I Fell in Love with Hope(34)

“I didn’t peg you for a nerd Sony,” C smirks.

“So what if I am?”

“You getting humble on me?”

“Humble!? Eric, shove that thing down his throat at once.”

Eric clicks a few keys on the computer. “I assume I would get a better image, but let’s not risk it.”

C rolls his eyes, appreciating the distraction as he looks up at the ultrasound for himself. It’s humbling to witness your own organs. It’s chilling to witness their demise. Neo stares at C’s reaction over the top of his notebook, then back at their story, writing, writing, writing.

“How long does it take to get pictures of his heart? Isn’t only half of it in there anyway?”

“Sony,” we all scold.

“Hey. I’ve got half my lungs, he’s got half his heart. Together, we’d make a fully functional human. I call that a win.”

An hour later, C’s parents intercept us in the waiting area. They take him back to his room and ask for privacy. I sit outside, rereading Hamlet’s lines till Neo joins me.

It’s odd glancing up from the ground and seeing legs rather than wheels now. Bundled in Hikari’s sweater and Sony’s sweatpants, he settles next to me without a word.

C doesn’t make an appearance till midnight. When he does, he wipes his cheeks with his sleeve and crouches to our level.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” he whispers.

Neo fell asleep against my side, papers lazing on his lap. His eyes flutter open to the sound of C’s voice. He takes a waking inhale, shaking himself upright.

“C’mon.” C moves the hair from his eyes. “You need to go to bed–”

“What were your ultrasound results?” Neo murmurs with gravel in his throat. “What did your parents say?”

“It’s not important,” C says. His knuckles press against his chest. The petechial spots climbing up his collar catch the light. C is a large vessel, and his engine is tired. His heart is too weak to carry him through any more of his life.

“I–” C roughs his hand over his face, “–I need a transplant.”

Empathy wounds Neo’s face. He cups C’s jaw, wiping a tear.

“Coeur–”

“Let’s just go,” C says. “Let’s go right now. Tonight. Just the five of us.”

“I can barely walk,” Neo says.

C grasps his hands. “I’ll carry you.”

Neo tilts forward till their noses touch.

“Just wait. A few more days. That’s all.” Under the layer of his voice, C’s shoulders slack. The tension he carries washes away with Neo’s touch. “Then we’ll go get our Heaven.”





Nights till the escape: 3





Hikari and I go to the roof tonight.

We laugh over chocolate pastries because she talked the bakery owner down the street into giving them away. Crumbs soil our clothes, but the taste dances on our tongues.

Hikari asks me why I like Wuthering Heights so much. I tell her it is truthful, that I can see myself in it somehow.

I ask why she likes Hamlet. She laughs and tells me she doesn’t.

We read our play’s lines together. Hikari interrupts herself in the middle of monologs, edging closer when she does. Her teasing engulfs me and we make a game out of testing just how willing our distance is to make way.

“Do you believe in God, Sam?” she asks, putting the book down.

The smudged corner of her glasses reflects the stories dimly lit in apartment windows. She reads them like she reads our play, her arms folded over the stone ledge.

“I don’t know,” I say, overwhelmed by her scent, how sweet it is, her skin, how it’s only a succulent’s distance from my own. “Do you?”

Her lips twitch, wonder aplenty.

“I believe in artists.”

“Artists?”

“Some paint the sky and the sea. Others sculpt mountains. The delicate sow flowers and stitch the bark along trees. The last sketch people and the lives they live.” Her eyes meet mine. “Your artist isn’t done yet,” she whispers with a smile. Crooked smile. “He’s indecisive.”

“You sound angry at him.”

“How dare he not give you arms?”

“Do you believe in heaven?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. Heaven is a perfect place. Perfection isn’t real. A perfect place in death sounds a lot like something to bait you into behaving. Or into dying. Behaving and dying are poor endings for thieves.”

“Neo’s dad says that he wants his son to go to heaven,” I say. “He says that’s why he does what he does and says what he says.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think Neo believes him.”

“Is that why he doesn’t take his medicine?” Hikari asks. “Is that why he doesn’t eat?”

Neo took to Hikari the day he met her. He said she was a genuine kind of girl. He never put a guard up around her. That means it’s not difficult for her to notice things: the pills he tucks behind his gums and the bathroom trips he takes to spit them out–the sweaters, no matter how thick, that can’t hide the sinking skin beneath his cheeks or the wobbly nature of his legs.