I Fell in Love with Hope(51)

However, for how constant the boy is to this place, he has no constants of his own.

No one ever visits him. Not parents, not family, not a soul. He has his usual nurses and doctors, but there is a barrier there, as there must be. He is one of their many patients. He is not their one anything. He is nobody’s one.

That is a very lonely existence.

Little did time know, when it gave him to me, that I am lonely too…

I’ve never spoken to a patient before.

In fact, I’ve never spoken to anyone before.

At first, I hide. Then, I observe the boy from the threshold of his room. He plays with tiny potted plants on the ground.

“Good morning,” he says when he sees me peeking out, not the way you’d greet a stranger. I flinch, retreating almost fully out of view. He cocks his head to the side, laughing. “Are you shy?”

“I–” My voice is fresh, a muscle that’s never been used. I swallow, stretch it, let my tongue move in my mouth, calibrating. “Hello.”

“People aren’t supposed to see me without a mask and gloves,” he says, but his caution wavers with a shrug. “You can come in if you want, though. I don’t mind.”

I hesitate.

The problem is I know him. But he’s never had a chance to know me. He is a painting I’ve been admiring for a long time without the courage to walk into it.

The boy looks up, taking me in as I do him. His clothes are well kept, but his shoes are muddy. His hair is soft, ungroomed, but his gaze is full of curious edges.

“Have we met before?” he asks. “I feel like I know you.”

“In–” I stutter, walking into the frame and brushstrokes. “In a way.”

Sweetness and soil flood my nose. His walls are bland, but there are undeniable hints of him accenting the space. Some books on the night table, a string of lights behind the bed, the plants in his hands.

“You like them? I took these from the garden outside.”

“Why did you take them?” I ask.

He makes an ‘I don’t know’ sort of noise.

“I thought they could be my friends.” He picks them up in his arms, placing each with care on the windowsill. The sun caresses their leaves as it does when it wakes him.

“Do you live here too?” he asks.

I nod.

He hums in response. “Do you want to play with me?”

“I’m not sure how to play.”

“That’s alright. I’ll teach you.”

We walk out of his room together. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks at me with a smile back over his shoulder—a smile with teeth and shut eyes. A smile with teeth and shut eyes. A smile you feel rather than see.

“My name’s Sam.”

Sam.

Does Sam know he has suns in his eyes?

—

Sam and I are physically similar. I tried to model myself after him, but Sam’s mind is mine’s opposite. He is brave without having to try, animated by little things. He is mischievous, strolling into places he doesn’t belong and speaking without care for his volume or who is around.

He leaps, he shrieks, he exists freely.

He questions so much about his world, yet he doesn’t question me.

In his eyes, I am just another child. A playmate.

Sam teaches me a great many things. He teaches me about toys, wooden figures we assign voices, and story roles. Of tiles, we jump in patterns for hopscotch, of nooks and closets where hiding from each other is a great game of suspense. I’m not very good at games, but Sam says it’s okay.

He puts aside his routine, and he shows me his world. There are patients he knows and likes. An older woman who gives him bread, a mother is waiting for her baby to be born, and so many more. He greets them through the doors with a wave, and only once he makes them smile does he move on to the next.

“Are you hungry?” Sam asks as the dark draws over the hospital.

“Do you want to eat in your room?” I ask.

“No.” He smiles with that twinkle of mischief. “Let’s go eat outside.”

“Are we allowed outside?”

“Knights are allowed everywhere in their castle,” Sam says.

“Knights?”

“Yes. I’m a knight. I’m the castle’s protector. Like in fairy tales,” he whispers, his face dropping when he realizes I don’t understand. “You’ve never heard of fairy tales?”

I shake my head.

“Oh.” Sam blinks for a while, his cheeks and lips puffed out. “Okay. I’ll tell you some.”

We tiptoe through the hall, Sam giggling under his breath the whole time, bread rolls stuffed up his sleeves. He runs once we’re out of sight, up, up, up till we reach a stairwell.

Sam opens the window at the very top and ushers me through it. We emerge, and there, I meet the sky. It’s cold and gray, the ground harsh, and the wind harsher.

“This is the roof,” Sam says. I shiver, hunching and rubbing my hands up and down my arms. Sam seems to like it, though. He takes the bread rolls from his sleeves, gives me one, and sits.

“Look.” He points up. Against a layer of darkness, the sky wears lights. They’re dull, yet they flare like candle flames about to go out.

“Those are my stars,” Sam whispers like it’s a secret he trusts me to keep. “They’re the most beautiful things in the world.”