"Considering the fact that it’s Christmas, and I haven’t gotten a present from you," Isaac started, "I figure you owe me one." Hope laughed, cynically, keeping herself from knocking him out.
"Ike, hun, I think protecting your life every minute of every day for the past few months, you should all be getting me a ton of presents. It’s just the way it goes."
"Sure, yeah, you think that, Hope," Taylor added. "That’s why Zac…"
"Taylor!" Diana scolded. Tay gave his mother an innocent look. "Shut up. I don’t want to hear another word from you until lunch." Taylor shut his mouth, keeping himself from making a rude comment to his mother. Her glare told him that he wasn’t being the best person in the world and that he should shut the hell up before she slaps him.
Hope sighed, knowing exactly what Taylor had meant. She and him for the past day hadn’t been on the best terms. She’d just snapped at him once and he was being a stupid fuck to her. Hope glanced over to Zac and he was rubbing his arm, staring deathly at Taylor.
Oh damn.
Zac looked over to Hope and by her expression he knew she felt like shit. The whole day her and Taylor had been on each other’s nerves, criticizing and tormenting one another, bringing up old wounds that never did heal, were just forgotten about.
Before all this sudden madness, Taylor and Hope had been best friends. They told each other anything and everything, deep things they’d never told anyone before. Of course Zac had been a little jealous of Taylor, he was best friends with such a beautiful girl, but that beautiful girl had too many problems in her life. That’s why Ike had stayed his distance.
Ike didn’t know what to say anymore. His brother and his bodyguard were in a snit. His other brother was stuck in the middle, just the one that happened to be there when the snit started. He pitied Hope, for some reason he pitied her.
Of course he could never tell her that, because she’d rather be hated than pitied. But he did, and he couldn’t help it. She’d had so many problems in her life. From her brother (that Taylor told Ike and Zac about), to her baby, to Jonathan. And now that she was with the Hansons, she’d had to face the problems in her past including a set of new ones. All that was leading to…Ike didn’t know what it was leading to.
She looked so innocent. She looked like there was no reason for anything to happen to her. She looked sane. Then again, she wasn’t. She was guilty. All these things had happened to her because she had made mistakes.
But it was human to make mistakes.
Her whole life was planned out for her and she didn’t even know. Be a bodyguard until you die doing it, or until you retire. The possibility of a mate was out of the question. She was too stubborn for that.
Ike sighed. All he could do was sit back and watch as she tore herself apart inside, making it painfully obvious on the outside. That morning she’d said only a few words, and that was a snap at Ike. Otherwise she stayed her distance, sitting on the floor, watching as the family opened their presents like normal people.
They were normal people.
The children were sitting there, playing with their new things or checking out their new games. Right then and there, they were normal. No screaming teenies professing their love to people they didn’t even know, no obligations to sing on the right key at the right time. They were just a family, a normal family on a normal Christmas morning.
Hope was the oddball. She was the only thing that made them famous. Her being made her realize that they weren’t normal. Otherwise they wouldn’t need a bodyguard. They wouldn’t need her to be there, she would be at home with her own family.
Goddammit I’m only fifteen!! I should be home opening up presents, looking at my own Christmas tree. Not the famous children I was sent to protect! I’m only fifteen! I’m supposed to have a life, not a child, not a full-time job, not sitting in my client’s home, safeguarding them!
Hope felt the tears well up and ran to her room before they could fall.
The not normal family watched, and heard the door slam. Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson, not Hanson; world-famous bubble-gum pop band, exchanged glances. Diana noticed.
"Let her be. It’s Christmas morning and she’s with us and not her own family."
"But even if she wasn’t with us, she wouldn’t have a family to go back to," Taylor whispered, barely audible.
Hope fell on her bed, her rented bed, and cried. She cried and cried until her tears could fall no more. Mumbling curses into her pillow, she pounded her fist into the mattress until it nearly went through.
She sat up and grabbed all her beloved belongings, all her material possessions, and set them in the middle of the room. A large heap formed, and bit by bit, she went through it.
The first item was a picture frame. Hope and Jonathan, friends forever, as the frame had said. "Fuck that," she muttered, throwing the frame at the wall, shattering it.
Downstairs, the family heard thumping against the wall, glass shattering and sudden curses. Taylor was close to getting up and seeing what was going on, but Diana stopped him.
"Don’t even think about going up there. Let her vent and if she wants company, she’ll ask for it."
One of the last items Hope had picked up was yet another picture. This one was with Taylor. Her best friend, nowadays. She studied it, fresh tears running down her face and spilling onto the frame.
For an hour, she studied every aspect of the picture. Taylor seemed so happy. Hope had plastered on one of her many fake smiles. As much as he cared, she didn’t have any emotions towards him. The rule was not to be attached. That was it.
She’d learned her lesson the first time. She was not going to get attached again. Never again.
With all her might, she threw the picture against the wall, putting a dent in the wall and shattering the frame. The picture remained in tact, but was soon ripped to shreds.
Two more items in the pile. Two more and she was free.
The contract.
Aya.
Simple remembrances of her life. The two things she cared the most about. Her job and her daughter. So many pictures she’d thrown against the wall, so many items that now lay in a pile of crumpled and shattered wreckage.
Gently, she picked up the contract. The only thing left in her job, after her world had collapsed. Taking it in two hands, she looked away, and split the paper down the middle. Then again. And again.
Soon there was nothing but tiny shreds of her job. That was gone now and she didn’t care. It was time to become normal again. It was time to be the person she’d always wanted to be.
Normal fifteen year olds do not have daughters.
She took the snapshot of Aya Maria Thomas-Hollowell. Such a pretty little girl.
She closed her eyes and tore it once and only once. Normal fifteen year olds do not have daughters, she kept telling herself as the two scraps fell to the floor.
Hope would have burned the entire room down if it was hers. It belonged to her previous life. It belonged to someone else and she couldn’t take that away from them.
She stood.
She stood and walked to the door. Hope unlocked the door, quietly walked down the steps and to the front door. The family was still gathered around the Christmas tree, silently waiting.
Without a goodbye, or a so long, or wish to see you again, Hope opened the door and left.
Normal fifteen year olds are not bodyguards.
Normal fifteen year olds would be at home right now.
And that’s where she was heading.
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