I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

if he hadn’t woken up, I would still be in that chair wondering if he
ever would.
“Sam?” I call.
“Yes?”
“Could I–could I hold you?”
Sam nods, and when I climb into the bed, he wraps his arms around
me.
His touch runs down my back, kneading my shirt, feeling my skin, my
spine, my flesh beneath.
“My sweet Sam, don’t cry over me,” he says as he feels my tears I
don’t know how to control fall to his shoulder. “I’m strong. I’ll make it.
We still have so many adventures to go on.”
“How do you know?” I ask. “How do you know that you’ll make it?
How did you know the woman would make it?”
“I didn’t know,” Sam says, his chin on my shoulder. “I just hoped she
would.”
I wanted an answer. I wanted, as I have wanted since I was born, a
solution, a way to defeat the three thieves who encroach upon my
home and reap it of its life. But as Sam speaks, he gives me that one
thing I can’t fathom.
He gives me another lock rather than a key.
“Hope?” The word tastes elder, a truth of the world, yet so young,
like a secret.
“Mhm,” Sam hums. “Hope is like…” He shifts, his chin against my
ear now rather than my neck. “Hope is like waiting for the sun to
rise,” he says, looking through his window, greeting the sky. “We