I Fell in Love with Hope(11)

“This is a hospital, dad,” Neo says. “The only people I’ll meet won’t be here long.”

I don’t hear any more than that.

My post is at the nurse’s station today, which happens to be right across his room. Since he’s new, the blinds aren’t closed, and the door is propped open. My curiosity gets the better of me when it’s given such a chance.

Eric notices.

“Have you met him?” he asks, going over charts, checking boxes, doing whatever it is Eric does. I shake my head no. “Why don’t you bring him his dinner tray?” He points at the cart. “Strike up a conversation.”

“Conversation?”

“Conversation.”

“I don’t know how those work.”

“He probably does. Bring him his tray.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Yes. I have work to do, and you haven’t moved in hours. So get.” Eric’s pen is a mighty weapon. It pokes my forehead relentlessly, but Eric isn’t wrong about my not moving.

Doctors, patients, nurses, and techs walk through this hall all day. I watch them from behind the desk like a barnacle stuck to a ship’s hull. My life is spent people watching from different hulls throughout the hospital. Most moments I witness are fleeting, a few seconds’ worth of emotion to feed off of until the patients or visitors or strangers depart. Those moments sate my curiosity long enough to wait for the next one.

But there’s something different about Neo. He’s quiet. Silence starves my curiosity. So, around seven, when his parents are gone, I bring Neo his dinner.

He’s alone now.

As it turns out, alone, Neo has a lot more noise to him.

On the other side of the door, the cardboard box keeps watch, now empty. Papers spread about Neo’s bed, the sheets submerged in a sea of inked lines.

He is a boat, writing manically, without pause, pen dancing across the waves. A book rests in his lap. It ties the room together, a splash of color. The title, bold lettered, atop a cover withered at the edges, reads Great Expectations.

Neo doesn’t notice me gawking at first. He only glances in my direction, then, realizing I don’t have the look of a staff member, he glances a second time.

Suspicion laces his tone. “What are you doing?”

“Eric told me to bring your tray.”

Neo thins his eyes, flicking them to the tray and then back to me. “Did my parents send you?”

Ah. For a moment I thought he was worried I had plans to poison him. From his tone, I gather being sent by his parents would be much worse.

“No, Eric did.” I motion to the food, offering it. “Your tray.”

Neo doesn’t say anything to me after that. He just puts the tray on the bedside table and returns to his ocean. Before I leave, I catch a sliver of a line at the top of the page.

Humans have a knack for self-destruction. Only those of us who love broken things will ever know why.

Neo quickly shuffles the piece of paper beneath the others and shoots me a look. My curiosity isn’t welcome. I bow my head in apology and turn around, leaving Neo to his words and his books.

Despite his attitude, I leave pleased.

Because Neo isn’t quiet at all.

Neo is a writer.

—

For the next week of nights, I bring Neo his food. Every time, I steal a detail. He doesn’t brush his hair. His hands are impeccably clean, his fingers lean and long. His clothes are a size too large, baggy around his arms, never so much as a shade livelier than gray. He likes apples. He always eats his apples.

He spits out his pills. When his father visits, he is anxious. He flinches at little movements. When his mother visits, he is calm. When his parents visit together, he is sad.

Neo’s hand sometimes drops the pen. It wanders to his arm, thumb, and forefinger overlapping around his wrist like a noose. He squeezes till his knuckles go white. As if the bone could be made smaller.

As the nights go on, I grow bolder. I begin stealing his work.

You see, Neo and I never exchange any greetings. He never says thank you, and I never say you’re welcome. Our communication is a transfer of sustenance and a peek at a sentence or two.

Destruction is addictive, he writes. The more I am, the less I want to be. The less I am, the lesser I want to become.

That particular line plays with my head. It takes up space.

In a neighboring hall, I pace and ponder it.

Just as I turn on my heel to pace in the other direction, someone knocks into me. Our chests collide, and a tray loses balance in the person’s hands, clattering to the floor. It’s a familiar tray. One full of food I left in Neo’s room a half-hour ago.

Neo stands there for a moment. The plate’s been knocked upside down, jello cup split, and water spilled. He sighs at the mess.

It’s odd seeing him here. I don’t know what to make of him not sitting in a bed surrounded by literature.

“Just leave it,” he says, dropping to his knees, his pants wrinkling around sickly thin thighs. I wonder how such things can hold him upright.

I follow him to the floor and help him tidy up.

Neo scoffs. “You got that much of a savior complex?”

“No,” I say. “But I think you have an eating disorder.”

Neo’s face pales, snapping up, staring at me.