I Fell in Love with Hope

by Lancali

Being sick teaches you that reasons are just poor attempts at justifying misfortune. They give you an illusion of why, but why is a loud question, and death is quiet.

We spent our whole lives together pretending, but if you pretend for too long, reality reminds you one way or another that it doesn’t like being insulted.

“Remember that just because the stars fell doesn’t mean they weren’t worth wishing on.”

The sun rises every day,

Do you think it rises because it fell?

Humans have a knack for self-destruction. Only those of us who love broken things will ever know why.

He’s going to watch Neo eat. Because eating disorders aren’t about vanity. They’re about control. And he wants to take whatever his son has left of it.

Hate is a choice. Love is not. There’s nothing so out of our control as that.

‘You said I killed you—haunt me, then,’ ”

“The dead do not haunt, no matter how much you beg them to.”

“They love him, I think, but—” “But sometimes parents love the idea of their child more than the person they are.”

“That kind of love is suffocating.” Like fingers closing around a wrist.

like a fallen angel who used to have them on her back.

Fits the symbolism of her as a demon/devil

After a time, Neo begins doing what writers do. He listens to Sony. Sony says senseless things, childish things, no matter the audience. She observes, she questions. She’s unafraid to exist to her fullest. Her fire burns hot, and Neo is small. He gets cold easily.

“Illness is temporary,” he explains. “Injuries borrow our blood, infections use our cells, but our illnesses are different. In a way, they’re self-inflicted. An error in the code. This kind—well—it owns us, it hurts us, because it just doesn’t understand.” Language is flawed. That’s what he means. We don’t have diseases. They have us. They found a home in us. “Why can’t we make it understand?” Sony asks, fear trembling from her throat. Neo bites his lower lip to keep it from shaking. He’s grown attached to Sony. So much that he tucks red strands behind her ear and pretends he isn’t holding back tears. “We have soldiers in our blood,” he whispers, like the start of a bedtime story. “They’re ruthless and unbiased. To them, there’s no difference between who they’re meant to protect and an enemy.” The metronome slows. Sony’s lung matches the beat of her heart. “They’re blind. You can’t convince them of their wrongdoings,” Neo says. He continues to pet Sony’s hair. “The irony is lost on them.” Like an apology for the sins of our sickness, Neo drops his head to her shoulder and holds Sony till she falls asleep.

“No,” Sony breathes. “It wasn’t a good day.” “Sony.” Neo beckons her gaze. He crouches in front of her, reading her pain like lines in his stories ready to be erased. “What happened?” Sony’s jaw quivers with her lips. A smile forged like a shield spreads across her face, if only to convince her she isn’t trying not to cry. Her eyes shut to the question. Then it comes from her, like a confession. A sin. An irony. “My mom died.” Neo doesn’t move. He simply looks up at her, his hands on her knees. Blue and red touch Sony’s face, the ambulance that brought her here tonight still fresh in her mind. She tries to laugh, a dry sound, the kind I never want to hear again. It’s an insult to her true laughter. “She wasn’t sick,” she says, like the greatest tragedy of her life is a sick joke of its own. “She just died in her sleep.” Sony is a gladiator. She was born to conquer mountains and race the gods. She even raced death and won, crossing the finish line, her body broken, but her soul still childish and alive. Shame cowers in fear of her, and defeat never knew her name till now.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she says, sinking into him as she once did with her mother. I kiss her temple as she sobs with her whole body. I hold her from the side, my arms overlapping Neo’s. “I wish I had wings,” she cries. “It’s okay, Sony,” Neo whispers, caressing red strands of fire lost in rain. He holds her tight, taking my hand in the process. “We’re not gonna let you fall.” Sony learns something that day. She learns that death isn’t playful. Death is sudden. It has no taste for irony or reason. It doesn’t wait for another tick of the metronome. It doesn’t wait for goodbyes. Death is a taker, plain, direct, no tricks up its sleeve. And it will give you nothing in return but a last endless kiss for those you leave behind.

