I Fell in Love with Hope(22)

“You just have to add something. Something that you want. To the List,” C says, tossing her the pen. “That’s how you get initiated.”

“What if I want to steal something for someone else?” she asks.

“We could do it together,” I say. Hikari looks at me when I speak. “I–I mean, we could all write something down again and promise to steal something for each other.”

Sony bounces to her feet.

“I like that!”

“We can tear out an empty page from the Hit List and tear it into five. We’ll write to one person in this room, one piece of everything, on one piece of paper we intend to steal for them.” Hikari pauses, the five of us in a constellation reflected in her glasses. “Like a thieving five-point star.”

“I like that.” We turn to Sony, but to our surprise, it wasn’t her. Neo shifts as much as the brace allows, petting Hee’s head, lost in the thoughts Hikari lent. He looks at her with a side-eye, unable to rotate his head. “Can I steal it?”

“For your writing?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Hikari agrees, amused, flattered, still, mostly grateful.

“Hikari, you’ll steal for Sam,” Sony hands her one of them. “Sam, you’ll steal for me.”

“I’m honored,” I say. Sony ruffles my hair in response, pecking my forehead.

“I’ll steal for Neo.”

“Great.” Baby doesn’t even try to fake his enthusiasm.

“Neo will steal for C, and C will steal for Hikari.”

Sony is the first to write the note for Neo. She giggles as she does. Neo goes next. He doesn’t even have to think about it.

C leans closer to him. “You can just get me gummy bears again.”

“Shut up.” Neo hands the pen to him, the paper too. C reads it almost as impatiently as Neo wrote it, a little exhale and happy tone born from it.

“You’re adorable,” he whispers.

“And you’re still talking,” Neo says, rolling his eyes.

C writes his note next, putting a little thought into it first. He twirls the pen around and eventually decides on something before handing it to Hikari.

She takes her time. She waits as Sony and Neo bicker and C turns on some music. She waits, watching them interact with each other and with me.

She already knows what she wants to steal. She only starts to write when she knows I do too. Using her knee as a desk, the object of her thievery, whatever it is in this world she swears to steal for me, becomes immortal in ink. Then, Hikari lifts my plant, sliding it underneath without a word.

“Alright, you guys-The second baby’s got leg power again, we’re coming back with a vengeance,” Sony says, Hit List in hand. “You ready, Hikari? Sam?”

“Mhm.”

“Of course I am.”

“Boys?” Sony calls.

“Yes.” C gives her a thumbs up.

“Whatever gets you to stop annoying me,” Neo says. Sony pokes his ankle with the tip of the pen.

“This is the last thing we need before we have everything. Our great escape,” Sony says, sitting the notebook horizontally on her lap so we can all see the great big plan that comes before the empty pages waiting to be filled. “Our Heaven.”

The piece of paper tucked beneath the succulent stares back at me. I pick up the pot with both hands and keep it close to me. Then, I read Hikari’s letter. Three beats worth, a poem dedicated to me.





For Sam,

I’ll give you

A dream





If only the day we shared together didn’t feel like one…

This is a darker place than Neo’s room. The blinds are drawn, and a blue tint settles like we’re underwater. One of Sony’s doctors carries a chart, a resident behind him.

Sony sits at the foot of the bed, caressing the sheet as if Hee were there purring beneath her palm. Only she isn’t. Her cat is with Hikari. Hikari is with C and Neo. Only she and I are to bask in the sadness.

“Sony?” Her doctor clears his throat. “Did you hear what I just said?”

He’s a nice man. Some doctors fall victim to ego or poor dedication, but he’s been taking care of Sony almost as long as Eric. That’s why it’s hard for him to deliver what is, to be blunt, a death sentence.

I’ve tried to spare you the ugliness.

I gave you four children, all on the later edge of their adolescence. I gave you glimpses of their struggles, but I haven’t given you many moments of truth.

I haven’t told you that Sony’s skin is near translucent. It’s thin, past fits of hypoxia rendering some of her tissues feeble. Her throat is scarred from infections, making her voice crack at the ends. There are days she can’t get out of bed. You can tell she’s sick. You can tell she’s getting sicker. Even if she’s overcome that before, there are only so many battles one can win.

“Yeah, I heard you,” Sony says.

The nice doctor sighs. He pushes his glasses by the frame.

“There’s always a chance,” he says. “Probably around five or ten percent–”

“Chances don’t interest me. You know that.” Sony acts coy, holding back an awkward laugh. She caresses the space just beneath her collarbone like she did the sheet. She feels the rising and falling of her lung.