Aquaria

Chaper 1: Exactly What Hope Needed, Exactly When She Needed It

"May he rest in peace, our beloved brother, a son, and best friend, and a father." Hope's aunt Freya sniffled as she looked down at the remains of her brother in the urn sitting atop the hill of Hope's childhood sanctuary. It was silent for a moment, and Hope allowed the cawing of the gulls distract her as salty tears fell down her cold, stained cheeks.

"Would anybody else care to say a few words?" Inquired her uncle Elijah, and Hope could feel several pairs of eyes on her, but she didn't dare look up from the sand under her shoes. She felt her chest ache when somebody grabbed her hand, and she turned her gaze to see little brown bare toes wiggling in the sand.

"You should say something." Whispered her cousin, Pedro, whose big brown eyes shone up at her sadly.

"I-I can't." She stuttered, before a hand dropped on her shoulder softly, a soft voice speaking on behalf of her son's words.

"It's just us, Hope." Promised her aunt Keelin, her thumb stroking her shoulder softly, "We understand if you can't, but he'd love to hear what you have to say about what he left behind." She assured, and Hope nodded, inhaling shakily before stepping forward to address her big, loving family.

"My dad was not a perfect man." She shuddered, resorting back to dropping her gaze at her shoes. "But he was the best dad I could ask for." Little Pedro squeezed her hand and laid his head against her arm to assure her that he was there for her. "When my mom died, he did everything he could to give me the love I missed from her, and for that, I couldn't be more grateful." Hope used her unoccupied hand to wipe her eyes, "My dad made me who I am. He gave me the ambition and love of learning, and he helped shape this family into what it is today." She looked up to the murky skies, eyes searching for any semblance of light shining through the clouds in the form of his gaze, to find nothing. "His hand will be on our shoulders as we live on in his honor, and he'll be watching over us with Grandma there to guide him."

She couldn't look at her family.

She couldn't bare to see the teary eyes and puffy cheeks of the people who helped raise her.

She couldn't even fathom the idea of the very people who helped her through the death of her mother being in just as much pain as she was in this moment.

First her grandmother when she was six, then her mother when she was twelve, and now, as an adult, she loses the only man who's ever been there the entire time.

She felt so alone.

She felt so empty.

She felt alone, despite all these people she called family.

"Thank you for that, Hope." Smiled Hope's aunt Freya with a kind smile in her eyes as she demanded everybody's attention again.

When Hope found out her father died, she was with Lucy, one of the few permanent fixtures in her life to this point. She remembered rolling over in Lucy's bed to grasp the phone ringing on the nightstand closest to Hope, and hearing the fateful words.

There's been an accident with a drunk driver.

Your father didn't make it.

She remembered hanging up in shock, and sitting up against Lucy's headboard and hugging her knees to her bare chest as it heaved with her heavy sobs. Lucy felt her companion crying beside her and sat up to comfort her.

She didn't ask what was wrong, she just pulled Hope close against her chest and let her cry until she was ready to talk.

It's what she loved most about Lucy.

She knew exactly what Hope needed, exactly when she needed it.

"Let's go for a walk." Smiled Lucy from where she was standing, close to the dip in the hill that lead back to the beach Hope mentioned that she spent her childhood trekking.