Our heist begins when the broken clock should’ve stricken noon.
A few flights of stairs. That’s all we have to conquer. Just a few flights and we’ll be free. Neo and C cling to the railing, looking down the seemingly infinite spiraling steps. Their feet shuffle, anticipating.
Sony is waiting for us downstairs. She’s the oldest on paper, making her the only one who can actually leave without arousing question. Neo and C are known for wreaking havoc and not being legally allowed to. Sure, we’ve slipped off to the gas station across the street, but that’s different. We’ve only actually pulled that off a few times, and Eric was waiting in the lobby with his arms crossed and his foot tapping both times.
Today is different. I remind myself of that every time the urge to run back into our rooms and hide pokes at the back of my mind.
“We’re gonna get caught.” Although I’m not the only one.
C chews on his nails.
“We’re not gonna get caught,” Neo says through his teeth.
“We always get caught.”
“Oh, for god’s sake. Just pretend we’re going to the roof.”
“We’re not, though. We’re running away. We aren’t allowed to run away.”
“We aren’t allowed on the roof either, you idiot.”
C makes a face of realization, twice as anxious from that revelation.
“Think of it this way, C,” Hikari speaks. “Our artists already drew our paths. So, no matter what, our fates are already decided. Worrying won’t change a thing. And if that doesn’t help,”– Hikari holds her hands behind her back, grinning–“just hold Neo’s hand.”
Neo makes a face. “What?”
Hikari laughs at them. At Neo’s flustered nature and the heated, rosy trail across his face. At C’s obliviousness, the confused puppy tilt of his head.
Her laughter makes my head dip. It isn’t meant for me. I can’t sink into it as I could before. Its edges keep me out.
Neo and C are focused on the mission at hand, but their bodies converse. Even if they don’t hold hands, there’s always a sense of connection. Their fingers brush. Their walking pace equalizes despite C’s long legs and Neo’s skinny ones. They are never too far in front or too far behind one another by nature.
I think of that as I look at Hikari across Neo and C’s hands on the railing. The watch I gave her hugs her wrist, snug with the white band over her scars.
Hikari and I had that connection. That binding distance Neo and C share. That was before this morning. That was before the sun rose, and I drew a line Hikari wasn’t ready for.
—
“Can I kiss you?” she asks. Her voice is permeable. It bleeds into my heart and coaxes me closer. Her seat shifts on the lonely stretcher as she leans just enough to tease.
Our lips chose each other the night they first sang Shakespeare. Our hands chose each other then too, mimicking dances and postures, creating mirrors in pairs. They don’t dare to meet, they don’t dare to touch, but they wonder. They remain in this one intermediate moment of what if.
What if I do touch her? What if I caress the stray yellow strands on her cheek and drag my fingers over the pulse in her neck? What if I do kiss her? What if I start with the cupid’s bow perched just beneath her nose and work my way down, worshiping her with every breath?
I wonder, would she be real then? If I closed my eyes and leaned into the sun, would it set me afire, or would I finally feel the light on my face?
I shake, unable to decide. Hikari’s mouth is just barely open. Her eyes are half-lidded. Her head tilts so that if we took that final step, we’d fit together.
I want her to see herself as I do. She wants me to see the world as she does.
Every time Sony failed to draw breath, or Neo collapsed over his own feet, or C couldn’t hear a word, I used to accept it and look the other way, but it’s not like that anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. Now, with every reminder that my friends are going to die, there she is.
She is not a recycled version of someone I once loved. She is a rhyming line in the poem of my history.
We stare at each other’s lips. We mirror each other the way our hands practiced.
She is what begs the question, what if I’m wrong? What if they live? The yellow lights a path to memories I’ve yet to make: My friends in their old age sipping beer foam, leaving cigarettes lit and unsmoked, laughing in the city, in the countryside, anywhere and everywhere they’ve ever dreamed of going as they tell stories of a rebellious era, marked by suffering and the joy that defeated it back when they were prisoners.
I lean closer to Hikari over the stretcher. My hand draws up to cup her face. Just another barely there line to cross, and I can touch her. Just a minuscule little push, and I can feel her. Just a moment, a breath, a kiss, and she’ll be real…
But what if I’m right?
What if this dream I deny having, of Hikari in my arms and a future where we all smile together is a test? What if this rhyming line ends the same way the last one did? What if I’m left staring into the dark as the stars fall?
My eyes open, and in the black window’s reflection, Time smirks. It laughs over Hikari’s shoulder, the past dangling in its hands like keys on a chain.
My noose snaps. The pressure chokes me. Before I can make contact with Hikari, my hands flinch down to my sides. My breath hitches in my throat. Gravity falters, throws me off my path, and fear throws me against the wall.
