I Fell in Love with Hope(76)

“Would you write the lyrics?” C asks.

Neo shrugs. “We can write them together.”

“I’d like that,” C whispers.

“After our story?”

“Yeah, after our story.”

Sony stretches her limbs with a yawn.

“Neo,” she says, nudging his shoulder, “let’s read more of your manuscript, I want to know what happens next.” But when Sony looks, C puts a finger to his lips, revealing a sound asleep poet. He shifts in C’s arms, turning so as to be in Sony’s as well.

“Tomorrow then,” she whispers and kisses his forehead. C wraps them both in his embrace, squeezing my hand and Hikari’s arm once before they all fade into sleep.

“Look, Sam,” Hikari says, wide awake. She looks up at the sprinkled dusting of the galaxy, a painting that is ours. “Your stars are shining.”

They are. And their brilliance is reflected in her.

I tuck the yellow blanket over her shoulders, dragging my touch down her covered body to make sure she stays warm. Her drowsy gaze finds mine. The joy of today floats in the color, a liquid that cannot be dissolved by Time’s passing.

“What’s on your mind, Yorick?” she asks.

“That you and I were created for each other.”

“Were we?”

“No.”

She laughs.

“You’re a prince, and I’m only the skull of a nameless jouster,” I remind her.

“Nothing is nameless,” she says. “Not even bones.”

“Hamlet wouldn’t say that.”

“What would Hamlet say?”

“He would call the skull a fool for wanting him. For thinking it was any more than a skull at all.”

“Hamlet would never say that to his friend.”

“What does Hamlet know? He’s friends with a skull.”

She laughs again, dragging her fingertips across my face. I’m tempted to wrap myself around her, to breathe in the scent at the crook of her neck, and simply be so close that the idea of distance is forgotten.

“Hikari,” I whisper, the drawing of our friends still tucked in my pocket. “If you could go back and keep yourself from climbing that tree or going to that lake or from whatever unlikely steps lead you to this place–” I hold the same hand that saved me from that road and reminded me that to be alive is to feel as I do now. “Would you?”

“No,” Hikari says, without a second’s hesitation, shaking her head. “No, I’m happy here. With them. With you.” She looks at the stars again, then at me, no shadows left in the night.

“I’m happy,” she says again.

It fills the void in me, and what was once an empty shell, an outline of a person, is full again. I take her glasses off, placing them neatly on her chest. Now there is nothing in the way, not even a mirror. I fantasize about kissing her lips just to taste the words.

“What is it?” Hikari whispers, mimicking me, her finger caressing my cheekbone.

“Do you remember the night in the garden that we stole a race? You asked me what I thought of life.” I want to tell her that what I have has never felt like a life. But I also want to tell her that if this is living, then a life with her is all I want.

“I have to tell you something, Hikari,” I say. “About myself.”

Hikari blinks, waiting for me to speak, but somehow my words lose their shape before I can find them. I stare at her, longingly. Her affection is measured in teasing glances, little smirks, gifts only we know the meaning of, and nights peering over books. I cannot find the strength to squander all that. Not yet.

“There’s a dream in your eyes, my Yorick,” she says, and I decide I will tell her the truth later. The now does not need renditions of the past and the future does not need foretelling.

We have time.

I take the hand always so keen on exploring and kiss Hikari’s knuckles, the heel of her palm, her wrist, and all the little scars healing above.

“I dream of this life,” I whisper. “Us. Together. For all tomorrows to come.”

Hikari kisses me, pulling me down to the bed of the truck. I kiss her back, my arms on either side of her head. As her promise went on that little piece of torn paper, she says, between our affections, “Then all my tomorrows are yours.”

—

I don’t wake to the sun.

I wake to the sounds of struggle.

Choked gasps spare no effort. Someone is trying to breathe, desperately so, but the breath cannot be caught. It is interrupted, stuck in a coughing fit.

Air is a necessary medium of exchange between a body and its environment. It is not an infinite resource and those who no longer have the means to collect have only one place to fall.

That is what I wake to when the dream is over.

I wake to Sony drowning from the inside out.

“Sony?” Hikari, C, and Neo wake simultaneously, a herd hearing the faint cries of a wounded member in the night.

“Oh my god, Sony!” Hikari yells.

Sony is on her back, her eyes wide and afraid, her nails digging into the bed of the truck, her chest caved in. Spots swell on her right side as a violent shade of red spurts from her throat and stains her chin.

“C, get her in the backseat. Neo start the car,” I order, and everyone moves quickly, like doctors running down a hall, when a code sounds on the intercom.