I Fell in Love with Hope(55)

“You have the right to live,” he says, banishing any other notion. “You live by going after what you want. Tell us what you want, Sam.”

Neo is a writer. His words ring true, give a certain chill. He has the power to make you fall into them. I take both his hands on my face and remember a time when he was the one on the ground, hollow and crying.

I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to be there for him. Just as I wanted to be there for Sony when her mother died. Just as I wanted to be there for C when he needed the courage to claim Neo’s heart.

All I ever wanted was to understand. I wanted the people I came to see pass through these halls to survive. Now, looking at the sun kissing my friends with such adoration in the light, I know I want to see them, not just survive, but live. And selfishly, at this exact moment, I want something for myself.

I learn to stand back up from my fall. I trudge through the puddles where the watch lays and pick it from the ground, wiping the tears off the crystal.

“Hikari,” I say, effortlessly, as if her name was always mine to speak.

The moments she touched this watch, the moments she gave me, and all the moments from here on that I want to give her seep from the stock-still arrow. I turn back around and face my friends. My fist closes around the gift, renouncing the line it drew. What’s left of the rain washes it away.

“I want to save her too.”





real




My shoes smack the tiles of the hallways twisting into each other like an elaborate labyrinth. Awkward bodied, I take turns like a drifting car, C, Neo, and Sony on my tail. Sony cackles, breathless. C and Neo snicker at the doctors yelling at us to stop. Weaving through this place is second nature. Only now do I pay attention, not just to the finish line, but to the scenery of the race.

I guess that’s what happens when you let yourself live for the first time. You notice the little details that used to be invisible behind the blinders. And I may be a terrible runner, but there’s nothing like chasing the sun after a storm.

“Eric!” we all yell. “Eric!”

He flinches at his name, looking in our direction with absolute terror.

“Hey! Slow down! Quit running!” We crowd him like dogs jumping on an owner who’s just come home, all speaking at the same time, an incoherent mess of adrenaline. Sony and Neo get grabbed by their shirt collars while C is stopped by an outkicked foot. “What’s the problem?! Who’s hurt?!”

Sony called Eric ten minutes ago, telling him it was urgent he come to the hospital at once.

“We need you to steal something!” Sony yells, grabbing the front of his shirt. Nurses from my old ship’s hull overhear, their tasks slowing to a halt.

Eric’s face contorts. “That’s your emergency?!”

“Yes!” Sony breaks into a fit of giggles, her feet tapping. “Sam’s in love with Hikari!”

“Didn’t we already know that!?”

“Eric,” I say. “Can you get something for me?”

“Oh for god’s sake, Sam.”

“Eric, please–”

“No, no, no.” He drops Neo and Sony, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “You’re not dragging me into your weird robin hood club extravaganza.”

“What if we don’t sneak in beer and cigarettes anymore?” C offers.

Eric frowns at him. “You still do that?”

C clears his throat and quickly pretends the ceiling is incredibly interesting. “No, sir.”

“Yes, we do. But we’ll stop,” Neo says. “And we won’t sneak out unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“And I’ll stop sneaking in animals, I swear it,” Sony piles on, clasping her hands together.

Our promises are empty. Eric knows, but he doesn’t care. He’s in his own clothes, no scrubs, and bed-headed. He came because we needed him, not because it’s his job, even if he’d like to play it off that way. Seeing the wishfulness in our whispering pleases, Eric groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fine,” he bites. “But by tonight, if you haven’t eaten dinner, taken your meds, and gone to bed, so help me god–”

“We will, we will, we will,” we all say at once, singing his praises, grabbing at his shirt, and jumping up and down.

“Sam,” Eric says. He rubs his eyes and plants his hands on his hips, staring right at me. “What do you need?”

—

To my Hamlet,

I said your name for the first time today. It was an overdue heartbeat, a breath laying at the bottom of a single lung. It was a fear surmounted.

So.

To my Hikari,

I write to you with stolen stationary and an old pen on its last ink reserves. Where? In Neo’s room. Headquarters. The place we always end up sitting a little too close, convicting bouquets of wrongful symbolism and nursing succulents back to health.

This is the place you told me you’d give me a dream.

On a step ladder notorious for being fallen off of, Neo stands on his tiptoes, his skinny fingers perfect for tying thin threaded string lights to the ceiling.

C stands just below, a hair’s breadth away from grabbing the ladder. “Are you gonna fall?”

“I’m not gonna fall.” Neo won’t let him do that.