I Fell in Love with Hope(31)

“Hamlet was always my worst influence,” Hikari whispers, the breath ghostlike.

People glorify youth. Maybe that’s why she strays from hers. They see it as a period of freedom, sex, and stupid decisions. These are the best years of your life. Enjoy them. You’ll be grateful you did. Say that to a child and watch them be reduced to a fruit, ripe, and ready for harvest. You’ll be grateful you did–that is a regretful argument made by those who look in the mirrors and see rot. This is what comes of it. People who don’t believe one could be so numb that even their disease doesn’t hurt enough.

“You’re depressed,” I say. A new truth. One that tastes sour in the mouth.

“No, not depressed.” They ruined that word for me.” Hikari shifts, tucking her hair behind her ears. She makes a disbelieving sort of noise. “I think the worst feeling in the world is telling someone you’re in pain and hearing them say there’s no wound.”

“You need a wound,” I say, the urge to defend her trembling through my fingers. “Depression–I don’t care if you hate the word–Depression is a better thief than you or I ever will be. It steals moments that should be yours. That’s why you walk ledges and run and draw and steal and read, and–” I stop myself, remembering the pencil sharpener she stole and took apart, tucking the blade into her pocket.

“Depression is exactly like fear,” I say. “It’s all shadow and no body, but it’s real.”

That shadow looms over Hikari as mine does. It holds a noose just as tight around her neck. At night it’s harder to see, but there’s no mistaking it. The stars cast their dull light on her, and when one of them decides to flare, her shadow flinches.

“It has you too,” she says. “That’s why you’re bad at existing.”

“No.” I shake my head, not taking my eyes off her. “I chose this. My depression is consensual.”

She can’t help the laugh.

“You like the numbness?” she asks.

“It’s better than the pain.”

She opens her mouth like she wants to refute me, but no words come to fruition. She wants to tell me that pain is temporary, but she isn’t so sure now she has to say it aloud. She shuts her mouth again, her jaw grinding as she refocuses on the dewdrops.

Fear’s shackles dig into my throat as I almost say her name.

“My Hamlet,” I say. It doesn’t matter. Right now, she’s all that matters. “I may just be a cowardly skull, but I’m here,” I say, my hand closing around the grass just beside the hit list as I think about the shape of hers. “I’m always listening, and I’ll always believe you.”

The Hit list and my succulent sit between us as a marker of distance. The warmth we share disobeys. I lean into it. I haven’t said her name. I haven’t touched her. She isn’t real. I’m just a skull in the cup of her palm, so what does it really matter if I fly too close to the sun?

“Do you believe that I’m alive yet?” I ask.

“No.” Hikari shakes her head, but her smile lingers. “I still have to make you dream.”

“What do you dream of?” I ask.

Hikari sighs, staring through the stars that have yet to shine for her. “I dream of… annihilating that loneliness.” She hooks her teeth on her bottom lip, shrugging. “And maybe a grand romantic gesture.”

“Like in the movies?” I ask, remembering the ones Sony made Neo and I watch that ended up being renditions of my favorite love stories.

“Yeah,” Hikari laughs. “Like in the movies.”

We exchange something pure then, something wordless, a flirtation that goes past teasing.

“Then I’ll steal that for you too,” I whisper.

Of course, the garden can only keep us away from reality for so long. Hikari’s phone buzzes, and when she takes it out of her pocket and reads the message, her face falls.

“It’s C,” she says. “He had an accident.”





countdown




C has never said the word heart.

Losing something unsaid is simpler than losing something you loved enough to name.

A year ago, during a swimming competition, his was on its last legs. It gave out just as C’s dive broke the water. He was plucked from the pool by his coach, father, and two other swimmers, limp and barely conscious.

A cardiovascular disease, they said. Caught early enough to salvage C’s body but caught too late to salvage what’s left of his swollen heart.

C tells the story differently. He says all he remembers of that day is floating. The stifled thrashing of competitors and faded cheers of the crowds above. The blurry blue and every muscle in his body gone lame. He says that thing between his lungs was pounding without rhythm like a crying set of drums. He says, even as he felt it fighting for its life, that it was peaceful. He says down there, underwater, he didn’t have to listen to anyone or anything.

It was just him and his heart.

Everything else became a faint notion lost to the surface.

When you’re underwater there’s nothing to think about except your own body. There are voices, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. There is a barrier, crystal clear, between you and the people you used to know. And they are people you used to know. The moment someone realizes you’re going to die, they will not treat you the same way as if you were going to live. Bouquets are no longer gardens, and those who tend to them don’t know what it’s like to drown.