I Fell in Love with Hope(83)

“That mischief never leaves you, does it?” I tease.

She lifts her arms, allowing me to take her shirt off. She’s lost weight. Her ribs cast skeletal shadows. I throw the dirty shirt into her hamper and pick one from her pile of clean clothes. She shakes her head, so I pick up another. She nods for my third choice, a black long sleeve that’ll conceal still unhealed marks and bears the proper color of today.

Helping her put it on, I also smooth down her pant legs and put on her shoes. She can do it herself, as she’s told me many times, but the perpetual swelling in her legs makes it difficult to stand or walk for long periods of time.

I can list the symptoms all day like a rendition of Hikari’s chart. The fact is taking care of her is a part of my day. Before that night in the old cardiology wing, I enjoyed passivities. I enjoyed listening, watching, being beside her. After that night, I enjoyed being with her. Physically, mentally, emotionally, to a level that transcends nearness. This is a part of it. Like eating or sleeping, it is a necessity I appreciate.

“What is that?” Hikari asks, pointing to her side table. On it rests a potted plant with red bulbs blooming from the leaves that I stole from the gardens. I lay it in her hand, let her take it in through drowsy eyes.

“To add to your collection.”

Hikari smiles. A weak, but trying smile.

“I’d kiss you if I wasn’t gross right now,” she whispers. I put my hands on her knees and peck her lips, taking the succulent from her and sitting it next to all the others on the windowsill.

“Is it time?” she asks, looking at her shoes. I kneel before her and tie them, catching the sorrow in her gaze.

“I’ll ask Eric if we can go tomorrow.”

“No.” She shakes her head, standing up. “No, let’s do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says, and so I lead her out of the room.

—

Sony passed away six days ago.

The first three nights, Hikari cried. It was the violent sort, the kind where loss thrashed in steady waves of sobbing through her body. Then, it died into silence and her tears fell without a voice behind them.

The last three have been dry, but there are moments Hikari falters. Because you don’t lose someone once. You lose them hearing a song that reminds you of their smile. Passing an old landmark. Laughing at a joke they would’ve laughed at. You lose them infinitely.

I hold Hikari’s hand as we pass C’s room. Through the wall, you can hear his parents speaking in French. Their anger at C for stealing his dad’s truck and running off didn’t survive long once they heard about Sony. What did is their concern. It bleeds through the language.

“C?ur, t’es pas censé te promener, allonge-toi, je t’en supplie,” his mother says.

He’s near the top of the transplant list now. He isn’t meant to be standing up, much less over-exerting himself. But the moment he sees the time on the clock, C tears out his IVs and gets out of bed.

He grabs his jacket and starts putting it on as his mother grabs him by the shoulders, begging him to sit.

“Je vais chercher Neo. Tu peux être au téléphone avec lui. Je comprends que tu sois en deuil, mais tu dois rester ici maintenant–”

“She’s my friend, maman. You can come with me or you can stay, but I’m going.”

C’s father watches from the chair in the corner of the room, hands on his face. He doesn’t rush to stop his son or help his wife. I think he and she are at different stages of acceptance. C’s mother still has faith in medicine, in the possibility of the transplant. C’s father sees his son withering to a weaker version of who he used to be with each passing day.

“Coeur!” his mother yells.

“Chérie, laisse-le,” his father says. He stands, grabbing both their coats. “Coeur, you can go, but let us come with you.”

“Merci, papa,” C says. He opens the door to Hikari and me.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He nods, a bit disconnected.

“Where’s Neo?”

Neo’s parents haven’t contacted him since our escape. When Sony died, he was escorted back to his room and hasn’t emerged since. Hikari and I have tried to visit him, but he never answers the door. C hasn’t had the chance to so much as leave his room till now.

He doesn’t waste time knocking. He barges into Neo’s room without forewarning.

“Neo?” he calls. “We have to go now, I–”

Neo’s bed is empty. Instead, there is a boy crawling on the ground, looking under the bed, around it, searching every crevice in the room with a frantic look in his eye.

C stalls. “What are you doing?”

Neo doesn’t bother with formalities. He doesn’t even acknowledge us.

“Hee,” Neo says, moving his bedsheets around.

“What?”

“The cat,” he repeats.

I notice now, his hair is uncombed and it doesn’t look like he’s changed clothes in a long time. The sweatshirt he wore the night of Sony’s episode is in the corner of his room, folded, but unwashed, blood staining the seams.

“She was just here,” Neo mutters to himself, searching the same spaces over and over again as if Hee will appear in one of them if he looks enough times. “I need to find her.”