Hikari sits there, still holding the edge of the stretcher. I don’t know if she can see how afraid I am. I don’t know if she realizes what I’m afraid of. Either way, I don’t miss the confusion in her eyes that slowly turns to the same darkness she wore when she gave me her memories of pain.
“I’m sorry.”
That is all I have to say. At this moment, that is all I know how to say before I run.
I’m sorry.
—
The stairwell is dead silent. Neo is iron. His jitters are already rid of. C swallows on a dry throat, biting his lip. Hikari keeps a look out, her ears perked, listening for Sony’s signal.
Hikari hasn’t looked at me since the five of us gathered. After our almost kiss, I thought about our almost everythings. The times I almost held her hand, almost said her name. Every chance I’ve been given has turned into an almost.
I said hello this morning. I had to say something. Hikari smiled a hollow smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes. Then, everyone got caught up in the excitement. There wasn’t a chance to explain myself. Even if there were, I don’t know how I would. I don’t know what to say to her. It would just turn into another almost.
Eric clocked out five minutes ago. Once he’s gone, there are only so few leashes that can tie us down. He usually says goodbye to Sony before leaving. She said she’d meet him outside, on the street in front of the hospital’s main entrance. He was suspicious, I think, but Sony goes off on her own no matter the state of her lung. When we return, Sony promises to recount all our adventures to her cat and kids alike.
The service stairwell is one of the only ways you can get in and out without too much traffic. The only thing we lack is an ID card to access it. Eric always has a spare in his pocket. I may be a poor liar, a poor criminal all in all, but even when my arm is being tended to from a step ladder injury, my sleight of hand has never failed me.
I hold the card tight in my palm, flipping it around. The plastic clinks against the metal, another metronome, another countdown. We hold our breaths.
Then– Ding.
Neo practically hurls his phone upward, almost dropping it over the edge of the railing.
Coast is clear losers! 😀
C and Neo shriek, stumbling. Hikari follows as they start running down the stairs.
A rush of air floods the stale, clean stairwell with a taste of the city. Immediately, light bows over the sidewalk. Cars and pedestrians fly by in a rush, startling compared to the medical staff and carts passing tame hall lanes. There are no walls, no locked doors, just the sky and the great expanse of roads that lead anywhere but dead ends.
Sony speeds from the street corner where she waved goodbye to Eric’s bus. Her backpack bounces with her, smile catching on her breathing tubes. My gut twists in a bittersweet tangle. She struggles to take those final steps, but at the same time, she’s never looked happier.
“Today’s here!” Sony yells, jumping into us full force. She hugs and kisses us manically without a care for anyone else. “It’s today! Let’s go!”
“Where do you want to go first, Sony?” Hikari asks, holding her face as they touch noses.
“Let’s get tattoos. No! Let’s go star watching! No! Let’s go to the beach! To the sea! I adore the sea!”
“We’re gonna need a bus for that,” Neo says, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.
C looks at the postings on the bus stop schedule.
“There’s one that comes in 20 minutes.”
“Why don’t we walk a little through the city while we wait, hm?” Hikari suggests, taking Sony’s hand so she can lean on her. “We have all the time in the world.”
“You’re right,” Sony says, inhaling deeply, relaxing into Hikari’s side. She gives her body a moment of silence, its customary intermission.
“Let’s go,” Hikari says after a while, mimicking Sony’s excitement, keeping it alive. “Let’s go get your everything.”
The crosswalk, our stepping stones over the river, welcomes us back beneath the shadow of the hospital building. C and Neo take the lead in a pair.
At this time of day, people flood the streets like schools of fish. We become the few among the many, following their lead. There’s freedom in that anonymity. In being a stranger. At the latter end of the crosswalk, the crowd gets thicker, faster too, in a rush to beat the light. Neo reaches for C’s hand without much thought behind it. C interlaces their fingers, keeping him close.
Sony and Hikari are right behind. Sony hangs on Hikari’s arm. Hikari hangs on Sony’s every word. Sony marvels at the city as if she’s looking at it through an entirely new lens. I can tell from here that she’s talking about her kids. She tells Hikari about the seashells she’ll bring back to them, the tattoo she’ll show off, adding to her list of crazy stories that they can’t get enough off.
Sony’s fire is eternal. If I reach, I can see her passing it on to children of her own, maybe a classroom full. She’ll brag about her famous writer friend and her tall, pretty friend and her funny thief friend. She’ll tell them all her adventures at the hospital, and they wouldn’t realize it was a hospital at all.
Sony’s step falters for a moment when we reach the sidewalk on the other side. She catches her breath again, adjusting the backpack.
“Sorry.” She tries to laugh it off. “Needed a second there.”
