I Fell in Love with Hope(5)

“Sam?” C calls.

“Sorry.” I scurry the rest of the way. As we step inside the hospital together, my chin catches on my shoulder, the bridge too far to hurt me. I keep looking back till my reflection ghosts across the glass doors.

“Well, well,” Sony says, lollipop between her teeth. “Look at the smuggler crew returning from a day at sea.” She tucks the cigarettes in her sleeve once we reach the atrium.

It’s an old thing, falsely joyful, as most children’s hospitals are. Fancy balloons and faded color tiles attempt to brighten a space where many enter or leave, feeling dim. There are posters and banners on the walls about treatments and real-life survivor stories, but those are old too, nurses and doctors clocking in and out to complete the scene.

“Now, quick!” Sony says. “Let’s get everything upstairs before–Eric!”

Our floor’s most notorious jailor (nurse), Eric, has a keen sense of timing. He raises a brow at Sony’s tone, his foot tapping away at the ground. His bullshit detector is a honed weapon and when he gets mad, I wouldn’t wish his wrath upon actual prisoners.

“And right under the idiot smuggler’s nose, history repeats itself,” Neo narrates. “Should I say I told you so or rat you out for kidnapping me–” C stuffs more candy into his mouth while I open the book from the side pocket and put it in his face.

“One of you care to tell me where you were?” Eric asks. His under-eye bags and dark hair match in color, his arms crossed on his chest.

“Eric, Eric–first of all–are those new scrubs?” Sony asks, pointing smoothly up and down. “They really bring color to your face–”

“Not you.” Eric puts his hand up, silencing her. Then he looks right at me. “Sam.”

Now I really wish I was invisible.

“Just getting some fresh air?” I say, looking at the ground, scratching the back of my neck.

“Mm,” Eric hums, completely unconvinced. “Did you just forget we have an entire floor dedicated to that?” He’s referring to the gardens.

When Neo’s back still functioned, the four of us would hide in the bushes up there. We made a plan to live our entire lives in the garden and pretend we were woods-people living off wild berries. It worked for about three hours, but then we got hungry and cold, and C was close to tears at being unable to charge his phone to listen to music. We came back covered in mulch and smelled of soil.

Ever since then, Eric hasn’t been too keen on letting us out of sight.

“Well!” Sony almost falters to answer him. “Excuse us for needing a change of scenery.”

“Alright, enough.” Eric swipes his arms through the air, the four of us huddling closer together. “Go upstairs. I’ve got better things to do than tell your parents you went on another escapade. Get!”

When a jailor sets you free, you don’t wait for permission to run.

C hurls Neo’s chair forward as we trot to the elevators. Sony presses the button with the sole of her shoe. Once we reach the top floor, C picks up Neo from his chair, cradling his skinny frame, careful of his spine. From here, we have to travel up stairs to get to the roof. I grab the wheelchair while Sony skips up the steps. Halfway through, C and Sony need a short intermittence.

Sony closes her eyes and leans against the railing. Half her chest rises, deep and quick, but she refuses to open her mouth to breathe. Such an admittance of defeat is not a satisfaction she would give to a mere rise in altitude.

C does the same, Neo’s ear pressed flat to the center of his chest.

“Does it sound like music?” he asks, his voice nearly gone.

“No,” Neo says. “It sounds like thunder.”

“Thunder’s nice.”

“Not when there’s a storm between your ribs.” Neo taps the scars of blood vessels climbing C’s collarbones. “Your veins brew lightning. It’s trying to escape.”

C smiles. “You really are a writer.”

“Yeah.” Neo shifts for balance, ear called back to the beating. “Breathe, Coeur.”

This is ritualistic too. A moment of silence for half a pair of lungs and half a heart.

Sony is the first to open her eyes and start up again. She kicks the door to the rooftop wide open, arms stretched, reaching for the horizons on either end. A whistling tune of an unconvicted criminal leaves her along with a few giddy foot taps.

“We made it!”

“We made it,” I whisper, putting Neo’s chair back down and adjusting the breathing tubes at Sony’s ear. C gently sets Neo down, removing some pieces of paper from his back pocket and handing them to Neo.

“You liked it?” Neo asks.

“Yeah, I did.” Neo and C are creating a novel together. Neo is the writer. C is the inspiration, the reader, the muse, the one with ideas he can’t always put into words.

“But I was wondering,” C says, still reviewing the chapter in his head. “Why do they just give up at the end?”

“What do you mean?” Neo peers over the pages.

“You know, the main character. After they find out their love has been lying all this time, they don’t yell or get angry or throw things like you want them to. They just… stay.”

“That’s the point,” Neo says. “Love is hard to walk away from, even if it hurts.” He absentmindedly caresses the bandage on the inside of his elbow, the cotton still guarding a fresh needle prick. “Try walking away from someone who knows you so well they ruin you. You’ll find yourself wondering how you could love anyone else. And anyway, if I gave you the ending you wanted, you wouldn’t remember it.”