I Fell in Love with Hope(15)
Hate is a choice. Love is not.
There’s nothing so out of our control as that.
“You don’t owe him anything,” I whisper. “You’re allowed to love books and broken things.”
—
Neo’s dad doesn’t come back for a long time. Business trips, Neo tells me. His mother comes instead. For what she lacks in warmth, she makes up for in patience. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for Neo to make eye contact or pick up a fork. She waits. Sort of like me. I think that makes Neo feel safe. Great Expectations never leaves his possession, but at least the loop around his wrist loosens with time.
One day, I stop bringing Neo his trays. Instead, I just bring apples, and he gives me books. The cycle of exchange continues until one day, as he writes and I read next to him…
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Sam.”
“You like love stories, right, Sam?”
“Mhm.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
An uncomfortable question. One that brings up vulnerabilities I don’t know how to share.
I shrug, looking at the ground. “I don’t remember.”
“Then you haven’t,” Neo says. “You’d remember.”
My fingers stiffen around the book in my hands.
“Maybe I don’t want to remember.”
Neo’s never experienced my pain. Only his. But he has no cages for pity in his soul—only blunt remarks, wit, and at times, a little softness.
“Sorry,” he says. Softly.
“Do you have a love story for me?” I ask.
“No.” Neo reads over the last few lines he’s written. Then, he picks up the small stack of papers filled to the brim with ink, making sure they’re even. “But I didn’t add any violence.”
Then, the extraordinary happens.
Neo offers me a treasure from the sea.
He frowns at my awe. “What the hell are you smiling for? Take it.”
I do. I take it like the most fragile thing in the world. Because when a writer gives you a gift as precious as their work, they give you their trust, their control, their heart put to paper.
Before I leave, Neo calls for me.
“Sam,” he says. I glance at him over my shoulder, and he glances back. “What are we watching tonight?”
I don’t make it a habit to converse with patients. My curiosity never asks for it. When I look at Neo, at the weeks I’ve spent getting to know him, I realize between our silences that this is not the start of a conversation.
It’s the beginning of a friendship.
soliloquies
There’s something worldly about her. She’s not elegant or dainty. She’s raw, unapologetic, a type of beauty only confidence can wear. Anywhere she goes, anyone she encounters, Hikari is a universal puzzle piece. She belongs wherever she sets foot.
Tonight, Hikari is unguarded, even in the dark. Her hair is straight, thin, a bit frizzy near the top of her head. She wears a nightgown that reaches just past her knees, little yellow flowers spread about the fabric. From afar, you could mistake it for a hospital gown. It sways around her legs as she roams the halls, looking into rooms, into people, exploring past curfew.
The windows welcome her in sequence. They do, as the night does, create those dreadful mirrors. Hikari doesn’t look long. She tucks her hair behind her ears, adjusts her glasses, fixes herself. She doesn’t gleam at the bandages on her arms or the scar on her neck. What the mirror dares to show of her illness, she claims power over.
She ignores it.
“Sam?” I should mention that I’m hiding behind a hall corner, suspiciously peeking out by a hair right now. I jump, turning around to find Eric right next to me with his hands on his hips. “What are you doing?”
Due to our criminal acts, Sony and C have been confined to their rooms, and though I wouldn’t mind joining them on a normal day, I’m currently suffering from my curiosity’s ceaseless desire to follow the sun that’s infested my home.
“Absolutely nothing.”
I try to smile, but Eric finds it off-putting.
“Go do absolutely nothing somewhere else.”
“Okay.”
I go back to following Hikari as inconspicuously as possible.
Also, I have a job to do.
Neo’s in surgery for his back. His parents wait in his room, where there will be no evidence of their son to rip apart. Tonight, his heart is mine to protect. It makes for hefty luggage when following a girl.
Hikari reaches the elevators a few minutes later, sketching on those papers she stole earlier. It’s a short hall, so I have to wait on the other side to avoid being found. Although when I peek, she’s already disappeared.
There’s only one place she could’ve gone from here, and my curiosity and I both know it.
The door to the roof creaks when I open it, the wind that goes feral at night flurrying into the stairwell. The only luminescence is that of sleepless city dwellers who keep the lights on and the dull stars sifting through clear skies.
That and the yellow with whom the night flirts. Only now, the yellow isn’t exploring the roof. It’s on the ledge, the silhouette of a girl standing against the moon.
My stomach drops. The box falls from my hands, announcing my presence far more abruptly than the door did.