Autumn descends upon our city. Jaded greens fade into tan oranges and sulky reds, tinges of yellow blooming in the cold.
I wrap my arms around Hikari’s waist. Melodies like piano notes escape her in mumbles, a loose fabric dress fanning her bare legs. She folds Neo’s freshly washed shirts and hoodies (most of which aren’t his), dropping each item onto the windowsill.
Her sweater is all that covers the bandages trailing down her arms. We share a haircut, hers a thin shade of black, mine like infant stalks of grass. After I ‘terrorized’ my scalp, as Eric said, he went to work with clippers.
That night, Hikari and I slept in her bed. I held her the whole night through. She told me she was okay, that if I wanted to go, I could. I shook my head and pulled her closer. The next morning, I woke to her fingers drawing patterns on my face as dawn slid through the blinds. She smiled. A smile like the sunrise after a rainstorm.
“Sam?” Hikari says.
“Yes?”
“You’re doing it again.”
I fumble with her fingers, observing how they intertwine with mine. The scent of her soap and the softness of her neck coax my chin to her shoulder.
I’ve found that touching Hikari is different from touching other people. A stranger may brush my side walking past. A nurse may graze my arm handing me something. But those are dull touches, intermediate touches. Touching Hikari for the first time was eclipsing, the birth of a star, but as time goes on, the eclipse becomes habitual. Comfortable. Ritualistic.
“You’re distracting me.” Hikari folds Neo’s shirt and tosses it to the side, starting on another, her tongue between her teeth with focus.
I chuckle. “I’m not distracting. You’re just messy.”
“You are distracting. And rude.”
“Not on purpose,” I whine.
“Most definitely on purpose.”
Absentmindedly, I splay my hands over her stomach. She’s warm there. Her pulse thrums just above her hip bone.
“I like distracting you,” I tease.
“I like when you keep your arms to yourself,” she whispers, turning her head so our faces are but centimeters apart.
“What arms?” I whisper back.
“Rude.”
“Messy.”
“Disgusting!” Neo throws a pen at us. “Isn’t it bad enough I have to see you engage in your cute couple crap? Now, I have to hear it too?” He points to the nurse call button meant for emergencies. “I’ll push that thing. Don’t test me.”
“Sorry, Neo,” Hikari laughs. Neo rolls his eyes, pulling another pen out from its cup holder at the edge of the desk, getting back to work. That wobbly thing was Eric’s gift to him for his birthday, so he could stop screwing up his back, Eric said. It was also a congratulatory present because Neo and Coeur are almost done writing their novel.
I can tell that makes Neo nervous.
He scratches his head where the hair has been reduced to a layer of fuzz. After Hikari and I shaved our heads, it became a unifying force. C’s curls were already short, but he sat on the stool right after me, like a little boy giddy for a haircut. But it was Sony who was, by far, the most enthusiastic. Right after her hair was shaven to a thin coat of red, she practically tackled Hikari, begging her to draw them together.
It turned out there wasn’t much time for that. After our failed escape, Sony’s lung decided to strengthen a few race’s worth. Since then, she’s been living in Eric’s apartment.
Outside Neo’s room, I catch sight of her through the glass. Her animation captivates the child she talks to. The boy laughs, his cheeks curving over his eyes. Sony pokes his nose and hugs him tight, her feet pitter-pattering as she does. When the boy’s mother takes his hand, Sony adjusts his coat and the cap snug on his head. She tells him goodbye, a rendition of I’ll miss you on her lips as he goes home.
“My fellow pirates, I’ve had an epiphany,” Sony says, kicking Neo’s door open, her backpack void of tank or breathing tubes to adorn her face. Hee follows in before the door closes, meowing for attention before winding between Hikari and I’s legs.
“I am a lazy waste of energy according to many–” Eric “–and I think it’s due time I retire from my days of stealing.”
“What do you mean?” Hikari asks. Like tragedy’s just struck. She slaps my hands off of her, rushing to her fellow thief. “You don’t want to steal anymore? Is the world ending?”
“Sadly, no,” Sony says, waving at the air. “But I don’t know, I thought, maybe, I could maybe get a job or something.”
