I Fell in Love with Hope(52)

Stars, I think, the word playing voicelessly on my tongue.

“Are you a star?” I ask.

Sam’s mouth opens, a surprised sound stuttered from his throat. Then, he laughs, the eruption cracky and full.

“You’re silly,” he says, and when his laughter ceases, “We can share my stars if you want.”

It’s a breath. A promise. The first promise he ever makes me.

I nod with a pleased hum.

We eat together, me in silence, him telling me his fairytales. They’re grand stories, ones with neat endings and no loose ends to tie. I ask him why stories in real life don’t end that way. He tells me fairy tales end however we want them to. He says fairytales are meant to teach people lessons like his nurse, Ella, says, but he doesn’t believe that. He thinks stories are meant to make people feel things.

I ask him what that’s like. To feel.

The wind passes between us, stretching his grin.

He says I ask good questions.

Sam slides his hand across the stone on his last bite of bread.

“This is our castle,” he says. “Will you protect it with me?”

I blink. The knights in all his fairytales are brave. They conquer kingdoms and rescue all in danger. For all I am, I am not brave. I chew on my lip, chew on the question.

Sam senses my doubt.

“There’s a lot of sick people here, you know,” he says, creeping a little closer. It’s the first time I notice how golden his eyes are, flares of yellow across a dark background. It’s a detail you can only see from up close, not just by admiring a painting but by being a part of it.

Sam smiles. A smile you can feel. “We can protect them, you and I. Would you like that?”

I would. Even without bravery at my side. Already, from a single look, a single span of a day, I know so much about him.

Sam. A name, simple and warm, but at once musical in the right tone. Yellow. In his eyes, bright when he is happy, even brighter when he is sad. His voice is young and high yet comfortable no matter the listener. He holds himself like a character, a hero in a novel, a knight without a self-conscious bone in his body.

“I’ll teach you how to be a knight, okay?” he says.

“Really?”

“Yes. I like playing with you.” He looks at my face the way I look at his. Reading me. “What did you say your name was?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“You don’t?”

“I am–” I begin, “–I am not like the other broken things you know.”

A name is relevant. Backgrounds don’t need relevancy. That defeats their purpose.

Sam, with the sky illuminated at his back, thinks otherwise.

“We can share my name then. Your name will be Sam too. I decided.” He declares into the cool breeze, leaning closer to me. “Go ahead and try it. Say, I’m Sam.”

My voice is small. Everything feels small compared to him.

His name feels anything but.

“I’m Sam,” I say.

With glee, one of Sam’s hands, soft and baby-like, grabs ahold of mine, and I become the stone beneath our feet. He is warm, the gold in his eyes traveling down his body, through his skin.

Fire flickers between our palms. It melts all the way to my bones.

I’ve never been touched before. I shudder from it, suddenly wondering if the fluttering in my heart is what they call feeling.

“I’m happy I met you, Sam,” the boy says.

“Ha-ppy?” I whisper.

“Mhm.” He doesn’t let go of my hand. He plays with it, explores it.

“I like you,” he says. His cheeks flush, gaze averted. “You’re beautiful.”

I’ve never been called beautiful. I’ve heard the words and watched them escape the lips of lovers. But many words, I find, aren’t always truthfully spoken. People lie. Children lie. But children rarely lie about beauty.

“Will you play with me tomorrow?” Sam asks.

“Yes.”

Yes, I say in my head again. All my tomorrows are yours.

“Thank you,” Sam says. He kisses me on the cheek and climbs back inside, waving. “Goodnight, Sam. Have sweet dreams…”

The day I met him, even buried, is a memory laced with the joy of its happening and the pain of its passing. Because even if I told you I have forgotten, you can’t trust me.

You don’t ever forget the first time you fell.





rain




Some people wear pain on their sleeve. Others let it lie beneath their clothes. The roof wears its pain plainly. Scratches in the stone, white like chalk, paired with black smudges of stomped-out smokes.

I look with half-open eyes and a half-there body. My knees bend into the cradle of my arms. My back pressed up against the wall at the ledge. I look at the shadow of two children sharing bread and stories, staring at the sky. Beside them, another pair stand over a cardboard box full of books, their souls reaching across a palpable distance.

My hands come together like a lock and key. I feel my skin travel to my wrists, the heels of my palm, through the valleys of my fingers, all the places my suns both set me afire.

Yellow dances in the wind. Time’s shadow snuffs it out with rain. As clouds muster a storm above, the broken watch catches raindrops so I don’t have to cry alone.