I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

Neo raises the corner of his lip in disgust.
“Not another one.”
“Will you read it to me? Like you used to?”
“I’ve already read it.” Neo picks up the book as if he’s ignoring it,
ready to hand it back and reject it yet again. The familiar tone hits C
in the face. Like when his teacher would dismiss his inability to
understand. He wallows in the embarrassment and perhaps starts to
accept that Neo may never truly forgive him.
“Okay,” he whispers, turning around and grabbing the doorknob.
“Where are you going?”
C halts. He turns back around. The book isn’t thrown aside or
abandoned.
Neo slides his hand across the first page, tucking his knees to rest
the weight.
He takes off the hood and nods at the chair by his bed. “Sit down
and be quiet.”
—
Neo reads to C in a different way than I read to him. There’s no
monotone drawl over every passage. He works across the chapters
with smoothness, sure to side-eye C when he flips a page to make
sure he’s paying attention. He is. He props his chin on his arms and
every time Neo picks up the story again, C
admires him.
They make it a habit to read every day. They exchange numbers.
They text each other after hours when they should be sleeping. C
sometimes sneaks into Neo’s room, and they listen to music while
laughing over the nurses they tricked. When C gets discharged a