Games of the Heart

Useless Hope

It was always the same dream. The same nightmare.

The abandoned, condemned building hidden behind a line of trees near St. Anne’s Academy.

A semi-dark room filled with old newspaper sheets and broken glass, the only source of light coming through the broken slats of the shuttered windows.

She stood in the middle of that room, alone and terrified. Her breath was in short, sharp gasps as her eyes slowly wandered around, her ears craning desperately for any sound. But she heard nothing, only her own blood pounding in her ears and her heart beating loudly against her chest.

Something moved in the corner of her eye, accompanied by the creaking noise of broken glass. She whirled around. Sunlight glinted off the sharpened blade of a knife that slashed through the air before it slashed through her.

Her arm felt like it was on fire.

A maniacal laugh.

A face she tried so hard to forget.

Then screaming.

**********

“Wake up, Eliza.”

Her eyes flew open. The dark silhouette of her father hovered over her in the unlit bedroom, his hands shaking her shoulders. A lump of panic lodged in her throat and she closed her eyes.

“The light,” she croaked. Her throat felt raw and speaking hurt. “The light, Dad.”

His hands disappeared from her shoulders and light flooded the room. She looked at her alarm clock on the night stand. It was almost midnight.

“Your mother must have turned it off by accident when she came to see if you had already slept,” he mumbled as he returned to her side. “Are you alright, Eliza?”

She wasn’t. But he didn’t need to know that. The pained expression on his face was clear to her and she didn’t want to worry him even further.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, trying to relax, trying to calm the beating of her heart.

Her father knew she was lying. His eyes landed on the white knuckles of her hand which had yet to let go of her right upper arm. Eliza hadn’t even realized she was clutching it and slowly uncurled her fingers from its tight grip, exhaling through her nose slowly. His eyes went back to her.

“Honey, you were screaming in your sleep,” he said, his voice gruff.

So that was why her throat ached.

“Just a bad dream, Dad,” she whispered to him.

His eyes narrowed. “How many times have you had bad dreams?”

She slid her gaze away and didn’t answer. Since that incident, Eliza had been plagued by bad dreams most nights of the week. But it hadn’t been that bad like tonight’s dream. She always woke up before screaming so she could muffle her cries into her pillow.

The dreams eased off while summer was ending and she thought she was going to be rid of them soon. But evidently, this night proved her wrong.

Realizing his daughter wasn’t going to answer his question, her father sighed with defeat. “We’ll talk about this in the morning, Eliza.”

She felt the blanket being pulled up and tucked securely around her shoulders. His hand brushed against her temple ever so lightly. She closed her eyes, trying not to cry.

Then she heard him whisper in a soft voice, “Go back to sleep. I’ll sit here until you do.”

She didn’t want him to lose sleep over her. Yet she was still glad that he was here beside her.

Tomorrow she promised she’d make him his favorite breakfast. And he’ll show her that she was fine. She couldn’t be weak, she couldn’t stay weak. She had to stay strong for her family because she didn’t want to put them through hell again because of her.

She wasn’t sure how to do that however. She thought she knew. She’ll just have to fake it until she made it.

It didn’t take her long until Eliza fell asleep again.

And fortunately, the nightmare left her alone for the rest of the night.

**********

Alex was waiting for Eliza outside her house. He leaned a hip against the short gate, a textbook in his hand, doing some last-minute studying. He had a test for first period and though the subject was easy, he still wanted to make sure he had prepared enough.

Eliza was running late today, he thought as he closed the textbook and checked his wristwatch. Usually, she was out by this time and they’d begin their walk to school.

Just as he decided to open the gate and call for her, the door opened and Eliza came out. He immediately noticed that her hair wasn’t in its usual French braid and just hung down her shoulders and that she seemed to look tired. She lifted her head and paused when their eyes met. He waved and she recovered, shaking her head.

“Don’t you have morning practice today?” she asked him, not moving from the doorstep.

“No. That’s why I can walk with you to school.”

“Eliza?” her father called. “Why are you blocking the door?”

She turned her head. “Alex is here, Dad. He said he’s walking with me to school because he doesn’t have morning practice.” She looked at him and gestured for him to wait. Then she closed the door and Alex heard murmurs from behind it.

He frowned. Something was off.

The door opened and her father stuck his head out. “Morning, Alex.”

He lifted a hand. “Good morning, Uncle. I’ll be taking Eliza to school today.”

Her father nodded. Usually, when Alex couldn’t walk with Eliza to school, her father accompanied her instead. “Have a safe trip. Go on, Eliza. Alex is waiting.”

Alex watched Eliza as she hesitantly stepped out of the door.

Something was going on with her.

“You should have told me last night that you were going to wait for me.” She walked out the gate and kept her gaze averted as she closed it. “I would have hurried and not have made you wait.”

He fell into step with her as they set out for school. “I only remembered this morning,” he replied. “And it’s not like this is the first time I waited for you, Liz.”

She chuckled low. “Still, you should have told me.”

His impatience got the better of him and he stopped walking. He turned, blocking her path and she too stopped walking.

“Look at me, Eliza.”

She hesitated for a moment before she looked up, carefully schooling her features to curiosity. But she wasn’t fooling him. He immediately noticed the weariness in her eyes and the pale complexion of her face. Eliza noticed when he did and her gaze fell away from him. A bolt of fear shot through him.

“What’s wrong?”

She began to look uncomfortable. “We don’t have time to dawdle, Alex.”

He took a step closer. “Eliza, what’s wrong?”

“We’ll be late,” she pointed out, obviously trying to divert the topic.

How the heck can she call Anthony stubborn when she herself had a huge stubborn bone in her body? Alex thought in frustration.

