I Fell in Love with Hope(68)

Neo huffs out a breath, bracing. “Put on your seatbelts.”

“Put on some music!” Sony throws both arms up, bouncing in her seat. C turns on the radio, the engine rumbling as he drives it out of the parking space and onto the road. The turn is a tad dramatic, more of a swerve than a turn, really. The visitor pass on the dashboard flies to the opposite end. Neo hits an imaginary brake with his foot, holding onto the door and seat for dear life.

“Wanna hold my hand?” C asks.

“I want your hands on the wheel. Look where you’re going! Coeur!” Neo tries to protest, but before he can, C interlaces their fingers and brings Neo’s knuckles to his lips. He gives him a side-eye, a crooked grin playing on his face. “Let’s go have that 16th-century heartbreak on a beach,” he whispers.

Neo doesn’t blush like you’d think he would. Instead, he looks directly at C’s profile, unsaid gratitude of sorts mustering behind it.

As we pull out of the street, the hospital lessens in the rearview mirror, like a mountain peak slowly disappearing into the clouds.

I look over my shoulder again, this time at the buildings swallowing my home’s image. A nervous flutter runs through me. The further we get, the more I think maybe we’re making a mistake.

I can hear the water, the bridge we near with every ticking second. I can hear the snow, the shadows, all of it whispering that I am violating a law of nature, that I’m spreading myself thin across my world, straying too far from my palace.

We near the bridge, my entire body tensing. C turns into another lane. I brace for impact as we drive into the tunnel that takes us to the other side of the river.

I grab Hikari’s hand hard and press my face against her sternum. My instinct to shield her from the dark overtakes me. I hear the echoes of what has been and what will be. Then my eyes shut, and the shadows envelop us.

“Sam,” Hikari whispers, her lips against my ear. “Sam, look.”

When I do, I realize no one is in the tunnel but us. C’s truck is lonesome, trekking the road. And above us, light streaks in stripes across the ceiling, moving so quickly you can barely catch them.

C drives on, dragging his thumb back and forth over Neo’s knuckles on the gear shift. Neo lets the cool air caress his face, leaning back against the headrest with closed eyes. Sony chuckles, reaching out the window like she could grab freedom by the hand.

Hikari holds me, leaning her head all the way back on the door and staring up at the cavernous lights. She has no hair to flow behind her. Even so, the wind hasn’t lost its infatuation. It takes to her as it did on that rooftop on our very first night.

“You’re beautiful,” I breathe.

Hikari slowly raises her head, still rocking to the music. She links her wrists behind my neck.

“So are you, my beautiful set of bones,” she whispers back.

“Not anymore,” I say, leaning into her when she tries to lean away. “You brought me to life.”

“And I’m only just beginning,” Hikari says. She kisses me on the nose, quick and briefly connecting. “I’ve yet to make you dream, Yorick.”

We emerge from the tunnel, on the other side of the river. The hospital has ceased to pull me back for I can stretch as far as its influence allows. My friends and Hikari are stronger.

We have no provisions, no stolen apples, no safety nets. Our only possessions are made of ink and paper and the clothes on our backs. We are aimless, but aimless adventures become the greatest stories.

This is it, I think, this is our escape.

—

Our first stop is unprompted. We were driving along to classic rock stations, when C said he was hungry. Neo reminds him he has about five dollars in his wallet. Hikari then says she has ten. Sony says she has ninety cents. (Sony is a natural freeloader, as thieves must be. Those ninety cents came from a fountain she decided to swim in the other day for no particular reason.)

C drives the truck to a parking lot with a variety of stores and restaurants all stuck to each other.

I’ve never been this far from the hospital before. As such, I’ve never had the luck of smelling a fast food restaurant. The scent of the french fries is ethereal, like palpable heat and salt. We eat them in the car.

Hikari gets ketchup on her face. I mock her, and she stuffs fries in my mouth to shut me up. Sony plays I spy with Neo. He ends up eating about half his portion and giving her the rest. She eats like a starving animal, her mouth a veritable black hole for hamburgers.

Just as Sony finishes chewing a bite the size of a tennis ball, she screams.

“Are you okay!?” C asks.

Hikari instinctively reaches under the front seat. We brought an oxygen tank just in case.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Neo yells.

“Look!” Sony’s greasy hands press against the glass as she points to the building adjacent to our restaurant.

—

“Hi. Can I help you?” The attendant behind the desk has a single nose piercing and trails of ink mapping his neck from jaw to collar. He sits with a magazine on a crossed leg, his attention diverted to the five nearly hairless people who just walked into his parlor.

“We would like five tattoos, please!” Sony exclaims.

“Um, okay,” the front desk man says, looking between all of us like he isn’t sure whether we’re in a cult or just think military cuts are in season. “Do you have any designs in mind? For the cost–”