“Some people write so their name will be bigger than the title,”

It’s unfair. That those you take care of usually end up being the ones you care about. I should know. It’s what Eric and I have in common. We aren’t supposed to love them. Narrators and nurses mustn’t get attached. We are tied to this place, and

they are tied to a pendulum swinging to either side of the ledge.

When you’re empty, the wind can toss you side to side with ease. The sun can shine right through you. Last night was a night I felt emptier than most.

People with harsh faces are always fond of each other.

“It’s difficult to feel heard by people who have no faith in your words.”

“I was so happy as a kid,” she says. “They don’t understand how all of a sudden things changed. Although it wasn’t sudden really, it was more like the older I grew, the clearer my vision became. My

imagination thinned like fog, and the world I saw was so gray in comparison.” The touch at the column of her throat falls to the bandages around her forearms. She trembles, but I think she trusts me enough to undo them. Beneath, little white scars form lines like a ladder up her arm. “It started with loneliness,” she says. “I could eat and not taste a thing, cry and not feel sad, sleep and still feel tired. I didn’t like what I used to like or want what I used to want. I thinned until I felt like a blur. A little piece of the background no one would notice had gone missing. And even if I’d never felt emptier, every time I tried to get out of bed, I felt like I was sinking. I’d stare at my clock and watch it tick, wishing I could break it.” She closes her hand around the cuts. It looks like she wants to cry but doesn’t remember how. “Thank God you all hate time too, Sam. I’ve been wishing it dead for as long as I can remember.”

Teenagers aren’t as malleable as children. They have a sense of self, aspiration, dreams. Sometimes, parents feel threatened by that autonomy. They cling to the idea of their child, the idea of who they are. Anything off script feels like disobedience. So when that child would rather read and write than follow in his father’s footsteps, violence ensues. When that child i...

People glorify youth. Maybe that’s why she strays from hers. They see it as a period of freedom, sex, and stupid decisions. These are the best years of your life. Enjoy them. You’ll be grateful you did. Say that to a child and watch them be reduced to a fruit, ripe and ready for harvest. You’ll be grateful you did—that is a regretful argument made by those who look in the mirrors and see rot. This is what comes of it. People who don’t believe one could be so numb that even their disease doesn’t hurt enough.

“I think the worst feeling in the world is telling someone you’re in pain and hearing them say there’s no wound.”

“Depression is exactly like fear,” I say. “It’s all shadow and no body, but it’s real.”

When you’re underwater there’s nothing to think about except your own body. There are voices, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. There is a barrier, crystal clear, between you and the people you used to know. And they are people you used to know. The moment someone realizes you’re going to die, they will not treat you the same way as if you were going to live.

“I’m still right about Monopoly,” Sony says, flipping her hair. “You landed on my property and didn’t pay. That’s the whole point of the game!” “Okay, but you’re in jail. Was I supposed to give money to a criminal, Baby? That’s just not right.”

“Do you believe in God, Sam?” she asks, putting the book down. The smudged corner of her glasses reflects the stories we see dimly lit in apartment windows. She reads them like she reads our play, her arms folded over the stone ledge. “I don’t know,” I say, overwhelmed by her scent, how sweet it is, her skin, how it’s only a succulent’s distance from my own. “Do you?” Her lips twitch with wonder. “I believe in artists.” “Artists?” “Some paint the sky and the sea. Others sculpt mountains. The delicate sow flowers and stitch the bark along trees. Some sketch people and the lives they live.” Her eyes meet mine. “Your artist isn’t done yet,” she whispers with a smile. Crooked smile. “He’s indecisive.”

Suns can’t see their own light.

Asking how you become friends with someone is like asking how the world came to be. It’s a process. It’s neither linear nor cyclic. Not unlike the world, people aren’t always as complicated as we make them out to be. Sometimes you just have to offer a little bit of yourself, a little bit of your time, and, as C will soon find, a little bit of your kindness.

