I Fell in Love with Hope(25)

“That side’s empty now,” she whispers. “Only one lung left.”

Drugs lull her eyes closed with every word, and I can’t help the bit of sadness between them. For a creature so full of life, half of Sony’s adventures have been taken.

She lets out a dry chuckle. “I don’t think I’ll be doing much hiking anymore.” Her head turns limp on her pillow. “But at least I can breathe.”

“Let’s just breathe then,” I whisper.

“That sounds good.”

But it fades all too quickly. The air and fluid filling the empty space in her ribcage object to her joy. They rein in her leashless energy and her bouts of laughter. At least, despite the pain, they leave her strength intact, the flame I met kicking in the night far from being snuffed out.

Sony squeezes my hand. “Don’t leave, okay, Sam?”

I sit beside her.

“Okay…”

Sony’s recovery is quick. She eats like an animal, always in need of a napkin. She tries to run before she can stand, shoelaces untied. The times she almost falls flat on her face from trying to skate on her IV pole exasperates both her mother and me.

Sony teaches me about racing. She wants to race absolutely everywhere, at any time. Down the hall, upstairs she can barely climb, to the elevators, to the bathroom, to her room, everywhere. She likes games too. Board games I’ve never heard of, puzzles she’s too impatient to finish, and red light, green light (which is essentially a race).

The day she says she wants to read, I bring her to Neo.

—

“Wow, you’re tiny. Damn, you’ve got a lot of books.”

I didn’t take Sony’s lack of boundaries into account before opening Neo’s door without warning. She walks in, her focus split between the boy in the bed, the stacks of papers, and the books on the floor. Even her attention span likes to race.

“Hi, Neo.” I greet him with last week’s chapter in hand, setting it on the side table. “Do you have the next part for me?”

“Who the hell is that?” His pen points at the girl flipping through one of his books, scatterbrained eyes fixating on all lines at once.

“Your name’s Neo? Neo like Neonate?” Sony asks, trotting to his bed. “You kind of do look like a baby.”

“Neo like Neo. Don’t touch that.” Neo, like Neo, swipes the book from her hands. Sony jumps like she’s been barked at.

“Grumpy baby.”

“Saaamm,” Neo drags out the syllables in my name, his eyes wide, begging for an answer to his earlier question.

“Neo, this is Sony,” I say, prideful like I’ve found a delightful pet and brought it home. “She gives me chocolate.”

Neo raises his lip, annoyed. “What are you, a dog? You can’t just follow people around because they give you things.”

“That’s what I did with you,” I mutter, turning my chin away.

“Ooh, pretty,” Sony sounds, hands behind her back as she ogles the papers on Neo’s lap. “Can I read it?”

“No! One weirdo is enough. Shoo.”

“This is the next chapter,” I say, bending to Sony’s level and trying to catch whatever I can through the gaps.

Neo groans. “I need to start locking my door.”

But he never does. Neo spends the whole day with Sony and me. First, we stake out the cafeteria, waiting for the perfect opening to steal some apples. Neo calls Sony a klepto for stealing a lollipop from the bin. Our spoils of thievery taste even sweeter in the garden, where we take to a bench near the middle. Overhead, the cool autumn breeze spreads clouds against the blue.

“Neo, let’s play a game,” Sony says.

“No.”

“Okay, so, you have to pick a cloud and figure out what shape it is. You go first. What does that one look like to you?” Sony points straight up, her finger following the moving shapes across the sky.

“A cloud,” Neo chews, not even looking.

Sony flicks his forehead.

“Hey!”

“That one looks like a bird! You see the wings?” Sony pulls me by the shirt collar so I can see from her vantage point. Our baby grumbles, crammed between us. Watching more clouds go by with the time, Sony swings her legs back and forth, as enamored with the sky as she is with the sea. With wonder, she whispers, “I’ve always wanted wings.”

At first, Neo scowls every time Sony and I walk through his door. He complains when she talks too much and turns away when she wants to play games. He goes so far as to try and escape us, practically running. He’s yet to learn of Sony’s love for racing.

After a time, Neo begins doing what writers do. He listens to Sony. Sony says senseless things, childish things, no matter the audience. She observes, she questions. She’s unafraid to exist to her fullest. Her fire burns hot, and Neo is small. He gets cold easily.

When I bring apples, Sony brings a child’s imagination. She reads his stories with audible gasps, tangible tears, and snorting humor. Those reactions let Neo look at her. Not with a scowl. With a kind of gratitude that only writers understand.

Sony asks me why Neo’s books and stories are mine to hide during parent visits. When I tell her, a sad look plagues her eyes.

That night, once Neo’s parents are gone, silence sits in her mouth. We walk into his room together. Sony sits on the bed and wraps her arms around him.