I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

not drawing to the window he likes so much. She can read anything,
I forgot. Even someone so hell-bent on hiding his pages.
“Oh. Flowers,” Sony says, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
Beside me on the window sill, bouquets lay next to unread cards
wishing recovery in messy cursive. I haven’t always understood
irony, but I like this particular piece. For someone you wish to live,
give them something that is dying.
“What do you have against flowers?” Hikari asks, touching the wax
paper and the petals.
I’ve been staring at her face for so long that I didn’t see the little clay
pot in her hands. Two little clay pots. They can’t be larger than juice
cups, plants surfacing an inch’s worth from the soil, still in infancy.
She lays one down next to the bouquets, her offering, sans card, and
alive.
“I have nothing against flowers,” Sony says, taking a single stem and
motioning with it. “I have everything against flower corpses.”
Adjusting the little pot under the light, Hikari caresses the barely
there leaves, dusting them, positioning them, so they’re kissed by
light between the blinds.
“Did you sleep well, Sam?” she asks, leaning back on the heels of
her palms, her leg crossed one over the other, chin propped on her
shoulder. It’s a mandatory question. A flower of conversation. She
says it with satire. She’s teasing me. She’s acting.
“No,” I say. “The sun was out.”
“Ah,” Hikari breathes. “It kept you up?”
“Actually, Hamlet did.”
She fakes a gasp. “How dare he?”