I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

honey.”
“Bleh.” Sony’s mother rolls her eyes, wrapping an arm around her
daughter. Sony melts into the touch. “I’ve gotta do boring crap now.
But I’ll find you afterward. Let’s have fun!” She unfolds my palm with
force, writing her room number with a pen from the bottomless
backpack. Her tongue sticks out between her teeth, her handwriting
crooked, unsteady like a toddler’s.
My neck cranes to read it, Sony’s fingers smoothing over the
numbers.
“Don’t leave, okay?” she whispers. An oxygen therapy tube sits
around her neck, and her voice is frailer than it was the night we met.
But Sony’s joy doesn’t falter even when her breathing hollows.
As she goes to follow her mother, I squeeze her hand and watch her
disappear down the hall.
Two nights later, Sony has surgery. It takes six hours, so for six
hours, I sit outside Sony’s room with her mother. She asks if I’m
Sony’s friend. I nod and tell her Sony gives me chocolate. A pleased
expression takes her, the one mothers wear when they remember
their children’s idiosyncrasies. The memories soothe her for a
moment, but the thought of those memories being
all she has makes her foot tap, quickens her heartbeat, and chews
her lip. I ask Sony’s mother if she’d like to walk with me. She nods. I
take her to Sony and I’s vending machine.
Six hours later, Sony wakes in her bed, silly from the anesthetics.
Her mother doesn’t wait for doctors’ approvals. She goes to her
daughter’s side, pressing endless kisses to her face. She tells her
she’s proud of her and that she can have all the chocolate she
wants. Sony hums, hooked up to so many machines, her body
exhausts from merely being awake.