I Fell in Love with Hope(21)

“Did you sleep well, Sam?” she asks, leaning back on the heels of her palms, her leg crossed one over the other, chin propped on her shoulder. It’s a mandatory question. A flower of conversation. She says it with satire. She’s teasing me. She’s acting.

“No,” I say. “The sun was out.”

“Ah,” Hikari breathes. “It kept you up?”

“Actually, Hamlet did.”

She fakes a gasp. “How dare he?”

“It’s alright.” I’m inclined to tease her back. “Hamlet is beautiful.”

“So it’s his beauty you like.”

“And his meanness.”

“It’s just as well. I like Yorick’s arms.” Teasing. Teasing. Teasing. “Here,” she says. She places the second tiny pot that fits in the circle of her thumb and forefinger between us.

“What is this?” I ask, picking it up. Her warmth leaves residue on the clay, the idea like a shock of static to my fingertips.

“A little gesture.” I didn’t go through surgery. What have I been through to deserve a heartful offering? Or is this for my crippling case of lack-of-armness?

“What do I do with it?”

Hikari shrugs.

“What does one do with plants but watch them live?”

“Have I graduated from being a skull to a cactus?” I ask.

“That’s a succulent,” Hikari corrects.

“Alright. You’re all set, Shakespeare. Take it easy,” Eric says, patting Neo’s head and double-checking the vitals on his chart. “You be gentle with him,” he warns, pointing at all of us.

Sony presses a hand to her chest in offense. “Why are you looking at me?” Although the moment Eric leaves the room, she changes her tune.

The door clicks shut, and Sony’s tote bag ruffles. She spreads the straps, and from it, a creature pokes its head out. Matted fur and dull green eyes sit on its head, with a scarred triangle nose and a thin mouth to add.

“Aw, a kitty,” C coos. The cat makes itself at home, unfazed by its limited residence inside a carry-on. Sony sets the bag on the ground. It waddles out, one of its ears missing a half, its black coat showing an ashy finish.

Neo raises a brow. “What’s wrong with its leg?”

“What leg?” Sony asks.

“Exactly.”

The three-limbed cat makes its way onto Neo’s bed, sniffing his face.

“Hikari and I chased him down the street. We saved him from getting hit by a truck.” Of course, they did.

“She’s a girl, idiot,” Neo says, tilting his chin away from her.

“So? He acts masculine. He fits her well.” I’ll just say the cat’s name is Hee to make things less complicated.

“Hello, Hee,” Hikari says, voice gone tender. The feline hops from Neo’s bed to her feet and plays with her shoelace. She (or Hee) looks up at me, a kindred thing. It looks like it wants to tell me something. It sits in the small crevice between my feet and rubs its head against my leg.

“C’mon, Hee.” Sony bends down and scoops her up. “Warm up Neo’s lap.”

“My lap is fine.”

The cat doesn’t protest as Neo does. Her adventure in the city and under Sony’s reign has tuckered her out. She curls into a ball against Neo’s stomach as C pets her head.

Sony plops down on the bed too. A chill shivers through Neo, so she takes off her sweatshirt and puts it on his legs. As she does, she glances at Neo’s neck, stilling at the bruise that peeks over his shoulder.

She doesn’t say anything. She never does, but I see it lingering in her mind even as she removes the Hit List from the box under the bed and sighs away the tension.

“The next part of our everything,” Sony breathes, pen gliding across the sixth page filled to the brim with our stolen treasures. Her tongue sticks out between her teeth when she writes. “Hee. Taken–From–Death.” Her words are spoken both in speech and paper. “Baby’s–New–Best–Friend.”

“Don’t push it,” Neo grumbles.

“The infamous Hit List,” Hikari says.

Sony giggles. “I’ve got to add you to it.”

“Me?”

“We stole you. Or Sam did, I guess.”

Hikari smiles at me. “It’s a pleasure to be stolen by you, Sam.”

I blush so intensely that C can’t help smirking into his hand.

Sony unfolds the Hit List where past the declaration, across the lines, in the margins, stacked on top of each other countless brushstrokes paint our vigilantism.

Tangible things taken. Apples, The Great Gatsby, Six beers, a pack of cigarettes, a coffee mug with a chipped lid, an abandoned teddy bear, a cat.

Intangible things taken. A look at the park, a day laughing till our ribs hurt, a full flight of stairs in one go, an afternoon in the library from which we’re banned.

“That has such a nice ring to it,” Hikari says. “Everything.” The word comes out in a breath, a faraway concept washed into shore.

“Will you help us, Hikari?” Sony asks, but she looks at me until the last word. Then, her legs shuffle, and her fluttering, toothy grin faces the girl next to me. “Everything could always use another pair of hands.”