River of Hope

Hope’s POV:

“Tch, you? Dating him? Over my dead body!” Those were Violetta Thornbrier’s words of scorn to my face right before she lunged towards me intending to rip my hair out, a look of vile jealousy contorting her prettily made-up face. I shrank back instinctively, trying to shield myself from her wrath. How did I end up in this situation? I glanced up at the tall, masculine, Norwegian specimen beside me. Oh, right, it’s all because I made a deal with a vainglorious Viking. No, really. You don’t believe me, do you? Let me start at the beginning.

My name is Hope. That may surprise you as people rarely give their kids virtues for names nowadays, but I come from a Latino catholic family originally from Mexico, where the old beauty of tradition is still incredibly emanated in our modern lifestyle. So picking a virtue for a baby girl’s name is not just acceptable but necessary. It also signifies the type of person the child would grow up to be, in our culture. I have to disagree with Shakespeare; it appeared beneath his dignity to consider a person’s value in a name. Hello, he didn’t read the bible enough. Every single person in the bible derived their purpose from their name. It’s who they were, what they were born for.

For me though, I would have been better suited to being called Faith or Love, I was a person anything but hopeful. But then when you’re born on the first Sunday of Advent, naturally you’d have to expect your parents to name you ‘Hope’.

My Latina name was Esperanza but only my family called me that. My family name is Domingo. For about three generations, we’ve lived on the edge of a little floating haven called Anna Maria Island off the coast of Florida. My family had been immigrants in World War I. They came from Mexico to the United States seeking a better life and found it on a little island called Emerald Bay, population two thousand. Like its name, it’s all powder beaches and coves and sparkling emerald waters for as far as the eye can see. As a vacation spot, it is ideal for passing tourists, which we don’t get a lot of; there’s sun, sand, sea, surf, swimming, and boating, and the seafood is better than the stuff they preserve on the mainland since it’s caught fresh out of the water. But as a town you’ve had to live all your life in? It’s small and suffocating to the point of driving you to the idea of running away. And I would if I had the funds.

Don’t judge me too harshly, I love my family, we’re a close-knit community and the people in Emerald Bay are the kindest souls on earth. Well, most people are, the world isn’t perfect. And Violetta Thornbrier is the perfect example of her name—a thorn in the side of anyone she doesn’t like. I’ll tell you more about her later. But she’s only a part and a very small part of the reason I wanted to run away in the first place.

A claustrophobic, self-contained town life isn’t for me, much as it is for my family. I wanted to travel, see the world, find love… I was terrified of getting stuck in Emerald Bay for the rest of my life simply because it was the ‘happiest place in the world’ as Mamma put it. It was no Disneyland, but it had everything you needed to settle down for a contented, convenient life. I did not want that, I wanted so much more. ‘Adventure in the great wide somewhere’ and all…

Every week since I was allowed to walk around town on my own, I would go to the cruise ship docks and gaze in child-like wonder at the ginormous ships that sailed in and out, wishing I could be on one of them. I would look at all the vacationers from around the world disembarking them to come and get a taste of Emerald Bay while I would long to be where they’ve been. To get on a ship and just sail far away to see new sights and meet new people… People who haven’t formed an unchangeable opinion about you… I suppose I have pipe dreams, because for now, with my budget and part-time job, I have no other choice but to be content at Emerald Bay. Hoping to miraculously get out of here was useless; so what I decided to do was work hard to win a scholarship to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

As a result, ever since I made my dream and stuck to it, I became the studious, unsociable, recluse at Marine Shores Academy, my school. It’s not that I was antisocial, just introverted. Some people, like me, are just born that way. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to close myself off to everyone all through the years of my schooling and focused only on getting that scholarship. I kept to myself, kept the social interactions to a bare minimum, and in the process, kept everyone’s backs up. Sure, it kinda hurt when no one wanted to be friends with me or ever invited me to their parties or to just hang out, but who cares? I’ll be out of here by the time I turn eighteen and fly far away to a college anywhere but in Emerald Bay. Besides, I knew I couldn’t blame people for not wanting me around, I wasn’t very good company being a restless soul. I was better off on my own than imposing my presence on other people.

This suited me just fine until I started high school. I’d done okay without any close friends until ninth grade arrived. Then the trouble started.

