I Fell in Love with Hope(37)
kind
ONE YEAR AGO
Sony wants to race today. Since she barely has the strength to pace without getting lightheaded, she and I came up with a set of rules. I walk a loop around the atrium, twice around, to make up for my two-lungedness, she says, while she only does one. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins.
A few steps around a corner, I look back over my shoulder to see how much Sony has to catch up. And whoever I knock into this time isn’t as small as Neo.
My front meets with a body as I turn the corner. Seconds later, my back meets the floor, shoes slipping out from under me. A noise I don’t make often rises flatly to my lips.
“Ow.”
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” A man bends to my level. His voice is deep but not heavy, light enough to pull you back to where you are. “Are you okay?”
“Sam!” Sony scurries to my side, skidding to her knees like a superhero, sound effects and all. She removes her backpack, pretending to rummage through it.
“Don’t worry,” she says, planting a hand on my chest. “I’m a first-class medic!” She is not.
Making all sorts of phony medical machine sounds, Sony tickles my sides up and down, rousing squirmy, unwilling giggles. “Get up at once, you scoundrel. We have worlds to conquer–wow. You’re big.”
Sony stops when she notices the man standing at our level. She blinks, looking him up and down. “I’m Sony!” Her hand almost hits him in his face as she reaches to shake his hand. It’s when I notice he’s not a man at all.
He’s a boy.
“I’m Coeur.”
Coeur’s hair is curly, eyes big and brown, his most pronounced features. His lips are full, a nose above them with a gentle, broad slope. His skin is dark, paint-splattered, petechial spots and veins spread about his arms.
Sony cocks her head like a puppy with its ears flipped.
“Co-what?”
“Coeur?” Neo rounds the corner behind us. He always follows Sony on races, a single crutch his companion for a spine gradually curling like a fist. About two weeks ago, he got in an accident. He fractured his wrist and among other injuries, and though he assures me it wasn’t his dad, he didn’t want to talk about it.
As soon as he sees Coeur, his expression falls, his shoulders slack, eyes a little wider than usual.
“Neo,” Coeur breathes out his name, standing up straight as Sony helps me back to my feet. “Hey.” His lips curve, slow, kindly. They exchange a wondrous tone only people who’ve met before can share.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh,” Coeur feigns a scratch at the back of his head, looking at the ground and then back up. “It’s no big deal, I just-uh- almost drowned.”
Neo steps forward. A solid annoyance weighs down his face.
“You look fine to me,” he says through his teeth.
“Neo.” I frown, pulling at his sleeve, but he ignores me.
Coeur must’ve not caught Neo’s tone because he just laughs, relief in its wake.
“Neo,” he says again, enamored by his presence. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.” The longer Coeur remains in his lighthearted fit, the more Neo’s anger grows. Coeur turns to Sony and me to explain. “We have literature together. Our teacher can’t get enough of him, he’s a genius–”
Coeur doesn’t get to say anything else. Cutting him off, Neo pushes right past him and storms down the hall.
—
The last time Neo had an outburst like that was when he flipped the food tray over in my arms. I open the door to his room warily.
“Neo?”
“I wanna be alone, Sam.” Pulling himself back into bed, he winces till he’s surrounded by pen, paper, and the safety of his paper and ink sea.
“Will you come to dinner with us later, then?” I ask. “I already stole you an apple.”
“Is he gonna be there?” Distaste plays on his tongue. He avoids eye contact, rummaging through pages he isn’t actually reading with more force than necessary.
“You don’t like Coeur,” I point out.
“What makes you think that?”
“You were rude.”
“Sam.”
“Sorry.” I catch myself. “How do you know him?”
Neo throws his pen down, jaw tight. He doesn’t lean back against the wall, he thumps against it, crossing his arms, unable to contain the continued twitches across his cheeks.
“People call him C,” he says. “He’s been on the swim team since middle school. Everyone adores him because he’s good-looking and an idiot. Everyone but teachers, at least. He spends all of class listening to music and staring out windows. His grades probably don’t matter because of his star athlete crap. Girls practically cling to him in the halls like popularity leeches. His taste in friends is just impeccable too. I should know. They beat me up while he watched.”
Neo’s eyes lock with mine. The catalyst of his scars comes to mind with that look. Neo’s father inflicts pain, but there’s distance between them, a distance that nurtures indifference. There’s nothing indifferent about him now.
He’s not telling me the full story. If Coeur were just a passerbyer, someone who ignored his assault, Neo wouldn’t care. He doesn’t push past his mother trembling with rage and she is the greatest bystander in his life. There’s something else I’m missing between the lines.