“I’m sure your cat will forgive us if we’re late home,” Hikari says. She holds Sony steady, pretending the falter was just a clumsy trip.
“You like Hee, right, Hikari?”
“Of course.”
“Good, good. I’m gonna need somebody to take care of her.”
“What do you mean?” Hikari asks. When Sony doesn’t answer for a moment, Hikari frowns, slowing their pace. “Sony, don’t talk like that.” She caresses the red framing Sony’s face. “You’re gonna make it.”
Neo and C glance back at the conversation. It’s a half a second, a few words, but it’s enough to cause a shift among them. One of our unsaid rules is not broken, but poked at.
“You’re such a kid,” Sony says, nudging Hikari along.
It’s when we start to near a place I’m too familiar with that I start to slow down.
The river surges beneath the bridge. It dares me to look. It takes a shovel to my memories. My friends walk along its edge. I recoil, close my fists, try to take up less room, hide away.
I don’t want to exist here. We’re about to pass the bridge, walk right past its glaring eyes, but I can’t. I stop before we get close enough for me to look.
I refuse to look. Everything starts to hurt. I refuse to see him, but no matter how tight I shut my eyes, he’s there. He puts his coat on my shoulders. The air is tight-knit, cold. White blankets the ground, a street lamp spotlighting dancing snowflakes, the rest of the world dark and alone. He kisses me hard. Then, he fades. I try to go after him, but the dark rejects me. My tears take the rhythm of the water. My sobs choke. Everything hurts. My memories crawl out of the ground like monsters swimming back up the river.
“Sam?” I look up. Hikari stands in front of me, face paled, worried paint strokes in her eyes. Neo, Sony, and C are ahead of us, closer to the bridge, walking still. “Sam, are you okay?”
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t come with you,” I say, shaking my head. I feel exposed, endangered. “I can’t–” The words get lodged in my throat, afraid to be spoken into existence.
“It’s okay,” Hikari says. She comes closer, putting her hand up. She doesn’t touch me with it. She doesn’t tug me aside for the next school of fish passing. Her palm rests in the air, waiting for mine to mirror it.
“Sing, Yorick,” she orders gently, moving her forefinger as I mimic.
“The last time I was on that bridge, the stars fell,” I say. I’m not sure she understands, but, “I can’t cross it again.”
“It’s okay,” Hikari says again and in her tone of voice, it’s almost believable. “It’s okay. I’ll stay with you.”
“No, you–”
“I’m not leaving you, Sam.” She speaks with conviction. She still cares about me. Even when I couldn’t give her what she wanted. Her palm stays parallel to mine.
I think I could’ve caught my breath. I could’ve found the strength to stand up straight and keep on going if Hikari and I’s dancing obscured everything else.
Only it doesn’t. Over her shoulder, Time is still there. It stands over my friends, casting a shadow with my past twirling on its finger.
Neo and C hold Sony’s hands as they all turn onto the bridge.
My heart drops in my chest.
“Wait,” I say, a barely there noise, a question no one could answer. “Why are they–”
I don’t finish the question. I walk past Hikari.
“Wait,” I say again.
They walk further onto the bridge. I push through people surrounding me on the sidewalk. I go after them. I need to go after them. They aren’t supposed to cross it. It’s too early. They aren’t meant to go yet!
Sony faltered once. If she falls or hurts a rib, her lung could collapse in an instant. Neo is still too thin. His bones have no protection, his body is too frail to run or withstand anything more than a push. C’s heart is damaged to the point of no return. He needs another. He won’t live without another.
I’m a fool. I let myself remember. My memories unveil. Of Neo, my poet bruised by people meant to protect him, my poor little boy who should’ve spent his years growing under the sun rather than under exam lights. Of Sony. My flame so determined to burn, whose mother was taken too soon and whose childhood should’ve gone on forever. Of C. My heart-broken bear of a boy, so aloof yet so gentle, so willing to be kind.
I let myself fall back on the past. And it’s thrown me a future that doesn’t exist.
No matter how much I try to claim that my memories are buried, they are out of my control. They come on suddenly. They remind me that denial is not as strong as reality.
My reality has been the same since I was born.
My friends are going to die.
“Wait!” The crowd envelopes them. “No, you can’t go, you haven’t–You can’t–
“C!” I yell. “Sony!” I can’t see them anymore. “Neo!” I run, push through people, and try to get to them before they cross. They can’t hear me. No one can. I beg endlessly. To be heard. To be allowed to follow where they disappear. I call for them again, but it’s as if I have no voice at all.
Before I can even reach the bridge, a force pushes me backward. I stumble, the railing slipping from beneath my fingers. Gravity pulls me down from the sidewalk into the road. A honk amplifies, getting closer. People start screaming.
The last thing I hear is my name as the sun curves over the hood of a car.
