Hope

Chapter 6

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2024

Words are things I learned to use when I was 9, and had no one to talk to but my own mind. To realize other people have a relationship with words, was a killing blow.

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I follow Nathan through the woods, his black hair shining nearly blue under the sunshine. I grunt, lobbing my short stature over another log. "Where are you taking me?"

He glances over his shoulder, "You'll see. Just a little further, Hope." 

Further has been 5 minutes, then 10, now bordering 30. I wrestle with Nathan's backpack I ended up lugging, when it swings too far to the left and catches me in the ribs.

"You know, when you asked to hangout, I didn't think it would entail trekking it through the Jungle from LOST" I grouse, glancing over my shoulder once situated to the small path we'd beaten down for any paralyzing spiders.

"You're way too theatrical with it." He says, amusement chasing his words. He easily vaults himself over another felled tree, spinning around to offer me a hand up a particularly steep slope.

I take it, enjoying the earthy smells and colours but far too proud to admit it. I groan, shuffling through the bramble and slapping at something that feels like it's biting me on my arm. "I hate you, you know?"

"No you didn't, or you wouldn't have followed me into a cemetery." He boasts proudly as though unveiling the secrets to the universe, throwing his arms out to his sides and spinning on his heels.

I blink, looking around at the still very large trees overhead, and lush greenery underfoot. "What do you mean a cemetery?" I risk lifting a foot just to see if I'm standing on someone's tablet. Im not, of course.

He just shrugs, "Well, you want to kill yourself don't you. Here's as good a place as any."

I still, then, stumbling a little. "What?"

 "My theory is you don't actually want to die. Ive known you since you were 14. You've never wanted to die, or you would be." Nathan places his feet on the body of a low hanging tree, swinging himself up with all the athleticism of a boy with no bus pass to sit. "You're a lot of things. Disparaging most of all-"

"Gee, thanks Nate-"

"-But you're also smart. You remember everything-- remember that time I was first broken up with? Remember what you said?" 

I furrow my eyebrows, crossing my arms protectively over my chest. Of course I remember. We laid side by side on his trampoline, and instead of tears he was filled with empty laughter that made my heart ache for him. The sun had yet to rise. The sky remained an even purple, a child with freckle stars on its cheeks and a waxing gibbous moon smirk set between the constellations and I wished to never let it fall onto the boy more a brother than a friend.

And now, a boy more a man but no less my brother, watches me patiently from his perch.

It was easy to tell how much it gutted someone when they were truly hurt, because their sunshine turned into the dreariest rain clouds.

Nathan isn't such an easy person to read as everyone else is, though. You'd have to wonder if Nathan's felt pain ever in his life, considering the evenness of his expression and the regularity with which he attends his obligations in his job and at school.

"You can't love someone twice. The first time is great, but the second time you wouldn't be loving them, you'd be loving memories of who they were." I recite more or less, remembering a pink eyed kid begging God for another chance.