“Sony,” I call. She leans back on Neo’s bed. “You want to work with your kids?”
“Yeah,” she says. Thoughts of the children she plays with in the oncology wing fleet past her grin. “I’m happy here.”
“Thank God,” Hikari groans, falling on top of Sony. “I thought you were leaving me for some boring city job where they put bouquets out for decoration.”
Sony snorts out a laugh. “Oh please, no one would willingly hire me. I work hard to be this unbearable.” She wraps her arms around Hikari and pecks her face all over. “I’m gonna make Eric get me the job. We have grouchy boys and grouchy nurses to annoy together. I’d never let you do it all on your own.”
“You promise?” Hikari asks, pouting.
“Hell yeah– Oh, baby!” Both Hee and Neo startle at Sony’s volume, hair at the back of their necks standing on end.
“You’re almost done!” she cheers, hopping to his desk. “Is that my sweatshirt?”
“It’s mine,” Neo says, possessively clutching the hoodie on his back. “What do you want?”
Sony fishes into her backpack. She removes a handful of leaves from the front pocket, holding all the different colors out like playing cards.
“I brought you these from the park.”
Neo frowns. “Why?”
Sony doesn’t answer. She places them gently on his desk and violently swipes the entire top half of the manuscript into her arms.
“Hey!” Neo yells. Sony skips out of reach, jumping back first into his bed and holding the papers over her head. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“It’s Quid pro quo,” I say.
Neo shoots me a glare. “Shut up, Sam.”
“Hikari, you should draw the cover,” Sony says.
“No one’s drawing anything. It’s not finished yet.”
“I can’t wait to see it on a shelf, Neo,” Sony sighs, flipping through the pages as if the words are written in gold. “Then I get to tell everyone I was the first to read it.”
A blush runs across Neo’s cheeks.
“Whatever,” he mutters. “Just don’t lose it.”
Neo’s gained color since fall struck. His butterfly rashes and fits of pain subsided. He hasn’t spit out his pills since C got discharged or taken out his IVs. His anorexia remains an uphill battle. There are days he stares at his plate, picking it apart until it all seems like too much, and he has to push it away. The only time he comes close to finishing his meals is when we eat with him. And when C brings him apples.
C’s been on bed rest, perpetually ignoring the fact that he’s on bed rest. Given how close he lives to the hospital, he’s rarely bed resting. If he is, it’s next to Neo, sleeping with his mouth open and mumbling in his dreams. Otherwise, he acts as if all is right with the world. Like he isn’t nearing the top of the transplant list. He goes for walks with Hikari, apologizing to local bakers when she steals a pastry and paying for her misdeeds. He paces while reading his and Neo’s story, obsessing over every detail. He dances with the cat and plays board games with Sony, half here, half elsewhere.
His parents have tried everything. Locking his door. Taking his car keys. Lecturing. Ultimatums. Warnings. Nothing works. C always finds his way back to us.
“You alright, Sam?” Hikari asks.
I’m staring at her. I do that a lot.
Her skin has lost color. It’s a thin gray, like parchment turning to ash. That’s why I hold her this way. She’s sick, and I’m not so blind anymore that I choose to ignore it. I worry during her coughing fits. During tiresome bouts that lull her to sleep for days on end.
“Can we read tonight?” I ask, dragging my thumb over Hikari’s lower lip, admiring the fullness.
She smirks, mirroring my motions. “The lonely stretcher at six?”
Comfort works through me with her voice, for it’s always been satin and coquettish, but it has never been mine till now.
“Mhm,” I hum. I drag my touch over her arms, the slope of her bandages ending at her wrists. The animal in the pit hasn’t dared to bite since that bloody night. When any other shadows try creeping into her head, they catch sight of me standing guard, and with spite in their mouths, they slip back into the dark.
Neo’s door opens then. Sony throws herself upright. Hikari and Neo beam, expecting C to stride in, leaving a trail with his shoes, bag, and coat.
But it isn’t C.
“Dad?” Neo breathes.
With the posture of a soldier, a man walks in, adjusting his coat. His hair is cropped and neat, his face chiseled and wide. When he closes the door behind him, silence falls over the room.
