I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

that I smell nice, that he wants to bite me through his mask for no
reason at all, that I should sneak into his room so we could sleep in
the same bed like we did as little kids.
Tonight, Sam doesn’t embrace or murmur. He tells me to be quiet,
grabs me by the wrist, and drags me with tip-toeing silence down the
hall.
“Sam?” I stumble into the nurse’s rest break room after him. “What
are we doing?”
“Shh,” he whispers. It’s completely dark. Sam maneuvers blindly till
he reaches for a doorknob to what I always thought was a closet.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Henry told me about this exit. It’s a surprise,” he says.
He unlocks the door which, miraculously, opens to the outside world.
The night casts a blue shadow. Sam closes his hand around my
wrist like a baby would around my finger, the skin around his eyes so
creased I know he’s smiling with an open mouth. “C’mon.”
Sam’s shoes beat against the water on the empty sidewalk. Street
lamps lay gold halos on the concrete, making the puddles seem like
a sheen layer of oil.
Sam tows me through them, hopping to avoid the ones we could sink
into.
His legs are long, thin, but powerful. His muscles stretch like rubber
bands to accommodate the impatience of his bones. They carry him
and I down the street and into a clearing, the grass wet with fresh
rain.
A few years ago, Sam couldn’t run long distances. His lungs weren’t
used to the heat under his mask, but Sam aged like any other boy
would. Now, he helps Henry out of bed in the mornings. He carries