Hopelessly Hopeful Novels & Stories

Caelan said, "Let's write Seventeen before the day ends." She nodded. "Make it a hopeful one." Clause Seventeen: Hope isn't naive. It is intentional. It is constructed like roofs are—piece by piece, until you can stand beneath it. They rested their backs against the same wall, not saying anything. Not having to. The city outside didn't thank them. It breathed a little easier.

RPOV Songs: Into Happiness by Phantogram, Bottom of the River by Delta Rae, NFWMB by Hozier Over the next few days, more letters arrived. Some of them were as vague and cryptic as the first one, others were very specific on the group's plans and purpose.

That I might be trapped in this place forever, alone and forgotten. The thought was too much to bear, and I felt myself slipping away, lost in a sea of despair and hopelessness.

Her heart nearly stopped. “You’re successful now,” she said. “You have everything. Why would you want the same girl you left behind?” “Because I never stopped loving her.” The room felt suddenly smaller. Dangerous. Hope was a dangerous emotion for Evelyn. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You don’t have to,” Lincoln replied. “But I’m not giving up this time.” Her chest tightened again. Every man she had dated after Lincoln had been an attempt to replace something that could never truly be replaced.

But hope. Dangerous, trembling, intoxicating hope. And I would cling to it — no matter the cost.

SHERNEIL. Hope is one of those feeble, funny feelings. One that either mends you on the inside, or fully shatters you. It curls around you in your desperate times, making you believe things will turn out well, only for those things to come crashing back. Fully breaking you. Or making you whole. It was stupid of me to have let such an emotion filter through my mind, making me wish to do everything that was impossible. So, after a while, I fell back to my familiar routine.

After we hang up, I feel something I haven't felt in weeks. Hope. Not the naive kind that ignores reality. The hard-won kind that chooses to fight for something even when the odds are terrible. We're not giving up. Not yet. We're going to try. Really try.

But I only smiled and said, “I want to do a good thing. I could choke on water and die for all we know. If something like that happens, at least my organs won’t go to waste.” I took out a pen and wrote my name down. My hands shook so much that the words were crooked. In the field for the intended recipient, I carefully wrote Rachelle’s name. I was terrified that I would spell her name wrong and my kidney would end up somewhere else. Once I filled in the form, I carefully put it into a waterproof bag and hung it around my neck. This was my lifeline. It was what I had to produce before I could go and meet my maker.

"We don't know who survived. Who died. What's waiting for us. We go in prepared for anything. Prepared for the worst. But hoping for something better." "Hope," Hailey said bitterly. The word was poison in her mouth. "Always hope. Even when hope gets people killed. Even when hope is a weapon used against us. Even when hope means watching everyone die while we're powerless to stop it." The pack house appeared ahead. Smoke rising. Fires burning. Destruction visible even from a distance. We'd failed again. Been outmaneuvered again. Lost people again. And whatever waited inside that burning building would probably break us completely.

He was trying to be brave, but his words quivered with the fear we all shared. Valerie, who had been quiet until now, finally lifted her head. “I do,” she said gently. Everyone turned to look at her, hoping she’d felt something the rest of us couldn’t. “I still can’t get through, but I believe we’re winning. We have to be, we can’t stop hoping.” “Hoping is a waste of time,” Ruby murmured, her head now halfway above her arms. “Hoping’s what you do when you’re out of options. I refuse to hope, I know we’re dominating up there.”