Finding Hope
Chapter 1: Your things are always weird
“What are you wearing? All your things are always weird,” was Hope’s mother’s remark when she saw her outfit for the day. To the untrained eye, this remark was degrading and was going to ruin her mood, but she had seen and heard worse.
Hope had learned very early in life that she was weird. She was the youngest in Primary 1 because her teachers had noticed that she was solving Primary one stuff in nursery 1. She was also bullied for this same reason in her new school. When she got into JSS1, she made what would later become the biggest mistake of her secondary school, in an attempt to fit in and be normal, she lost everything.
Calling her weird was the least of her worries, and the bigger problem was that she needed to be at the fashion house early — at least 10 minutes earlier than the set time to self-regulate and wear her mask of confidence if she was going to pull off this mini runway gig.
“Girl, you look fab! And you are early, quite surprising,” Elsa remarked as she walked into the gigantic storehouse. It was true that Hope had a bad habit of arriving late all the time. The truth was, she had tried to arrive early, but somehow only achieved that goal when she felt like something was at stake, and this time, the stake was her fashion design dreams.
“I’m glad to see you too, Elsa. What time do we start?”
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Her fear had come to pass– her style was not accepted. “It just does not make sense” The judge had said.
This time, being weird was not fun and her mum was right after all.
Fashion design was her last straw of hope. History was something she loved, but she did not know how that was going to make her money, which made having a degree in it a waste of her time. Fashion was supposed to be her cash cow, while she focused on activism, history and governance for passion’s sake, but that “no” was her last straw. 3 years, down the drain? Well, that was goodbye to fashion. If she was going to move out of her family’s house as she was planning to do soon, she needed to let go of her attachment to a failed career path and move on as quickly as possible.
“I’m quitting” she told Elsa as they packed up.
“Babe, a ‘no’ is not the end of the world. Haba”
“I know, but this is the end of this world, for me” Hope said, packing her designs and dresses into a duffel bag.
“Guy, stop na. We can work on mine together; you would get inspo that way”
This was what she loved about Elsa– her optimism
“Thank you, I’m really grateful, but this is not about you or fashion. It’s deeper, and I know you love me, but you don’t understand,” Hope said and walked away with her duffel bag in hand.
Maybe her mother was right; she was weird, and maybe the only way to survive this world was to find ways to blend in.
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Hi guys! So I’m starting a new story here. I do hope you enjoy it. Have a wonderful day
XoXo
Scharlet