I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“Because it is–”
“Sony’s body eats away at the very thing that breathes for it, and no
one in their right mind will give her a pair of lungs she’s only going to
destroy. She will die. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Do
you have any idea what it’s going to do to Neo and C if they start
thinking she’s actually going to live?”
“You don’t know that she isn’t.”
“Yes, I do.” The more I speak, the more Hikari’s expression falls.
“You make fun of me because I draw lines–”
“I never made fun of you–”
“You think I’m wrong!” I yell. I remember when she told Neo the
whole world would read his stories, that C would be there with him,
that Sony would get to run races again. I would look the other way
like I did when I saw death pulling at their necks.
I can’t anymore. “You dangle futures that don’t exist in front of them
like bait. You’re making their pain inevitable.”
“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.
“You lost someone,” Hikari says, her voice traveling to realization.
When I face her to meet it, I don’t see her at all.