I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

time he was ten. Coeur never said a thing about any of it. He
believed it was merely a symptom of being empty.
When he graduated into adolescence, Coeur found his peers liked
him.
Girls called him a pretty boy, and boys respected his size and
athleticism.
Questions of personality became irrelevant in the face of popularity.
To maintain his image, Coeur took up swimming. Not because he
liked it, but because being good at it made him like himself.
His hollowness felt momentarily breached, filled with the pool’s water
when he swam. Winning race after race kept the dam full as people
clapped.
The dam, he found, leaked rather fast.
When Coeur’s father drove him home from a tournament, saying
they’d have no more room for trophies, he clasped Coeur’s shoulder
and said he was proud of his son. Coeur found the age-old question
sitting at the back of his mind like the hook on a drain.
Why?
Coeur didn’t try very hard at swimming. He was just good at it
because he was tall and naturally muscled. He looked at his dad
from the passenger seat.
Then, he turned back around to face the road, too afraid to ask.
Coeur did find distractions from the hollowness. He found peace in
an old record player his mother gave him for his birthday. Not much
of a talker, he listened to music all day long because even if he had
nothing to say, he always had something to sing. His habit worsened
when he got earbuds and a phone.