I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

Empathy wounds Neo’s face. He cups C’s jaw, wiping a tear.
“Coeur–”
“Let’s just go,” C says. “Let’s go right now. Tonight. Just the five of
us.”
“I can barely walk,” Neo says.
C grasps his hands. “I’ll carry you.”
Neo tilts forward till their noses touch.
“Just wait. A few more days. That’s all.” Under the layer of his voice,
C’s shoulders slack. The tension he carries washes away with Neo’s
touch. “Then we’ll go get our Heaven.”
Nights till the escape: 3
Hikari and I go to the roof tonight.
We laugh over chocolate pastries because she talked the bakery
owner down the street into giving them away. Crumbs soil our
clothes, but the taste dances on our tongues.
Hikari asks me why I like Wuthering Heights so much. I tell her it is
truthful, that I can see myself in it somehow.
I ask why she likes Hamlet. She laughs and tells me she doesn’t.
We read our play’s lines together. Hikari interrupts herself in the
middle of monologs, edging closer when she does. Her teasing
engulfs me and we make a game out of testing just how willing our
distance is to make way.
“Do you believe in God, Sam?” she asks, putting the book down.
The smudged corner of her glasses reflects the stories dimly lit in
apartment windows. She reads them like she reads our play, her