I Fell in Love with Hope(108)

There is affection in that belief too. When nurses close their patients’ eyes, their sadness is coupled with gratitude. If there’s something everyone can agree on, it is that there is no pain in death. Only an eternal sort of peace.

I know that Sam is not an eternal being as I make him out to be. One day, he will die, and when he does, I will lay beside him in the ground. I will put this stolen body to rest in his embrace.

Selfishly, like a human, I’m reluctant to accept that he will die. He still has so much life to live. He is just a boy and if time has any charity in its heart, it will gift him more.

His medicine will work. He will heal. Even if he can’t stay here forever, he will live his life out there in the world, and despite the laws by which I live, I will go with him…

You must know by now that I am not normal. My flesh and blood are fabrications created to quell my aloneness.

I am not a person. I cannot die. I will never fear death. It cannot touch me. Neither can disease or time. All they can do is take from me.

Do you understand why it is so dangerous for me to live now? Everyone wonders what comes after death, but none can grasp the cruelty of being kept alive forever.

In the end, my curse is simple.

I will remember those I love longer than I had a chance to know them.

—

Nurse Ella dies at the peak of spring. Breast cancer. She was 52 years old.

Flowers surface where she is buried. Her headstone arches from the ground surrounded by them, as if the buds bloomed to read her name.

Sam sits against the unchiseled side facing the trees. He twirls stalks of grass, pulling them out. A single finger digs at the soil.

“Sam,” I say, crouched in front of him.

He opens his eyes, his mask shrouding the bags and ugly color beneath them. I hold out a newspaper I stole from the dispenser.

“Do you want to read to her?” I ask.

Sam shakes his head, moving aside and patting the ground next to him.

“You read it,” he says, his throat sore and tired.

“Alright.”

I sit against Ella’s headstone, a cold and tough thing. It feels like Ella holds us this way. A ghost of her. Grunting in displeasure that we’ll get green stains on our pants and that no sweaters shield our shoulders.

I open the paper and start reading the first headline about the recently constructed bridge uniting the river that split the city in two.

Sam drops his head to my shoulder. He listens till he falls asleep, silent tears streaming down his cheeks.

—

The coming warmth alleviates Sam’s sorrow as time passes.

But not his sickness.

He and I sleep in the same bed every night. Before nightfall, I always tune the radio to his favorite station. I stand on the cot, humming and nudging till Sam stands up. A smile slowly curves his lips and we dance together like we used to.

I tell Sam about the other patients I see when I bring our breakfast to his room. He smiles curtly and kisses me, as is our routine. I ask, as we eat, how he’s feeling. He says he’s alright, but he hardly eats a thing. I ask if he’d like to go on that escape soon, the one we’ve been planning. He says maybe tomorrow as he has been for a lot of yesterdays.

Sam gets bad coughs at night. He spits up blood, gripping his throat. I rub his back and fetch him warm water till the fits ease.

The medicine he’s been pumped full of is meant to keep him alive, but it has the added effect of dulling his senses. When I kiss him, he gains no color. When he eats, his boyish grin never comes.

The simple pleasures he used to rely on for sanity are no longer pleasures. His passion begins to starve the longer this sickness remains.

He looks out the window for hours on end. He closes his books before finishing them. His smiles are fewer. His kisses are lighter. He doesn’t ask about other patients anymore.

I offer that we go to the park, to the bakery, to see our stars, or go read Ella the newspaper. Sam says he is tired. He says, maybe tomorrow.

A few weeks pass and Sam weakens considerably.

He thins. His cheeks become hollow ravines. His legs shake when he walks, frailness in each step. The raw, bleeding patches grow, like countries on a map overtaking a sea of healthy skin. He can no longer bathe without hissing at the pain.

I ask him if there’s anything I can do, but it is a cruel question. Like asking a person holding onto a ledge what you can do from the ground below.

I never leave his side.

When the pain is too much to bear, I read to him, sing to him, talk to him. I tell him I love him. I tell him I will always be here. I tell him all my tomorrows are his.

Late at night when he thinks I am asleep, Sam cries. He holds me, whispering to himself over and over, “Stay alive. Just stay alive.”

More tears fall and he chokes down a suffering sob at the risk of waking me.

“Just be strong. Just live through this. For them. You have to live for them.”

He drags his hands up and down my spine. He kisses my hair, holding in whimpers.

“Just stay alive,” he says again and even if I cannot die with him, I want to tell him that it’s okay. I want to share a final kiss and tell him that it’s okay to let go. That I will be with him till he fades from his body and his soul passes to another world we cannot share.

But I don’t. For all the human I am not, I am selfish and I don’t want to live without him. So I pretend to be asleep and hold Sam tighter to me till he falls too.