cici hope. eight. cb fin!

It's a hard-knock life being me.

Always getting questions like "Did your cousin like... volunteer to die?" I don't know, I wasn't even born back then! God. Don't get me started on the Mayor questions. From what I've heard Pierre's a mopy old drunk. I'm never allowed at the family reunions, don't ask me why. Something to do with a candle and old Nanny Matilda's curtains when I was four. Dad laughed so we had to go home. Apparently Aunt Birdie or someone is banned from them too. I don't even know if she's my Aunt, but hey! Solidarity sister!

Being a tall fish in a giant pond of relatives is a real downer. Every other kid at school is also called Hope and I just can't keep up anymore. I've got a lot of great ideas on what I want to be in this life but I've got four letters and every last member of my family dragging me back down to earth again in a last name. How am I supposed to be an individual when I'll always, forever be just another Hope? Blackston's already made his mark as the flower on our branch of the family tree, little shit. Always has to one-up me. I'm just a leaf trying to desperately turn into a petal, but I look like a twig and have the personality of rotten bark - so Nanny Matilda says.

But what does she know? She's like, almost dead! When I'm the matriarch of this family with a wife and three dogs I'll never have kids just to piss her off. At this rate we'll all die off or be reaped or both. Blackston will definitely piss someone off enough to get bashed in the groin so hard he can't produce offspring, that's a given. I hope Aunt Birdie will still be kicking so we can clink wine glasses together and throw up a middle finger and dance on old Nanny's grave. What do you think will get her rolling, tap or the samba? I'm taking bets on tap. Much more satisfying.

Maybe I'll inherit her stupid house and I can actually burn it down this time.