“Should it?” I wondered. “As I said, I know the stories, and I’ve lived through plenty of my own. People feeling bad for me means they know the system isn’t working like it’s supposed to, which means people know it needs to be fixed, which means there’s a chance people might actuallytryto fix it.”
“Trying is not the same as doing.”
“Trying is the first step to doing, and knowing is the step before trying. Well, not always, but it can be.”
“You certainly don’t lack optimism.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Ultimately? Nothing, but I’ve never seen much point in hope other than it can occasionally be beneficial.”
I leaned forward and tossed him the bag of chips, which he caught deftly. “So what? Isn’t that a good thing?”
“I find hope a bane more than a boon,” he said, opening the bag and grabbing a couple to crunch. “Hope can kill people as much as it can help, and really, it often does more damage.”
“Hmm, I think hope is what keeps people going when there’s nothing else to hold onto.”
“It also means people will keep holding onto something long past its use, or to the point that they do even more harm, when moving on or choosing differently would have served them better.”
“But that’s how people work,” I said with a shrug. “Sense and logic don’t always come into play.”
“I’m well aware. I’m not debating whether it’s something people do, or ignoring the reasons why they do it,” he said as he grabbed a few more chips. “I’m saying people often choose thevery thing that will hurt them most. Hope might have its time and place, but it alsolies.”
I squinted. “Hope lies? Since when?”
“The very nature of hope is to lie. It tells you there is a chance when there is none. It tells you things will be better if you keep trying, when, in fact, you’re usually making your life harder by continuing where you shouldn’t. Hopelies. It is only by chance that occasionally its lie is made truth.”
“What a depressing way of seeing it,” I said with a sigh. “Is that why you’re so cranky and judgy?”
The corner of his lips twitched. “No, I am cranky and judgy because I’m irritable by nature and have always been critical of life. In truth, the way I see life gives me a great deal of comfort.”
I scooted forward, raising a brow. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them as I studied him. “How do you figure?”
“If hope lies, then I know better than to give weight to the whispers,” he said thoughtfully. “And I don’tneedhope to know things can improve. Reason can do that. I can improve my life on my own without lying to myself.”
“Is that what you used when you were hurt?” I asked, vaguely gesturing to his back.
He gave me a sidelong stare before popping a chip in his mouth and chewing slowly. “I recognize an attempt to get more information when I see it.”
“I mean, yeah, but it’s not like some sneaky Guide trick to get you to talk, it’s the natural extension of this conversation.”
His expression soured for a moment before sighing. “Yes. Reasoning is what I used to get through the recovery process. There is as much metal and plastic in my back as there is bone, muscle, and skin. Hope told me I could get through and return to my life. Reason said the doctors knew better, and while I should push myself and continue the process to make sure I could haveat least something like a normal life, I was never going to go back to what I had been. Not just because the damage was too extensive, but because I had seen and learned too much in the accident to believe everything would go back to normal one day.”
I thought about that for a moment and sighed. “I mean, I’m not going to argue with what works for you.”
“But you aren’t going to agree with me either.”
“I can’t. Maybe you’ve got a point about hope lying, but it just...that doesn’t work for me. Hope is what got me through so much in my life. I can’t just throw it away.”
“Why not? Just because something worked for you doesn’t mean it works. You made it clear you thought yourself shiftless and wandering before, and you didn’t sound very happy about that.”
“Well, I mean, I wasn’t unhappy with it.”
“Wasn’t.”
“What?”
“You used the past tense...wasn’t. That infers there was a point where you became unhappy with it.”
