I Fell in Love with Hope(53)

The door across me is lodged open with a wooden wedge. A phantom creak is all that sounds as footsteps cautiously make their way up.

My friends walk into the downpour without cover.

“I’m sorry,” I say, rain and tears pooling in my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

Their dreams of an outside world chainless and free were for nothing. And it’s my fault.

Sony sits next to me, crisscrossing her legs, red sticking to the sides of her face.

“Our everything can wait. It’s not going anywhere,” she says. “You need us right now.” She calms me like she would her cat or her kids with diligence. Her dirty white sneaker borders my shoe. The rain soaks the laces and tends to the sole’s scuff marks. “Tell us what’s wrong, Sammy.”

I’m going to lose you, I think. I’m going to lose you, and even if I knew all along, it still hurts to face it. It hurts so bad. I feel eaten from the inside out.

“We’re not upset with you,” C says. He kneels as if I’ve only just fallen like I did a year ago, knocking into his chest. His forearm-length hand covers Sony’s on my elbow. “Just tell us what happened.”

I stutter over my breaths, “You always said that you were stealing to prove that you’re still human, that your diseases don’t own you. You said the escape was the final part of the heist. I thought it’d be okay because you’d be free, and that’s all you’ve ever wanted, but–”

“But we’re not free,” C says like it’s a fact he accepted long ago. His lips thin as he realizes why my fear was so all-consuming. The understanding passes contagiously. Sony’s backpack shifts on her shoulders. Neo’s fingers make a loop around his wrist. “You can’t escape your own body.”

The guilt twists in my stomach, wringing it like a towel. Their diseases robbed them of so many moments, and I robbed them of their greatest one. I scrunch my face and try to hide again.

“Sam,” C says. “You got cold feet today. Everybody gets cold feet. Who cares? We can sneak out every day of the week, and if you get scared again, then we’ll try tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. We don’t steal and escape as some big statement to how society perceives sick people.” He presses his palm flat against his heart and shrugs. “We’re just living.”

If we were just living, we would have never met here. In C’s dreams, I see us all sitting in the back row of that English classroom. We would get detention for stealing from teachers and pulling pranks. Sony would be the cool older girl who taught us how to not smoke and not drink in the most fashionable sense. She’d crane kick Neo’s bullies senseless and pester me about my crush on Hikari. C and I would be quiet, onlooking, spacing out, and getting in trouble for it. After school, we’d escape just the five of us every day. We’d have bikes to ride along roads and the hearts, lungs, and legs to ride them across the world.

“What about your Heaven?” I ask.

C smiles. His eyes meet mine, a warm, dark color you can sink in. I see that dream there, nestled beside the flickers. They’re tired, but their essence is untouched. His eyes are as kind as they’ve always been.

“I don’t need to go looking for something I already have,” he whispers.

The rain starts to slow.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

C shakes his head. “You always overthink things.” He taps my nose and catches a raindrop. “What do you need, Sam? Whatever it is, we’ll help you get it.”

“I–I don’t understand.”

“Oh, Sammy.” Sony wraps herself around me as if she can feel me come undone and wants to keep me whole. “Why are you so afraid?”

“Because you lost someone.”

I look up.

Neo is the only one left standing. He’s soaked to the bone, but not a single shiver wracks through him.

He glares at me. “I’m right, aren’t I? You lost someone and it hurt and you can’t get over it so you’re scared you’re gonna lose us too?”

“Neo, don’t,” C warns over his shoulder.

“Who was it?” Neo’s question is like a pinprick making me flinch. “No, don’t look away from me. Tell me who it was.”

“I don’t remember,” I say, covering my ears.

“You told me when we first met that you couldn’t remember if you’d ever been in love. I knew you were lying then, and I know you’re lying now. Tell me.”

“I can’t–”

“I don’t care,” Neo bites. “Tell me.”

Behind him, I see the little boy again, sitting in the middle of the rain, little potted plants between his legs. He looks up, welcomes me into his room, yellow flares in his gaze.

“He’s not real anymore.” I shake my head till he disappears. “He’s dead.”

“I know he’s dead.” Neo steps toward me. He grabs my arms and tears them off my face so that I have nowhere left to hide. “Tell me who he was.”

“H-he was born without an immune system–”

“No, I don’t give a shit about his disease. You didn’t love his disease. You loved him. Tell me about him.”

Neo doesn’t relinquish his hold on me. He tightens it. His sleeves fall from his wrists to his elbows, old bruises rotting near the surface.