I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

He swallowed and asked if they could just go back to studying.
Coeur didn’t go to anyone’s house after that. He soon figured that his
quiet friendliness signaled one of two things when he was alone with
people. They either took it as an invitation to be physical, or they
found it off-putting.
So, Coeur lived his life with a motto of ignorance. People called him
aloof, in the clouds, half there, but in reality, Coeur was almost
always paying attention. What he was ignoring was entirely his own.
He didn’t have chest pains that sometimes got so bad he felt like he
was dying. He wasn’t lonely to the point of crying at night. He didn’t
look at his ceiling, listening to his music, wondering if he was just an
outline, someone who was secretly made of ceramic without a
center. A hollow beast with a bleeding heart.
Then, on a day that heart ached more than most, Coeur met his
match in a skinny, short boy with a temper from hell and a face fitting
of it.
Coeur sat next to him in literature class, got his books, and in return,
Neo helped him answer questions.
Neo was a savant of silence. He did it with substance rather than
insecurity.
There was something strange and compelling about him, Coeur
thought.
He was pretty in a nonconventional sense. He had high cheekbones,
messy hair, pale skin, a perched nose, hard eyes, and lips Coeur
swore had never smiled a day in their life. He was a cute yet elegant
album cover in Coeur’s eyes, but his music was something to get
used to.
Neo was mean and impatient. A brisk tempo with harsh orchestra
strokes.