I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

Sometimes, she scoots closer to me. A funny feeling tingles in my
chest when she does. I think she likes hearing my voice too but in a
different way.
She likes the stuttering when I peek at her, the nervous swallows,
the guttural clearings. She likes my reaction, not to Hamlet, but to
her.
She keeps enough distance. We share it. We play with it like an
extra pair of hands.
Hours pass. Hours I don’t notice. We aren’t around windows
anymore. It may as well be morning. Hikari’s patience thins with
daybreak. As we reach certain scenes, ones she says are pinnacle,
she becomes less an actor and more a stage director.
“Sam, you’re doing it all wrong.” Hikari slaps her hands on her hips.
“Stand up.”
“I am standing.”
“That’s not standing, that’s hunching.”
I look down at myself, puzzled.
“Hunching?”
“Hunching. Do you even have arms?”
“My arms are right here.” I extend them from my body as far as
they’ll go, the book still propped open at the heels of my hands.
“Those aren’t arms,” Hikari says. “They’re appendages at best.”
“You’re starting to hurt my feelings.”
“Sam, come here.”
“What about Hamlet?”