I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

attention to the tools. Actually, he goes to great lengths to ignore
them. It isn’t until I put one of the notebooks directly in his lap that he
considers it.
It’s difficult to ignore what you love, even when its existence is as
conditional as what you hate.
Neo brushes the edge cautiously, like a palpable heat rises from
within.
The blank pages daunt him. It’d been a while. Once he lets the pen’s
weight settle in his palm and summons the courage to lay it on
paper, Neo, drop by drop, recreates his ocean.
He writes every day now, at random times, on random surfaces. He
and I watch movies on Eric’s tablet at night and read during the day.
He takes notes in the margins of the books and pauses the movie to
grab a page when an idea strikes.
We take walks when Neo has the strength. We lay in the gardens for
air when it’s cool. He writes on my shirt sleeve on a particularly sore
morning, on his pant leg too. We hide his stories together. I bring him
food, and when his parents arrive, he hands me the box. I swear, at
times when I return with it, that he breaks a smile.
—
Tonight, something changes.
Tonight, Neo and I’s routine breaks. Tonight, dinner tray in hand, I
slip an apple from the basket in the cafeteria on the way to his room.
But alas, when I open the door, Neo isn’t alone.
“You get results like this again, we’re taking you home. I don’t care if
I have to force it down your throat–”
Neo’s father stops talking the moment I walk in. He stands over his
son’s bed, papers clutched in his fist, this time in the shape of blood