I grasp Hikari’s hand, a reflex, pulling her closer to me.
“Hello,” Neo’s dad says, pleasantly surprised by the number of people in the room. “You must be Neo’s friends.”
He wasn’t supposed to be here today. His presence is a shake in the bush, a snapping stick, our ears perked like deer amongst a wolf.
Sony stands from the bed, holding the stack of papers at her hip as if it belongs to her. Hikari says nothing. Her jaw wounds tight, and attention is drawn to the box of books in the corner.
“Good to meet you, sir–I’m Sony, this is Hikari,” Sony says. Her church bell voice is tamed, shaking at the ends. She walks backward, the coyness a symptom of caution. “That’s Sam.”
“Sam, yes,” Neo’s father says. “You bring Neo his dinner.”
“Dad,” Neo whispers, his hands gripping the edges of the chair by his thighs.
“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m happy to see you being social.” He walks past Sony, rubbing his son’s shoulder. Sony eyes his hand like it’s a knife scraping the surface of Neo’s skin.
Neo tenses from the touch. His gaze fixes on the lines in the tiles.
“I wasn’t sure if Neo had any friends till now.” His father pats his head like a pet’s but stills when he notices the change. “What’d you do to your hair?”
“Is Neo’s mom coming?” I ask.
I’m buying time. Or at least bargaining with it.
The distraction seems to work. He looks my way, surprised as if he remembers me being far more docile. Maybe I was. Interfering is a great sin because of what I am, but Neo is the one who told me to step into the pages.
“No,” his father says. “I just got back from a business trip, and she had errands to run for his cousins–”
Tension curls at the cutoff. Neo’s father finally sees the work spread about the desk. The hundreds of handwritten pages in the far corner. The pen in Neo’s lap.
He sighs, shoulder slacking, a hardness passing over his face as he draws his hand over his jaw and reads over a few exposed lines.
The silence cuts through Neo. He shuts his eyes like he’s bracing for impact.
“Are Neo’s cousins academics too?” Hikari asks. She stands without strain, her arms crossed, defiance like a glint in her tone. “Sony’s thinking of getting a job here, helping out with the kids. Neo’s been helping her with her writing skills for her application.”
Hikari is a seasoned liar, but this man knows his son.
“He’s always been smart, that’s for sure,” he says, looking straight at Hikari. Picking a fight with someone like him is dangerous. Baiting him is far worse. Hikari doesn’t seem to care. She dares him with nothing but a look to try and see what happens if he challenges her.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” But Neo’s father doesn’t care about the writing. “But would you mind giving Neo and I some privacy?” He cares about Neo’s defiance, no matter its shape.
Sony’s heart falls in her chest. She stutters over her next set of words, stepping beside Neo’s chair, “Um, well–”
Neo grabs her sleeve so hard he shakes. He chews on the inside of his cheek, slowly looking up at her out of the corner of his eye. A silent message transmits between them, a signal that can only mean one thing.
Sony doesn’t want to leave. None of us do. But it’s Neo’s decision.
“Alright,” she whispers. She squeezes Neo’s hand over the material of her sweatshirt, biting her tongue as she begrudgingly walks away.
Hikari doesn’t ask before grabbing the cardboard box in the far corner full of Neo’s books.
“Sony, don’t forget your papers,” she says, clearing Neo’s desk with one swipe of her arm. The papers collapse into the box, safeguarded.
“Right,” Sony says, helping her gather any straggling sheets.
I haven’t moved from where I stand. I stare at Neo’s father, a rollback of recollections playing like film frames. Every memory I can scrounge of Neo smiling has been followed by that man and his transgressions. It’s almost as if he can feel Neo’s happiness in the air. And if it doesn’t arise from him, he finds an excuse to destroy it.
“Sam,” Hikari says, motioning for me to follow them out.
There’s only one person I can possibly think of that could challenge Neo’s pride, and I’d recognize his melodic footsteps anywhere.
Hikari whispers, “Sam–”
“Wait just a second.”
When the door opens a second time, it’s to a whistling tune. Wearing a scarf made of earbud wires and a high school varsity jacket, C strolls in, mumbling a string of music notes.
