Chapter 8

Derek told them about his first time with Hope and how hard he had fought not to let her see how much he cared for her. His first marriage had lasted over thirteen years. When he left, he also left a good deal of his self-esteem with it, she hadn't given him a clue, one day she had just said that it was over. In a way it was okay he supposed, as they hadn't had sex for a long time but they still shared a home and kids.

The kids were away at a summer camp when she gave him his two weeks notice. He had thought they could work it out somehow, but when she after some months allowed him to find out about her secret affair, as her lover got thrown out of his own home to move in with her, he realized that it wouldn't work. He had left it all to her when he walked, not that they were rich, but he wanted the kids to feel as little disruption as possible with their home. That was before he knew of her new man though.

Now he just couldn't see her anymore, or even visit his kids. He threw himself into work and drinking. Working as much as he could and drinking when he was free. It was an evil spiral leading him only to loneliness. Sometimes he thought that he just should have blown them both to hell. But deep inside he knew that it would have been wrong, they were in love, that guy had broken up with his wife and kids for her just as she had with him.

But it broke his heart, as he saw his kids he kept trying to hold the truth from them, he said that everything was fine with him but inside, for all he cared, he could as well be dead. So he stopped caring, first about his home, then about himself and in the end even his work. It seemed all the same to him. He thought about killing himself but he had kids, it would give them a really bad example he thought.

So meeting Hope was his miracle, she gave him a direction and a sense of meaning. And he didn't dare to tell her for risking to loose her, as he had lost before. One must remember that a heart can be a most fragile thing, even though it will keep on pounding to the end no matter what, even when broken, its bearer may never see life the same again.

He hadn't found out how to cry until being in his twenties but separating himself from his home seemed to have opened the floodgates for good. That's how he used to spend his free time, whisky and crying, not so anyone could hear though. Derek had for better or worse decided to never again expect loyalty or love from another human being.

It was an ongoing embarrassment to him that he had become so easily moved, and he was thankful when after some years it seemed to stop. When, after meeting Hope, he once more found himself starting to care, he couldn't help but being afraid of her, as well as for her. On one hand ready to give her his life if she needed it, on the other backing away from any emotional content.

He couldn't get over what he saw as his failure before, sometimes he thought it all might have been his fault. He got frightened on so many levels when thinking of explaining himself to her. Hope got very contradictory readings from his behavior and even Dawn had problem seeing him for who he was. None of the girls doubted his care though, still there was a distinct lack of sharing that somehow separated them, and in the end even seemed to slowly break them apart.