I Fell in Love with Hope(100)

Sam and I don’t look at each other. In fact, we don’t look at anything until he speaks.

“You told on me?”

“No,” I say. “I think she was smart enough to piece it together.”

Sam pushes off the bed and wanders to the window. He doesn’t open the blinds. Instead, he cradles browning leaves, listening to the crackling like a fire. His sleeve falls as he does, revealing the patches on his skin. Shades of pink rise from his skin like plateaus, raw and scabbed over.

They’ve spread.

“Sam, your skin.” I hurry across the room and try to touch him, but he tugs away. Not on reflex. Willfully.

My fingers curl, arms falling back to my side. “You’re still angry at me.”

“Really?” Sam scoffs. “What tipped you off?”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, of course, you don’t. I’m surprised you understand how to tie your shoes.”

“You’re being cruel.”

“And you’re stupid.”

“I’m not stupid,” I say, my voice tight.

“Really? Do you even understand why I’m angry with you?”

“You’re angry because I don’t want to leave.”

“No.” Sam takes my face in his hands, the way he does when he wants to embrace me. Only now, he doesn’t want to kiss. He doesn’t laugh or press our foreheads together. He holds me so that I’m all he sees.

“I’m mad because you’re the only thing I live for,” he whispers. “And you can’t even tell me who you are. You can’t even say you love me.”

He lets me go gently, the way you’d release a fish back into the sea. Without regard for where it ends up, so long as it is alive and not in the boat.

His footing is unsteady as he returns to his bed. He’s thinner than I remember too, a sicker shade graying his face. He gathers his lesson work and settles back atop the covers as if this discussion is anywhere near finished.

“Did you know the sun kisses you in the mornings?” I call. “It reaches across worlds, just to greet you. It has since you were a baby.” Sam pretends not to listen. He continues to scribble away as if he is writing anything but meaningless lines of gibberish.

I step closer. “Pink shrouds your face when the light lingers. There are other shades: the shades that emit heat when you’re laughing or when we kiss. Your hands are like that too. They’re gentle. I remember when you were little, and they cradled your plants.”

The closer I get, the more Sam’s face twitches, as if I am pricking him with a pin with every word I utter.

“You always made such silly noises when you couldn’t contain your excitement and you were so quick to pout when you didn’t get your way, you still are,” I say. “You eat like a baby. Pudding always ends up on some corner of your face. We used to eat our cups in the park, do you remember? You like that one shady corner beneath the willow tree. We talked about bringing Henry and Ella and playing his card games in the grass while he told us stories.”

I sit on the bed across from him. Anger slowly falls from Sam’s face, a mask of dust withering away into nothing, like a crackling leaf.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me all this.”

“You said this place is barren of story, Sam, but you’re wrong. It’s full of it,” I say. “It’s full of people trying to survive just like you. But most of them don’t, and I want to know why.”

Sam stares at me now, his childish curiosity seated beside a hunger to understand and a grudge he’s trying to keep.

“I want to know why the people who find refuge in this place have to suffer. I want to know why so many of their lives end unfinished. I want to learn how to fend off my enemies. I want to save everyone as is my purpose.” I tremble. My voice was only ever his, but my existence is my own. It is an enigma. Difficult to phrase. Even harder to say aloud.

Sam softens when he realizes what I’m trying to say.

“You’ve never questioned where I came from nor who I am nor why I’m here. No one ever does, because I’m a part of this place. Like the color of a wall or the heft of a door.” A ghost of sadness crawls over me. It is dry and worn, familiar and faded. The pain of being perpetually alone.

“I was so lonely when we met, Sam,” I nearly cry. “No matter who I came to know, they all left me one way or another, but you never did. My curse made a mistake the day that you were born. We were both alone, but it gave us one another. I’ve never lied to you and I won’t start today. I don’t know what love is, but I never would’ve tried to understand it if it weren’t for you.”

Sam throws his papers and pencil aside. They fall to the floor. He rises to his knees and collects me in his arms.

“Sweet Sam,” he whispers, crushing me to him.

“I love you,” I say. “I want you to heal and be safe and have the life you want. I want you to be happy. If that’s what love is, I’ve loved you longer than I can remember.”

“I want the same for you, you know that. I was just–I was so upset when you couldn’t say it back,” he says. He breathes me in, falling on top of me, propping his weight on his elbows. Then we are kissing. Apologetically. Hungrily. To steal back some passion that time tried to sneak away while we were apart.