I Fell in Love with Hope(75)

Seashells gather in Sony’s pockets as she and Hikari fish into the shallow end like fishermen in a canal. They’re soaked from the thigh down, but neither of them seems to care. Sony wrings out the material of Hikari’s dress and rolls up her pants before they sit in the sand, dirty and giddy as they sort their spoils.

Chased mercilessly by C and I, Neo throws his hoodie over his head, leaving his shirt and pants on. He pretends to be angry when we tackle him into the water. Once his lower half is submerged by the waves, a violent tremble runs up his body. He wraps his arms around C’s neck for warmth, the two beaming at each other. C twirls in the water as he did on the beach, smiling into Neo’s neck.

I bring Hikari back stones eroded by salt from the muddy bank. They shine, some with a single white line encircling them around like rope with a tear down the middle. I also bring her a tiny crab missing a claw that was stuck in a shell. Together we bring it back to the ocean, watching it scurry into the sea.

Later, on a pile of our dry clothes on the dunes, Sony, C, and I make out the shapes of offshore islands, giving names to lonely ships in the far distance. Neo and Hikari write and draw in the Hit List. They mark each stone, shell, island, and ship. The wind weighs in on our conversation, flipping pages in disagreement and tickling our noses when it is pleased.

My friends laugh into its calling, filling page after page, not a dull moment between them. They smile, hug, kiss, run, speak, sing, shout, swim, play, create, and love without constraint.

With a pencil between her teeth, Hikari walks me to the foamy edges of the shore and hands me a drawing. On a loose piece, three kids dance together amongst a nameless crowd. Their expressions are their own, but they are real. I stare at it, ghostly fingers dragging over my friends’ faces. It is a single moment, but through her gift, it is engraved in eternity.

I smile. Because it is a single moment that cannot be stolen.

When Hikari turns toward the sea, the breeze flirts with her figure. Her dress catches on her curves, the wet fabric stuck to her legs. My hands roam to her hips, pulling her to me, paper in hand.

I trace the lines of her face. She bites her blue lips and inhales the newborn air that very well could’ve been carried from across the earth. I mimic her. Our new tattoos touch, a spark of electricity exchanged by our hearts.

“Hikari,” I breathe.

She runs her fingers up my scalp, the watch on her wrist carrying grains of sand against my neck.

“Yes, Sam,” she whispers, and surrounded by the people we care about, I realize that this is what it was always supposed to feel like.

Our enemies have no claim to this place.

They have no claim to this day.

In Hikari’s arms, I forget what I am and where I am from. The idea of home no longer has gravity. I have flown off my orbit, chosen to follow meteors with no aim but to roam.

I am not afraid of what constitutes life or mere existence. I watch and yet I smile, hug, kiss, run, speak, sing, shout, swim, play, create, and love all the same.

This place–this exact spot where land and sea meet is where the world was born. It is where Time ceases, Disease festers, and Death dies.

Because the world was built for kids who dreamt of life and were raptured by loss. It is theirs and it is mine. It is ours to claim, and it is ours to reap. In this place, freedom takes us by the hand and we dance to its rhythm in coarse, cool sand and wild, welcoming waters.

In the book of our lives, upon a single page dedicated to its creation, we name it Heaven.

—

When night falls, we retire to C’s dad’s pick-up. The clouds dissipate with the dark, revealing a sky rendered black by a layer of stars. Fortunately for us, C’s limited thieving capacities grant us yellow blankets to warm our soaked skin.

We lie in the truck’s bed like poorly laid out sardines. We are tangled together, masses of bodies huddled, shivering, and laughing. Sony is at the center, Hikari and Neo clinging to her like babies while C and I make the outsides.

Our stories flow between us. Some are old humorous tales that get interrupted by cackling because we already know how they end. It’s like a joke that doesn’t need a punch line. A communal store of memories that make way to new stories.

“I can’t believe you kissed Carl,” Neo says.

Sony smiles in that way you know she’s thinking about doing it again just for the fun.

“Carl’s nice,” C says, arms crossed behind his head, acting as a pillow.

I’m about to add that Carl is also very skilled at his job, but then Hikari says, “He’s cute too,” and now I’m less eager to say anything.

I look down at her, propped up on my elbow with a frown. She rolls her eyes at me with a smirk and squishes my face.

“We should bring Eric out here,” C says.

Hikari giggles. “He’d scold the fish for swimming too close to shore and curse the seagulls for flying too close to the sand.”

“He’d curse the sand for being sand,” Neo says.

Sony taps their foreheads. “Oh shush, he’d secretly like it.”

“He’d like it because we do,” I say, the only fish sitting up in the bunch, listening to the waves who never sleep as the tide pulls in. I imagine Eric at the center of the nocturnal beach, watching us play as the gulls fly overhead, the salt sprays on our tongues, and the music plays from the boardwalk.

“Ever thought of turning your heartbeat into a song?” Neo whispers, tucked against C’s chest, his ear pressed against the hollowed valley.