“What did we talk about last summer, Eliza?” he asked her, his voice hard.

She bit her lip. Then she said, “That I won’t keep anything from you.”

“Then what’s this?”

“It was just a bad dream, Alex.”

He wanted to believe her excuses so bad. Every time she lied, he wanted to believe her so much.

He closed his eyes and turned his head. “About what?”

Eliza didn’t lie to him. But it took her awhile to answer. “About her.”

The admission almost undid Alex. Feelings of remorse crept deep inside him. Even if she was gone in their lives, she was still haunting them. And Alex had only himself to blame.

“It’s my fault,” he mumbled. “Last weekend… the cove… I shouldn’t have—“

“What did we also talk about last summer, Alex?”

His eyes flew open and he looked at her. She was smiling at him, like she wasn’t being plagued by nightmares, like she wasn’t even attacked three months ago.

“Alex?” she prompted.

Clenching his jaw, he muttered, “That I will try and move past it.”

“This is not moving past it.”

“Can you honestly blame me, Eliza?” he burst out angrily.

She stared at him, her face sad. Then she said, “Just try, Alex. Nothing bad will ever happen to us again.”

She couldn’t promise that. No one could. But as long as Alex was here, he would definitely make sure nothing bad would ever happen to her again.

He sighed and shook his head. She was right. There was nothing they could do but move past it. Eliza was trying her hardest. He should to.

Life was unkind.

But it didn’t have to be that way forever.

**********

Everyone had dark days.

Dark days when nothing in the world seemed right, when nothing in the world felt right. When life is just too tough and when you succumb to defeat, knowing trying was just pointless.

Anthony was used to having dark days because life was his personal hell. He knew about that more than anyone. That was why he immediately knew that today was Eliza’s dark day.

“What’s wrong with her?” Marco had stopped him out by the door to ask as he was returning from the toilets. Inside the classroom, Eliza was watering the plants by the windows, looking quiet and pensive.

Anthony lifted a brow. “Why are you asking me?”

And why was he even talking to him?

Marco c****d his head to the side. “You’re her friend,” he deadpanned.

“I’m not her friend.”

“She treats you like a friend.”

He shrugged. “Then it’s her problem, right?”

Marco’s head jerked back like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Alex didn’t feel the slightest sympathy for him. He should have known better than to talk to a problematic kid like him.

Still, they were talking about Eliza. And grudgingly, he felt that he should calm this rich boy down before he do something that could make things worse for her.

“Don’t worry, Dy,” Anthony said dryly, trying to move past him. “It’s just one of those days.”

But Marco blocked his way. “Sleeping in class, making mistakes all morning and barely smiling?” he persevered. “That kind of day?”

“Yeah,” Anthony replied shortly.

Marco glanced swiftly at Eliza then back to him. “It’s weird. I’ve never seen her like this.”

“She’ll be back to her old self tomorrow.”

“I should talk to her.”

He almost laughed. Was he freaking serious?

“And make your fan girls hate her even more? Yeah, I know about that,” Anthony went on when he saw how Marco was startled. “You’ll not do her any favors, trust me.”

He’d been generous by leaving Marco before he could say things he shouldn’t say. But it pissed him off to see how ridiculous the taller guy was, acting all concerned and s**t. Alex and Eliza might have trusted him and accepted him easily as a friend but Anthony was a different story. Something was not right about that guy. He felt it. In his guts. And so far, his intuition was never wrong.

“You couldn’t just say no?” he bristled in annoyance as he watched Eliza do the mundane task of gathering the assignment notebooks around the classroom. She was supposed to do this with the vice-president of the class but he had scampered out of the classroom as soon as class was over, knowing she wasn’t the type of person who would rat him out.

Eliza sighed and lifted her hand. “Just give me your notebook, Anthony.”

He growled in frustration.

It was supposed to be just a joke when Alex voted for Eliza as president back in junior high. Alex had consistently been class president since grade school and idiotic Eliza had told him when they entered junior high that she probably would be a better class president than him. So Alex took up the challenge and made everyone vote for her instead.

She was run ragged before the school year ended.

The next year, she got elected again even when Alex didn’t vote for her. And the next year and the next until now. The two idiots didn’t understand why but Anthony did. It was the only way the girls who disliked her could bully her without raising an alarm. They knew Alex would go ape-s**t if someone bullies her. So they instigated the votes and made sure the rest of the class did.

“You are such a pushover, you know that?” Anthony grumbled.

“I don’t understand why you’re being testy.” Eliza’s brows drew together. “I’m just asking for your notebook.”

It aggravated him more, seeing her so calm, and didn’t delay telling her the rest of what he thought about her, “Because seeing you being so pathetic disgusts me. You’re letting people walk over you and use you. And it’s your entire fault, don’t you think?”

His hard scowl crumbled as he realized what he just said.

Eliza was hurt. She didn’t bother hiding it. Then again, she wore her heart on her sleeve and her face was an open book.

Like him, she had her own personal hell. But unlike him, she wasn’t used to it.

He was saved from having to apologize, like he’d even apologize, when Marco appeared behind her.

“I’ve gathered the rest of the notebooks, Eliza,” he said. Anthony didn’t miss the stern glance the new kid sent his way. “Let’s take them to the faculty.”

Eliza pressed her lips together for a brief moment and he could swear it was an effort to keep herself composed. It was an effort that worked.

“Your notebook, Anthony?” she said quietly.

He answered her by taking the notebooks from her arms and putting his on top of the pile. “Go get yourself a coke, Rosa. You look like you need the sugar rush.”

Then he grabbed the rest of the notebooks from Marco and made his way out of the room.