“How do you feel about Coldplay, Bach, and Taylor Swift for an opening trio?” C’s thumbs tap away at the screen. “Am I going through a seventeenth-century breakup with a beach?” Neo asks, tone monotonous.

I wasn’t anything else but a swimmer, and I didn’t want to be nothing,”

I imagine how hard Neo must’ve fallen for someone who cares so much. I imagine how smitten he must’ve been as C tried to read despite not being good at it. I imagine, from the hope in C’s eyes, that he didn’t fall quite so soon, but when he did, he fell so much harder.

Neo said he had two weirdos.

Stop this is such an adorable description of Sony and Sam 😭

I understand why it hurts. I understand the loneliness of not being seen. I understand, most of all, from years of watching, that ignorance is worse than cruelty.

They don’t know what it’s like to drown or to be cut from gardens. It’s uncomfortable for them to witness it. Sick people attract and repulse. Dying is a fascinating idea and a terrifying reality.

She is not a recycled version of someone I once loved. She is a rhyming line in the poem of my history.

“They’re already in pain,” she says, and the truth of that stings more than it should. “They deserve to have hope for each other.” “Hope is useless.” My voice drops. The mere word crawls beneath my skin, makes me wince at the sound. “It’s nearsighted and blind to the fact that it always fails.” Hope is the name that should be at the top of the hit list. It’s worse than our enemies. Our enemies are thieves, but they come as advertised. Hope is ignorance, a liar, an accidental creature made of fear. And it failed my first love just as it failed me.

“I’ve been here my entire life,” I breathe, looking back to Hikari. “Never once has hope saved anyone.” “Hope isn’t meant to save people,” she says, reticent now.

I am not afraid of her. I am afraid of loving her. Because I wouldn’t just have to admit she was real. I would have to admit that I’m going to lose her too.

Death is not a being. It is a state of being. We humanize it, demonize it, give it a soul because it is easier to condemn something with a face. Disease is in the same boat, only it’s a lot easier to convict it. Disease has reason. Virus, bacteria, defective cells. Those already have a face. Time doesn’t need a face at all. Time steals openly. Such carelessness on its part is enough to be found guilty. Guilty of what, though? Time, disease, and death don’t hate us. The world and its many shadows are not capable of hate. They simply don’t care about us. They don’t need us. They never made and, as such, never broke any promises. We are mediums through which they play. I call them shadows. Sometimes enemies, although that may be a bit hypocritical. They are mediums through which we play too. Disease is weaponized. It’s profited off of. Humans rarely search to cure diseases. There’s more value in treating someone for the rest of their life than in healing them once. Death is no different. It’s a means to an end, a tool, a toy. With it, the people at the top of the pyramid decide how many will be sacrificed at the bottom. No one is better at killing people than people. Time is different. Chase it, gamble with it. No matter the game, time likes to play because it always wins. But unlike its partners, time can be kind. Or maybe that is an illusion too. Maybe time has teeth only to grin and a voice only for the last laugh. I don’t understand it enough for a concrete answer. I don’...

The day I met him is a memory laced with the joy of its happening and the pain of its passing. Because even if I told you I have forgotten, you can’t trust me. You don’t ever forget the first time you fall.

“The narrator isn’t supposed to sneak into the words and dream with the protagonists. Not living meant not suffering. Not wanting meant I had nothing to lose.”

“We’re going to die,” Neo says. “So what? Everyone dies, and everything ends. Sometimes endings are abrupt. They hit you in the face and it’s too soon and it’s unfair, but that doesn’t matter. The last page doesn’t define the book. Time will cease, disease will fester, and death will die. We promised we would kill those bastards, remember? So get over yourself. Get over this fear you have of existing and stop walking behind us. You’re not just our narrator, you’re a part of our story. You’re my friend,” he says, furious, as if my greatest sin was believing that I am a skull and not a soul.

“Dad?” Neo breathes.

OH SHIT

“Um, Coeur.” Neo’s dad clears his throat. “Neo and I have some things to discuss, if you don’t mind—” “I don’t mind,” C says.

DAYUM