If you were to sum Hyde Floro up in one word, it would be ‘kind’. He was the type of person that would give another the shirt off his back without consideration, the last five dollars to his name if they needed it. He’d always been that way, regardless of the rough start he’d had in life. Born to addicts, he spent his first few weeks after birth recovering from the drugs in his system before he was put into foster care. There was no sense of stability or permanence, no one to truly look after him. It was okay — it was the only life he had known. Though he was a smart well-behaved kid, he was shy and quiet, and the older he got the less willing peopled seemed to be to take a chance on him. He spent years with a few good guardians and a few that weren’t so good. None of it turned him bitter or cold. As he bounced around homes and schools he held onto hope that one day a family would decide he was worth the patience it took for him to open up. He never found that family. Instead, he found Sarah.
He was fifteen when he met her. She became his first real friend, the first person that seemed interested in knowing Hyde for the boy he was rather than his backstory. She was the first person that pushed him to let his walls down, and she was the first (and only) person he fell in love, madly in love, with. They were just kids, but it didn’t matter to them. They became high school sweethearts, the two of them against the world, and soon enough he was getting down on one knee. Months turned to years and that turned into a decade of breakfasts together. It was a blur. It was bliss. They had a life planned. They were going to reach their dreams, they were going to start a family and have everything they wanted. Hyde didn’t realize the mistake he was making by putting his everything into one person until it was too late, until her bags were packed and he was sitting in the house they’d bought together by himself, staring at a meaningless wedding band. He’d been told that it was better to have loved and lost, but it hurt in ways he could have never imagined. A pain so strong it was physical, left with nothing more than memories of the only person who could heal him.
He would have went with her. He would have given up everything, given her everything. But she’d had a list of excuses. She didn’t want to settle. She’d put all that she had into their relationship. She wanted to find herself now, and he wanted her to be happy. Unfortunately for Hyde, she took his happiness with her. She was the only light he had ever known and without her presence, without her hand in his, he didn’t know who he was. He felt like a shell of a person. Coping the only way he knew how, he turned to throwing himself into work, shutting down again, sharing empty smiles and soothing the ache with alcohol. It wasn’t a permanent fix, but he told himself that it helped. His wife was gone, she’d taken the promised future with her, and the wound would never stop feeling fresh. He had no way to contact Sarah, to know if she was okay, and time didn’t make it easier. With every day that passed the longing for another chance to see her grew stronger. She was looking for things to complete her in other places and he was stuck in the place he’d always been, still holding onto hope that one day she would return. Hope was all he had left, and when that finally chipped away, Hyde didn’t know how (or if) he’d get by.
✓ composed, generous, intelligent
✘ dwelling, reserved, rigorous
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