I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

start to cut away at my hair. I fist tufts of it, tearing and sliding the
blades across like clearing grass from a field.
My friends panic. They all start to yell, grabbing at the scissors, then
at my hands, my arms. I fight to get them back. Neo takes the
scissors and throws them across the hall. Sony and C both push me
to my knees, their terrified voices in my ear, telling me to calm down,
to sit, to stop.
I don’t really hear them. I hear a familiar liquid, viscus and hot,
trailing down my forehead.
Pain and I had a neat arrangement. As long as I promised never to
feel anything else, it stayed at bay. I broke the contract when I
sealed my lips to Hikari’s. I broke it when she pulled me from the
road. Now it stings and ravages as it pleases.
“Sam.” I flinch. Not away from the voice. Towards it.
Hikari stands over me. She kneels slowly til she’s close enough to
reach out and gather a drop of blood from the hook of my brow.
“You hurt yourself,” she says.
I stare in wonder as I did the first time she walked into my life. Her
yellow sings, still alive. The shadow recedes as she looks with worry
at the red on her fingers that belongs to me.
“This body never felt like mine anyway.”
Our eyes meet. Hikari’s begin to well. She witnesses the carnage
wrapped in my torn shirt and her hair still falling.
“I’m scared, Yorick,” she cries. I take her in my arms. Her weight
settles against my chest.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I whisper. “Fear is just a large shadow with a
little spine. I won’t let it take you.”