“Neo, I got my essay back. Still didn’t get an A, but I finally understand what a semicolon is. Sort of. I think.” He kicks off his shoes, balancing himself against the doorframe. “Sorry, I’m late, by the way. My parents were home, so I had to sneak out through my window and take my dad’s tru–”
C stops in the center of the room. The thunder in his chest becomes practically audible.
“Coeur,” Neo says. He tries to swallow his fear, playing it off. “Go. I’ll come to find you later.”
“Coeur,” Neo’s dad repeats, like he remembers hearing a similar name but can’t quite place it. He notices the jacket, a curt smile on his lips. “You go to Neo’s school. Are you an athlete?”
C takes a moment to find his speech.
“I was,” he says. “I’m not anymore.”
Neo’s father must’ve seen C’s name in the papers, must’ve heard about the boy who nearly drowned and was told he could never swim again. He quickly recognizes him, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“That’s right, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” C says. “Turns out I’m more of a reader, anyway.”
“Coeur,” Neo says, practically shaking in his chair. “I’ll be right out. Go.”
One thing C and I have always related to is the point of our elsewheres. Mine is traveling through inanimates. C’s is in the mind. He retires there with half his consciousness because it’s a peaceful place where reality can be what he wants it to be. It’s a world where lies turn into truths, and C can tell himself whatever lies fit a comfortable narrative.
I can see it going through his head. Those little lies.
That day he walked past a seemingly innocent scene. Neo and the boys from his team in by the lockers. The bevy of bruises he’s found on Neo’s body, the subtle ones, the aggravated ones, every single odd hue. Every occurrence he walked into his lamb’s pen to find the same shadow of a wolf against the wall and did nothing.
C closes his hand around the shoulder strap of his bag, and now, all of him is present.
“No, I think I’ll wait here,” he says, turning around and grabbing the extra chair by the bed, putting it next to the desk.
“Um, Coeur,” Neo’s dad clears his throat. “Neo and I have some things to discuss if you don’t mind–”
“I don’t mind,” C says. He mimics the same polite, flat tone Neo’s father uses. Taking a notebook out of his bag along with his phone to plug his earbuds into, he pretends to work on homework, tapping his ear. “My hearing’s faulty, anyway.”
“C, c’mon–” Hikari says, grabbing his shoulder.
“Young man–”
“Yes?”
“Listen to your friend,” Neo’s dad’s voice drops. “Before I get security involved.”
C voice drops lower. “I’m not leaving him alone with you.”
Neo’s dad looks to his son.
“What have you been saying?”
“Nothing,” Neo says, panicking. “I didn’t say anything.”
“He didn’t need to say anything,” C says, leaning back in his chair. “The second you slip up and leave the blinds open or put one of those bruises somewhere more visible, I’ll be the one calling security.”
C’s never been too bold. And as he pointed out, he isn’t an athlete anymore. His heart is on its last legs, and his skin bruises with a flick.
“Dad?” Neo is familiar with the red tints clouding his father’s vision. He swings his arm past Neo, pulling C up by his collar.
“Dad, no! Please!” Neo begs, whimpering. Sony and Hikari try to step forward, but C waves them away.
“Please don’t hurt him,” Neo cries. He grabs at the hem of his father’s coat, his fingers trembling. “Dad, take my books, take everything, just leave him alone, please–”
“Quiet!” Neo’s dad yells, the arm that isn’t holding C, raised, like an ax threatening to fall. Neo flinches hard, hiding his face.
“Touch him again,” C bites, reaching for breath. “Do it. Give me a reason.”
Neo’s dad turns around, presumably to grab Neo and show C exactly who’s in charge. Hikari and Sony let out a second’s scream when he does. Because instead of grabbing Neo, he’s met with me.
On reflex, Neo’s dad reaches over my shoulder to push me aside, but I don’t budge.
The room goes silent. An uneasiness rises in Neo’s father from his stomach to his face.
“I know it’s odd, I’m stronger than I look,” I say, holding the chair’s back behind me, bridging a barrier.
Neo’s dad looks at me the way everyone does when they get that funny feeling in their gut. That they know me. That they’ve met me before. That I somehow have more power than I seem to from afar.
