feel that way at all."

"I deserve for you to be angry with me. I'm angry with myself. Yeah, we were young, but you were still so much more mature than I was at that age. You were willing to talk things out, even though I never wanted to talk. You were willing to meet me where I was. You were willing to give me the time I needed. You were patient with me. And even with all of that, I still fucked everything up. I think about it a lot, actually. That day."

"What day?"

"The... last day we spoke," Noelle said barely above a whisper.

"I try not to think about that day," Hope admitted. She said a lot of hurtful things to Noelle that day. She wanted her to hurt as much as she was when Noelle broke up with her. But what she didn't know at the time was that Noelle was just as, if not already more heartbroken about it than Hope was.