I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“Oh.”
“But I do like him.”
“Yes, Cherie, I gathered that,” she chuckled, bringing Coeur’s dinner
to his room and kissing her son’s cheek. “I look forward to meeting
him.”
Coeur finished his letter, not completely satisfied, but then he never
would be. There is no perfect way to describe what finding love for
the first time in your life feels like, except, maybe, to explain how
comfortable you are with them and how passionate you are thinking
of them.
Coeur fell asleep, hours later, staring at the ceiling, holding the letter
to his chest, restlessly not thinking of loneliness, hollowness, or
heart.
He thought of Neo.
But Neo wasn’t in class the next morning. Coeur waited in his seat,
peaking at the door with every click of the doorknob, disappointment
settling in his stomach when it was someone else.
He’d never asked for Neo’s number or anything because the one
time he brought it up it made Neo tense. He said his father was a bit
of a helicopter when it came to technology, so he’d rather not hand it
out.
So when excruciatingly long days followed and Neo didn’t come into
school for a consecutive week, Coeur walked, letter in hand, to his
teacher’s desk after the bell rang and class was dismissed.
“Excuse me, sir?” Coeur cleared his throat. “Do you know where
Neo’s been?”
“Neo? Oh, he’ll be out for the foreseeable future, I believe,” his
teacher said.