Honestly, it wasn’t my fault; I didn’t know raging hormones would kick in and that I would feel uncontrollable emotions concerning the opposite sex at the onset of adolescence. Sure I read the biology books, but those only gave me black and white facts; the real experiences and immature feelings didn’t come with a warning label in me. I truly applaud my family for putting up with me so lovingly in those early years.

But hormones weren’t my only problem.

Since I was little, everyone said I would grow up to be a regular Latina beauty; I had jet black curly hair (the ringlet kind, not the unruly kind), warm beige skin, petite features, and an oval face. I had large, mocha brown eyes, thick lashes and brows, and soft cheekbones. But somehow, when I reached early womanhood, I never saw myself as an exquisite beauty. At least, I never had a reason to think of myself as attractive.

I know I shouldn’t have done it in retrospect, but when high school arrived, the dating age arrived too, and with that, came expectations and a tiny little hope that boys might find me attractive too. And I foolishly based that criteria on superficial beauty. My instant, crushing disappointment put an end to my hopes of finding love in Emerald Bay forever—no guy ever came up to me and asked me out. It was stupid to think that I’d be accepted as I was, whatever I looked like. So while I went around with messy, curly hair and large square glasses, certain to ward off potential flirts, other girls went around dating, kissing, and getting up to who knows what in private with beguiling boys who had stolen their soppy hearts.

And so I reached young adulthood, alone, with a closed-off unromantic heart, a disdain for impassioned boys, and disgust for groveling girls who would fall over themselves trying to impress said boys.

I almost made it to the last day of high school unscathed since my failed attempt at love back in ninth grade but life had different plans for me. Lord help a woman against the wiles of capricious boys.

Now we’re getting to the good part, as they say in theatrics.

In my school, there were cliques, friend circles, and an outcast system for socially inept beings like myself just like in any other school on the mainland. I blame pop culture for that. If it weren’t for television, society might’ve thrived without stereotypes. Oh well, así es la vida.

Among these elite cliques were usually the fashionable chicas, the macho dandies, and the smart-alecky geeks. I might have fitted in the last category if only I was as forward as them in flaunting my brains as much as the jocks did their brawn. But I fell into the classless category of lonely outcast, best left alone.

Violetta Thornbrier was one of the princesses who reigned in the little kingdom of Marine Shores, at least, in her own mind. She had the charisma, the beauty, and the athletic skills to grab attention. And I’ve heard the sole topic of conversation among the males while passing by was her body and every detail of it. Ugh. I’m not gonna waste much more time talking about her.

Many such princesses ruled my school, and to woo them, there existed hot-bodied princes. But the worst of them all, in my opinion, was the most ego-headed, vainglorious, high and mighty prince of Marine Shores with whom I’d had the worst experience—River Hansen. The Viking.

I (and everyone else) say Viking because one, he’s Norwegian, two, he has the body of Thor Odinson, and three, he’s a fighter slash athlete. He’s supposedly, every girl’s dream. He’s six feet tall, has the perfect shoulder-length cinnamon brown hair which he loves to flip for girls sending them swooning to the floor, clear porcelain skin, perfectly perfect features, plump pink lips, a carved square jaw, and rumored pure, turquoise gems for eyes. I’ve never actually seen them up close because I’ve never gone near enough to look him in the eye since he first arrived but I knew the turquoise rumor was exaggerated. Women. And I say that despite being part of the same species.

Whenever I’d pass by any girl-clique at school, the common topic was always ‘River this’, or ‘River that’. River, River, River, that name is all I ever heard since high school started. Almost made me sick of anything related to water and I lived on an island, for Pete’s sake.

The Hansens came to Emerald Bay four years ago after they moved here from Norway. River Hansen joined Marine Shores in ninth grade after his puberty had well set in and he walked into our humble school the way a mythical Norse god would grace lowly mortals with his presence. He was admirable and knew how to exploit it, the pig head. He was about as popular as Messi at Marine Shores being a star surfer and garnered everyone’s undying attention because of it. He was a hit with males and females alike and charmed his way into everyone’s heart without effort—to my humiliation, even mine, at that time. And I admit this with much discomfort—River was the one whose attention I tried to catch at my first courtship.

Know what happened? He turned me down with a cold shoulder and mocked me for even thinking I had a chance with him. Most humiliating day of my life in the ninth grade.

I had been working up the courage to go talk to him all week and finally got my chance in gym class one afternoon. I didn’t know where to begin, I had no clue what flirting was. So I tried honesty instead.

