I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

put together. Sam says his body isn’t his at all. It belongs to his
disease. It is a problem for his doctors to solve and an engine for his
nurses to keep running. Sam’s relationship with his body is passive,
but since we met, he says he’s learning to accept it. I ask him why.
He smiles and says without it he could not feel me.
In the mornings, Sam greets his broken things. He passes by all the
rooms he can, waving to his sick people. I tag along. In the
afternoons, we play together in his room. In the evenings we eat
sweet bread and pudding on the roof, no matter the weather. Those
are our in between moments. The rest are for Sam’s vessel and its
repairs.
I spent so long watching Sam. Living with him is different. He talks
and touches without inhibition. It’s harder for me.
This body doesn’t feel like mine. It is rebellious to exist too much with
it.
Touching him, interlacing our fingers, dragging my thumb across his
palm, letting his pulse beat against my wrist; it feels like indulgence.
Sam never thinks much of it. He accepts my touch and we walk
down the hall to witness the stories the hospital has to tell.
One day, in the midst of Sam’s many lessons on how to be a knight,
he pauses outside a particular room. Inside, a woman lays, feet
wrapped in bandages. Pain pulls the strings, knitting her brows and
scrunching her nose.
“Her killer is called diabetes,” Sam whispers, on his tiptoes to look
through the glass.
“Her killer?”
“Mhm,” Sam hums. “She’s the nice lady who gave us our sweet
bread, remember?”