I can feel his lungs. I can feel his heart racing as the stunned look on his face gradually fades back into anger.
“I understand why you do what you do,” I say. He wants control, and when it slips away, he uses violence to get it back. The pattern is common. A rule that men have turned the other cheek to for centuries. Because none of them can get their heads around the fact that, “Control doesn’t exist, sir. Only uncertainty does.” It dawns on me that he doesn’t realize how serious I’m being. That none of this is mockery, and all of it is truth. “And unless you leave right now, I’m not certain you’ll leave this room without an escort.”
I hold up the nurse call button connected to the wall. It blinks red. Neo’s dad looks out of the corner of his eye. The blinds are barely drawn, but even through the thin lines, you can see Eric at his station, noting a chart and checking his pager.
Neo’s father lets me go. He rubs his hand over his face, much like he did when he entered. He straightens his jacket, looking down at Neo, who’s staring at the ground, squeezing his wrist so hard his hand could fall dead from the joint.
“It was my mistake letting your doctors keep you here this long,” he says. “I should’ve handled your tantrums myself.” He leaves with a threat of his own, the kind that drives a final prick of fear through Neo’s chest. “I’ll be back with your mother.”
The moment the door shuts, we all exhale audibly, like a tense muscle finally released from flexion.
“Are you okay?” Hikari wraps her arms around me.
Neo shudders in his chair, his hand curled into a fist against his mouth. He pushes the bile back down his throat, a white, petrified sea hiding the pupils in his eyes.
The only reason his father didn’t drag Neo out of here by his hair is because he needs his mom. She’s the one who signed everything when Neo was admitted for his anorexia, and his doctors will only recommend he can go home when his weight is over a certain point, and he’s eating regularly.
“Neo, It’s okay, you’re okay,” C says, falling to his knees beside the chair. He takes Neo’s hand away from his lips.
Sony presses her palm against Neo’s spine.
“We’ll call your mom,” she says. “She’ll calm him down. She’ll take care of you.”
“No, no, my mom’s too scared of him,” Neo whimpers.
C’s anger ruminates, like if he was physically capable he’d chase down Neo’s father and finish what he started. “Screw that. We’ll tell Eric, we have proof–”
“No, he’ll kill me, he’s going to kill me,” Neo says and what breaks me is it sounds like he truly believes that.
“He’s not laying a finger on you,” C growls. “Not while I’m breathing.”
The cozy colors ease back into the room, the tension Neo’s father brought to it draining from it drop by drop. Sony, Hikari, and C try to comfort Neo, but he’s stuck. Stuck in a perpetual loop of wondering what pain his father’s return will hold.
The large window that was looking forward to welcoming him glimmers, as if the sun is looking through a lens. I turn to it, the expanse of our city reaching across the bridge.
The waters rage in the fall, overflowing from end of summer rains. It’s in the winter that they calm to a still, black layer. I can practically hear the cascades, the drowning force of that one crossover that never failed to reject me.
Today, I find myself unafraid to stare it down. The dread that twists my stomach like a rag upon seeing it never comes. Instead, I can see past it, a semblance of what C and Neo call heaven taking shape in a possibility I used to reject.
“We can run away,” I say.
C makes a noise. “Sam, this isn’t the time–”
“I’m serious.” I turn around to face my friends. “We never did have that escape, did we?”
“Sam,” Hikari looks at me through her glasses, concerned. “Are you sure about this?”
“It’s what you all wanted, right?” I ask. “Do you still want to?”
They look between each other, like they’re checking to make sure I’m not insane. Neo comes back to reality, looking me in the face. He knows I want to save him. He knows, more than that, that I want to stand beside him.
“C,” I call. “You have your dad’s truck?”
“Yeah,” he says, the keys jingling in his pocket.
Eric’s keycard is still in mine. I take it out, flipping it once the way Sony flips a pack of cigarettes.
Sony smirks. She looks to Neo for a final say. “Now?”
Neo thinks it over. But whether in a wheelchair, on crutches, or feet, he’s never been able to escape the shackles of our missions. He stands, his legs wobbly like his desk’s, staring at the story we salvaged.
“Now.”