“Um, hi,” I said shyly to him. He looked up from tying his shoelaces with blank blue eyes.

“You talking to me?” He asked, spotting me on his side.

“Yes.” I nodded, attempting a smile at him. “My name is Hope and I was wondering if you’d like to hang out. I could give you a tour of the town—”

“Did someone put you up to this?” He cut me off. I blinked, taken aback by his abrasive question.

“I’m sorry?” I asked in confusion. He snickered and looked me over from head to toe with a disdainful look in his eye. I felt myself turning red with embarrassment and knew he was mentally judging my plain looks.

“Or maybe you were just doing it on a dare… Either way, I see no reason for us to continue this conversation. Let’s not talk again.” With an arrogant smirk, he got up and walked away but not before I heard him mumble, ‘pitiful girl, like she ever had a chance’. I was too shocked at first to believe what I heard. But as it slowly sank in, tears of humiliation drowned me in the locker room later, tears over the fact that I was not attractive to boys. But they turned to rage over that arrogant Norse god wannabe and I vowed to protect myself from having my heart broken by males ever again. Thor my foot. He was as despicable as Loki.

I never had any interaction with a male unless necessary for class work since that fateful event. I was the only one who saw River Hansen for what he truly was while everyone else looked at him through gold-plated lenses throughout school. I never understood it; how could they not see that vainglorious Viking for what he really was?!

But I never thought the day would ever come when River Hansen would voluntarily talk to me—and he chose the last day of school, four years after rejecting me.

“Hey.” I didn’t look up. I knew that voice, that was the dreaded voice of the male I despised, the voice that filled the school halls and hypnotized all the ladies. But I knew it wasn’t addressing me. In fact, no one would actually talk to me unless it was about some assignment or something. Everyone else was already busy discussing summer vacation plans and forthcoming parties they’d be attending. I continued putting my books away at the end of class.

“Hey, Hope.” I froze. River Hansen couldn’t be addressing me, his arch-enemy, could he? Yet I was the only one called Hope in my class. And how did he know my name? We haven’t spoken in years.

Slowly, I raised my eyes and was met by his through my glasses. He was looking right down at me, a neutral expression on his face.

“You talking to me?” I couldn’t resist throwing his question from four years ago in his face with slight defiance. His imperially arched eyebrows raised higher than usual.

“Yes, I’m looking right at you.” I stared back at him, daring him to admit it was a mistake, that he meant to address someone else. But he didn’t.

“What do you want?” I asked disinterestedly.

“We’re graduating next week,” he replied. Well, thank you, Captain Duh, for the understatement of the year.

“What does that have to do with you talking to me?” I asked, surprised that this conversation even prolonged to a sentence.

“Nothing, I—” he stopped himself, clicking his tongue with a little frustration. “Look, we haven’t talked much before,” at all, I added in my mind, “and I was hoping we could bury the hatchet so to speak before we go our separate ways.” Whatever I expected to hear from him, it wasn’t that. I blinked at him, taken aback by his words for the second time in four years. What was he thinking, that just because it was the end of the year and he felt like it he could walk up to me and try to patch up his mistake? Nuh-uh.

“Is this some sort of prank?” I asked skeptically. He frowned.

“No, I am very serious.”

“Then you’re not right in the head if you can suggest something like this to me.” I stood up, gathering my things to go. He caught my arm to stop me.

“Do not get offended. I am trying to make up with you.”

“After four years?” I scoffed, disgusted by his reasoning. Why didn’t he think of this the day he snubbed me? Arrogant brute. However, his face did not become mocking as it did that day, only his eyes grew thoughtful.

“I apologize for any misunderstanding I might have caused. And for taking this long to do so,” he said sedately. I almost snorted.

"Might have? You clearly don’t even know your mistake,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. I could never forget his cruel words since that day and he’s not even sure if what he did was wrong? Ridiculous.

“Must you act so difficult?” He muttered huffily under his breath. That did it—I had no more courtesy left to talk with him. My expression hardened.

“Listen, I don’t want to pick a fight with you on the last day, but I didn’t come here to be talked to like this. You said you never wanted to talk to me again,” some of the hurt must’ve seeped into my face because his mouth parted as he watched me, “so why not keep it that way? It worked well for you all this time.” I said the last part so softly as I walked away that I wasn’t sure if he heard it. But he must have because he didn’t follow me. And I didn’t have to look back as I left the halls of Marine Shores and hopefully River Hansen, forever.