I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

time I pictured her and listened to her in my head, all I thought about
was this urge I haven’t felt in years—this urge to want.
“Please,” I beg, and from the breath alone, Hikari finally notices my
panic.
“You’re scaring me. Can you please get down?”
Hikari’s glasses reflect me in a much kinder way than the night
would. Her contagious smile curves to one side, and under different
circumstances, it may have reached me.
“Since you said please,” she whispers, sitting on the ledge, shifting
on her seat, and hopping back onto the safe side like you’d hop from
a swing. “You followed me.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asks. “I would’ve been disappointed if you didn’t.”
Flipping the pencil in her hand, Hikari eyes me up and down. I draw
to her wrist, the white band around it, glossy and reflective with her
bandages to match. One of them seems fresher than the other,
specks soaked red at the seams.
“Why did you steal that sharpener and screwdriver?” I ask.
Hikari shrugs, circling me. “Why does anyone steal anything?”
“To sin?”
“To be human?” She smirks, reminding me that to her, I’m merely an
instrument of amusement, a plaything, a puzzle she wants to solve
because she doesn’t know how she fits with it quite yet. “Although
you aren’t very good at being human, are you?”
“I feel like I’m supposed to be offended by that.”