I Fell in Love with Hope(38)

Neo makes an ugly face at me when I don’t respond. “Anything else you wanna know?”

I blink, my hands flat on my knees.

“What are leeches?”

“Get out, Sam.”

I do. I just feel like a blind bystander turning the doorknob.

Back where I left them, Sony and Coeur gather around our old vending machine.

“No, no. You’re doing it all wrong. You gotta crane kick it first. Like this.” Sony raises both arms over her head, lifting one leg and flicking her foot forward so hard that her shoe almost flies off. She doesn’t even strike the glass, slipping over her feet, and falling backward. Coeur catches her.

Sony blows the hair out of her face and points at the vending machine.

“See, Coor?”

“You can just call me C.”

“Alright. See, C? Wait.”

Sony forgets her qualms over the consonant when she sees me.

“Sam!” she yells, scrambling upright. “Where’s Baby?”

C looks over at me too, expectedly, in a polite way. I don’t like that he’s polite. I don’t like that all I see looking at his face is it turning the other away as my friend gets beaten.

“You let people hurt Neo?” I ask, but it’s more of an accusation.

Sony’s chin draws back. “What?”

“What?” C asks the same question.

“You and your friends beat him up.”

“I–I never beat anyone up,” he says. My brows knit together, but C keeps defending himself. “I’m his partner in class for reading–”

“Neo doesn’t lie.” I remember the ache in Neo’s face when he saw C standing in the hall, so oblivious.

Neo is in and out of this place constantly. One day, not long ago, when he came in with bruises all down his shoulder blades, a black eye, and the wrist he likes to squeeze is broken. That day, he wouldn’t talk to anyone, even me. We lay together in the dark. A single tear rolled down his temple. I thought it was his father at first. But now I’m not so sure. “You hurt him.”

“Yikes. Sorry, dude.” Sony plants her hand on his shoulder, tsking. “I can’t be buddies with a bully. Maybe in your next life, you’ll be likable. See ya!”

“Wait!” C calls out to both of us before we walk away. He swallows a lump in his throat, confusion and memory morphing into a realization. “Can I talk to him?”

—

C, I quickly find, is not unlike Neo. Whatever he’s thinking, it isn’t said aloud. When someone talks to him, only half his attention is on the words. The other half is lost, glazed over behind his eyes.

I don’t think it’s intentional ignorance. I think, like when he knocked me to the floor and missed Neo’s clenching teeth and fists, he simply doesn’t notice.

I lead him to Neo’s room, not only for Neo but also to feed that selfish curiosity. I want to know what Neo didn’t say. I want to help them. And something tells me the rest of the story lies in C’s side of it.

He opens the door.

“Sam, I said–” Neo stills the moment he sees C. There’s no anger in him. Just surprise. It makes him look young, almost his age.

“Hi, Neo,” C says. He tries to close the door behind him. Sony sneaks her foot in the crevice so that it remains just barely open.

I poke her. “Sony, we should–”

“Hush!” she whispers, putting her finger on my lips and pressing her ear to the opening. “I’m eavesdropping.”

“Can I sit down?” C asks, motioning to the chair at Neo’s bedside. Sony and I peek through the blinds. Neo zones in on the seat, then C, then the seat again.

“No,” Neo says. He snaps back to his sea, pretending the boy still standing awkwardly at his door doesn’t exist.

“Listen, I just came to talk.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I’m sorry,” C says.

Neo writes with more pressure than needed, swiping his pen across the paper to accentuate the silence. C goes on, “I’m sorry for you know–what my friends did. I didn’t know they were–”

“Ramming me against lockers and calling me a faggot?” Neo’s tone is flat as his features. For the first time, he looks C in the face. “You were there. You knew exactly what they were doing, and you just walked away.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped them.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, I–” Neo stops again, interrupted by his own observation. Since I can’t see C’s face, it takes a sniffle and squint from Neo for me to understand what’s happening. “Are you crying?”

“A little.” It sounds like more than a little.

“Why?”

“Don’t you remember? You’re my English partner.”

“That’s why you’re crying?”

“You’re so mean, Neo.” I won’t argue with that statement. “But we both know I wouldn’t have passed last semester without you.”

Neo may be mean, but he isn’t past recognizing someone genuine. Weakness and gratitude with it pour from C like a dripping faucet.