I Fell in Love with Hope(23)

“So,” she whispers. “How much time do I have?”





passion





TWO YEARS AGO


Neo falls asleep teaching me about sarcasm. He explains the use of irony in literature is often to show that surface appearance can directly oppose actual meaning. Sarcasm is a way of using irony to hurt my feelings. I’m paraphrasing, but by the second hour of me still being unable to pick out a sarcastic remark, Neo gives up and goes to bed.

I asked if it was ironic that we call fallen angels devils. He said he’d tell me once he went to hell.

Nightmares sometimes visit him in the early stages of the night, so I remain, an afterthought in my chair across the room. Unwanted guests in Neo’s mind make him squirm, the sheets rustling. He moves like he’s being restrained, his body tied down by an invisible weight. Every time that happens, I bring my chair to his bedside and hold his hand. A tether to something real, even in sleep, calms his breathing.

I may not know much about irony, but I do know a lot about sick people. I know when they need more care than they let on. Ever since the day Neo cried on his bathroom floor in my arms, I haven’t let that slip my mind.

Once the first hour of his sleep has passed, I leave Neo to better dreams.

My people-watching hulls have been neglected lately. However, fate has other plans. When the elevator doors open, the last thing I expect to walk in on is a wild girl mercilessly kicking a vending machine.

“Urgh!” A bright, fuzzy sock leading to a dirty white sneaker slams against the glass. The girl huffs from the effort, hospital gown swaying around her bare legs. Her fists clench at her sides, clutching some of the material. She stares down the machine like she could kill it.

I really need to pay attention to what floor I get off on more often. Rectifying my mistake isn’t an option when the elevator doors shut behind me.

Patient kicker snaps her neck in my direction at the sound. Her hair swings with her movements, red, tinted like fire. She stares like she could kill me.

I blink, my wish to exist less, drifting into the territory of wishing I didn’t exist at all.

“You want my picture?” she bites.

“Uh-I- I don’t have a camera.”

“What happened to you, anyway?” She looks me up and down, frowning. “You get hit by a bus or something?”

“Uh-”

“Urgh!” she sounds, interrupting me. Another swift kick is delivered to the machine.

“You have to push the button longer and reach your hand into the compartment,” I tell her.

A bit of nostalgia pricks my curiosity, disturbing its slumber.

Putting my hands up in surrender, I step forward, press the button beneath the keypad, and reach my arm into the mouth. The display beeps, the inside clicks, and two bars thump to the bottom. I take them out and offer both the way you would a dinner tray.

“They all do that?” the girl asks, far calmer now that there’s food in her hands.

“Just this one.”

Amusement crawls to her face as she takes my offering. Her features come to light, chapped lips curving, stretching fresh cuts on her cheek.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Her fingers trail the glass scuffed from her kicks like an apology. “Just that broken things seem to like you.”

Broken things. How endeared she seems by those two words, just as Neo is.

“Are you alone?” I ask.

“My mom’s asleep in the room,” she says, sinking to the ground beside the vending machine, enemy turned friend. “Here.” She holds out one of her bars. “Sit with me.”

Honestly, a bit afraid to refuse her, I take it. She unwraps hers with impatience, sitting cross-legged, head thrown back. I settle next to her, about a foot away.

“You never seen a chocolate bar before?” she asks. Before I can answer, she reaches into my lap, bites the corner of the wrapper, and skins it with her teeth. Then it’s handed back to me, less like an offering, more like a handshake. “I’m Sony.”

Sony.

All of Sony’s acts are full-bodied, I notice. There’s aggression to her, like Neo’s too candid words. At the same time, youth peeks through her manner. Her eyes and hair are bright in their shades, a middle of the night excitement only a child could wear.

“I’m Sam,” I say.

She smirks, knocking our chocolate together like champagne glasses. “You look like hell, Sam.”

“You don’t look that great either.”

“Yeah.” Her chewing slows. “It wasn’t a good day.”

“Did you get hit by a bus too?”

I joke. Neo says I’m awful at it. Every time I attempt one around him, he throws a book at my head. Not Sony. Sony likes my joke. She even laughs, nudging my shoulder with such harshness I almost fall over.

“Do you like hiking, Sam?”

“Hiking?”

“I went hiking yesterday. I think it’s my favorite thing in the world.”

I swallow. Bruises climb her arm, a similar age to the scratches on her face.

“Is that why you’re here?” I ask. “Did you get hurt?”

Sony stops chewing altogether, bright eyes dull behind a veil of something that brings her pain. They draw to her lap much like her hand draws to her stomach, as if observing a memory.