I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

Fire flickers between our palms. It melts all the way to my bones.
I’ve never been touched before. I shudder from it, suddenly
wondering if the fluttering in my heart is what they call feeling.
“I’m happy I met you, Sam,” the boy says.
“Ha-ppy?” I whisper.
“Mhm.” He doesn’t let go of my hand. He plays with it, explores it.
“I like you,” he says. His cheeks flush, gaze averted. “You’re
beautiful.”
I’ve never been called beautiful. I’ve heard the words and watched
them escape the lips of lovers. But many words, I find, aren’t always
truthfully spoken. People lie. Children lie. But children rarely lie about
beauty.
“Will you play with me tomorrow?” Sam asks.
“Yes.”
Yes, I say in my head again. All my tomorrows are yours.
“Thank you,” Sam says. He kisses me on the cheek and climbs back
inside, waving. “Goodnight, Sam. Have sweet dreams…”
The day I met him, even buried, 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 fell.
rain
Some people wear pain on their sleeve. Others let it lie beneath their
clothes. The roof wears its pain plainly. Scratches in the stone, white
like chalk, paired with black smudges of stomped-out smokes.