HOPE

CHAPTETR 1

My name is Hope. I am 21 years old and a Leo, well I believe sometimes your zodiac sign got a great influence on you. I am a ghetto girl, grew up in the streets of Soweto, where violence and cruelty rules at most parts of it. I am a third year student at Wits University, doing Law. I have always had lawyer traits since childhood. I was the nerd among my friends because I would always be the one to try and state facts in every conversation and blah blah blah. I would tell them about my research and human rights and how I think it is not fair for people to live in fear because of crime. They hated when I turned into a lecturer. Because I spoiled the fun.

I wanted to be a lawyer so that I can stand up for the weak and defend the oppressed. Mostly, I wanted to stand for women who endure pain of physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis of their lives. I knew if I did Law, I will be able to change a part of the world. It will give me a purpose to live. Happily.

It is school holidays. I love coming back home to relax and sleep all day because I can. No more morning classes, afternoon classes and those long lectures for at least 2 weeks. I usually wake up around 11 to 12 and find my sister already done with the house chores on weekends because she is an absolute angel. Well, you don't wake up to birds chirping around here, either by barking dogs, children screaming like it is the end of the world, cars hooting all the way to the corner or my sister with her terrible vocal cords. She swears she can sing though. I come back home every school holidays and sometimes on weekends when I don't have much work to do.

My sister is 27 and working as a social worker. She loves her job, I can tell. She doesn't have any child or a man to brag about in social media. She does though, have a few friends she goes out partying with every once in a while if not at least, 6 times a year. Unlike me, "a serious introvert" as she puts it, she is a very outdoor person. She is kind and gorgeous, reason I still don't understand why she is single. I doubt she ever had her first kiss or a date. Well, she is a workaholic that is too focused on building her independence than a family. I am her only family.

"Hey sis," greeting her as I sit down on the comfy couch that I daily miss when sitting at those chairs in our school auditoriums. She is relaxed on the couch watching a TV show, "You up early today, had a bad night?" "How is 12 early?" that is me getting up to the kitchen, "I am actually hungry. What's for breakfast?" opening the fridge, "There is cereal and some leftovers from last night if you would rather prefer those!" my sister shouting from the living room. Oh how I love this soul. She knows me too well. I prefer cooked food in the morning. Well, after I wake up.

My sister and I would normally spend most of the day watching TV and eating. She does not talk about work, and I don't talk about school. We just chill and reminisce on our childhood years. Talking about old happy times. "It was my fault that we had that accident..." "Hope please, you promised me we won't talk about that," my sister sitting upright on her couch. "It's true Lucy, I shouldn't have went outside to pee when mom insisted that we stop on the next petrol station," already holding in tears, "It was nobody's fault that mom and dad died but that of the reckless driver, alright? Now stop being so pathetic right now, because I am not going to have this conversation with you. I have to go somewhere," Lucy getting up straight to her room, 2 minutes later she is already out of the house. I am left alone.

It has been my sister and I for the past 9 years. We lost our parents in a car accident when we went on a family vacation to Mauritius. My sister was 18 at the time and I was only 12. All I remember is my parent's car being crushed right before our eyes when my sister accompanied me to go and pee. I don't remember how we got into hospital or who helped us. I blacked out, I don't know when. But I do remember asking one of the nurses where my parents were, and she just gave me a pity look, rubbed my head and left.

My father was owned his own bakery and my mother was a nurse. They both worked hard to provide for my sister and I. They were high school sweethearts and tied the knot when my mother was 19 and dad was 22. When my father finally got a place or his bakery in Soweto, they moved from their hometown Tembisa, and began their new lives. Then my sister was born, now they had more reason to work hard. 6 years later my mother fell pregnant again, I was daddy's girl. He took me to his bakery almost everyday when I was 5, not that I remember that, they told me. My sister was very fond on my mother, I would come back from school and find them watching TV shows that I did not quite enjoy, and that would be my cue to go to daddy's bakery.

Our uncle came to take us home. After that, we were only able to survive on the inheritance our parents left us, until my sister finally graduated and got a job and invested the rest of the inheritance money to my education account. She took care of me as a parent would.

But there was no more goodnight kisses of my parents, or the funny faces that my dad would make when we are about to have dinner, or the family gardening we would have 2 times a month or the ladies' night with my sister and mother.

My heart still aches when I think about my parents.