I Fell in Love with Hope(32)

Of course, there are exceptions.

“Why the hell were you on a step ladder?” Eric asks, dabbing the cut on my forearm with hydrogen peroxide.

“That clock is broken.” I point to the space above the doorway. Just below, a corpse of a step ladder lies on its side, a soldier fallen in battle. Granted, I should’ve probably had someone hold it for me, but I’m short-staffed in the non-physically impaired friends department. “I was stealing it.”

Eric pulls my arm further over the counter to get a better look.

“Why?”

“For my Hamlet.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that means. And haven’t you little pests stolen enough? Your rooms might as well be storage facilities for broken crap.”

“It’s the only way to kill our enemies,” I remind him.

He flicks my forehead. “Save it. That dramatic shit doesn’t work with me.”

“I’m not dramatic.”

“You’re all dramatic. Especially you.”

“Me?”

Eric rolls a bandage around my wound.

“You’re paraphrasing Shakespeare.”

“Neo paraphrases Shakespeare.”

“To insult people.”

“Isn’t that dramatic?”

“That’s my point. Now get.” He slaps the uninjured side of my arm, rubbing a disinfectant wipe over his hands. “And make sure Sony doesn’t go chasing cats. She rests, or I take that flea bugger to the pound.”

“Please don’t take Hee.”

“What?”

“You said you’d take Hee.”

“Who’s Hee?”

“The flea bugger.”

“Go away, Sam.”

“Alright.”

Eric turns his back, putting a stethoscope around his neck and gesturing to another nurse so they can get back to work.

I flex the muscles in my forearm. It doesn’t hurt. Pain and I have a reasonable agreement. Pain is jealous. As long as I don’t feel anything else, it’s content staying at bay.

That means I don’t get punished for objectively stupid actions. Hopping on a step ladder to rob a useless clock from a wall would be one of them. I look down at the step ladder, then the clock. Would Eric’s fury and a possible head wound be worth the smile on Hikari’s face when I present her with tangibly killed time right before our great escape?

“Sam?” Someone pops out, too tall not to block my way.

“C?”

C passed out a few nights ago. He got discharged and had dinner with his family. A few minutes after they were seated, C’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed from his chair. He woke up a few seconds later, but the event was enough to startle his doctors and us.

C’s eyes flick to my bandages while mine flick to the black and purple splotch spreading from his cheek to his brow.

“What happened to your face?”

“My brother hit me,” he says. “What happened to your arm?”

“I don’t have arms. Why’d your brother hit you?”

“Eh. You know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Ever since I got back, the doctors have been making me do all these tests, and my parents won’t stop arguing with me about the–” He taps his chest twice. “–situation, so having heard it all before, I put my earbuds in. My brother, who I was ignoring, got frustrated, and frustration is excellent for punching, so–”

“Oh.”

C’s teeth show in delight as if the bruise is something to be flaunted.

“You have no idea how nice it was to finally see him do that, Sam,” he says, like a spectator rather than a victim. “My brother and I used to roughhouse when we were little. He’d pick on me, make bad jokes, prank me. After last year, he changed. He became polite and pleasant; I hated it.” C chuckles. “Guess he finally snapped, though. He got a nice swing too, good momentum, see?”

He leans down a bit to show off the bruise.

I sigh.

C doesn’t like when we talk about our diseases, let alone his. To him, the illness is of conditional existence. It’s only real when his muscles strain at the last stair step or when its name is ushered from someone’s lips.

“What did your parents say?” I ask. What I really ask, subtly, is, are you okay?

C shrugs. “It’s not important. I want to see everyone. Headquarters?”

Headquarters. Neo’s room.

“You literally could not be more wrong!” C and I open the door to a less than quiet scene.

Three sit in the bed, Neo on his pillow, sans back brace, Sony with her back to the door, avec oxygen tank, and Hikari across from her, gaze jerking back and forth between them.

“There’s no such thing as more or less wrong,” Sony says. “Either I’m wrong, or I’m right.”

“You’re wrong,” Neo says vehemently.

“I’m right. I could not be more right.”

“There’s not enough oxygen in your brain for you to be right!”

“There’s not enough food in your body to feed your brain, ego, you cannot be one hundred percent sure that I’m right or wrong.”

“It’s ergo, you idiot!”