I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

I realize, as my tears fall, that I always wondered if the suns in his
eyes would suit the moons in mine till they shut forever and every
night left to come, it rained.
a rhyming line in my history
Ishould’ve never let them.
I sprint through the front doors and onto the gray street layered by
mist. Snow falls, not a single car on the road or person on the
sidewalk disturbing its blanket, all but one who leaves a path of
footprints in her wake.
I’m out of breath, running as I did all those years ago, yelling a
different name with the same fervor.
Hikari looks out at the rushing river, her body gravitating towards it.
Reddened fingertips slip atop the metal railing, her breath made of
steam. In nothing but a hospital gown and a coat falling from her
shoulders, her chin upturns to the sky.
The darkness creeps up behind her. It wraps its arms around her
waist and lays its chin on her shoulder. Then, it pushes ever so
slowly till her head hangs from her shoulders, and in her mind, there
is nothing left to do but let her body fall to the water’s whims.
“Hikari!” I yell so hard that my throat hurts. The line I swore to never
breach, the bridge I swore to never cross–I push past them. I climb
the stone steps, and I run, and I don’t stop.
Hikari blinks. With frailness, she looks away from the river, and when
her eyes find me, the shadow at her back clenches its fists.
I’m almost there, and once I have her, I won’t let go. I won’t let the
shadow whisper that it is better to end her life than to endure the
minute painful part of it. I won’t let it throw her to the cold and laugh
as her corpse cascades downriver.