I Fell in Love with Hope: A Novel

The love of my life wants to die.

That’s a tragic thing to say out loud. No. Maybe not tragic. Maybe just unfair. But as you begin this story, I think you’ll find that tragedies and injustices usually fall under the same umbrella.

Because before the love of my life decided he didn’t want to live anymore, he told me the stars belonged to us. We spent every night together, our bodies softly intertwined on harsh roof tiles, memorizing the patterns in the sky. So even as he withered, as his body became less body and more corpse, I believed our stars would give him faith. I believed they would keep him alive so long as he could look up and see they hadn’t fallen.

Tonight, he and I stand on a bridge as the river rushes black and street lamps cast a golden halo on our winter-numbed fingers.

“Are you angry at me?” I ask because tonight, I tell him the truth. I tell him the truth about me, the truth I say to no one, the secret that makes me different from everyone he knows. I throw it like a lasso around his neck, a lifeline, something to keep him from taking that final step into the dark.

He shakes his head, grasping the railing. “I’m just curious.” The yellow-flared eyes I’ve always fallen into find mine. “What does it feel like? To be you?”

“It feels like I’ve stolen,” I say. “Like this body isn’t really mine.”

Confessions are brusk and surrendering, but mine are gentle. The truth of who I am doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. He knows that. He’s been sick since he was born. Being sick teaches you that reasons are just poor attempts at justifying misfortune. They give you an illusion of why, but why is a loud question and death is quiet.

“Do you believe me?” I ask.

He nods.

“Do you still love me?”

“Of course I still love you,” he sighs, palm cupping my face, thumb trailing my cheek.

I smile.

Love is our staple. Love made us pretenders.

As children, we pretended the hospital was a castle, and we were its knights. We used to play cards on patrol, and he let me win every time. We ate on the ground floor as he made up stories about the commoners in gowns that walked past. We slept in the same bed as he whispered about the adventures waiting for us outside the palace walls. Then, he kissed me because we were alone and each other’s and everything was alright.

We had to pretend.

The air was just thin. That’s why his lungs failed to draw breath. He was just sad that day. That’s why his heart couldn’t beat on its own. We were just tired. That’s why his muscles gave out, and he collapsed in my arms.

We spent our whole lives together pretending, but if you pretend for too long, reality reminds you one way or another that it doesn’t like being insulted.

Tonight, we argued. We fought like we never have before, and he came to this bridge alone to get away from me, I think. I’m not sure. Now that my secret is free, now that he knows who I am, what I am, the anger we shared dissipates, like it was housed in a sore muscle starting to heal.

He puts his coat on my shoulders when I shiver. His arms slip beneath mine, and he pulls me against him. I lean into his warmth, our silhouette interrupted by specks of white sinking in the picture.

“Are the stars falling?” I ask.

“It’s snow,” he whispers. He runs his touch up my spine, reverberating with chuckles. “It’s only snow.”

Cool and delicate, snow falls to my lips.

“Is snow ours too?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, his mouth against my neck. “Everything is ours.”

“Thank you.” My fingers tangle in his hair. “For the everything.”

“Thank you.” Hurt etches his throat. He presses himself against me even harder, like he could disappear into me if he tried. “For making me want to chase it.”

He tries to laugh again, but it’s not the same laugh I’ve always cherished. The laughs I cherish echo. I roused them from his chest when he lay with needles in his veins. When he squeezed my hand, desperate to hold on to something real. Now, his laughter falls flat. It ends abruptly rather than fades.

“My love,” I say, my voice half lost. “Why did you come to this bridge?”

The street lamp flickers. The stars start to fall with urgency. The dark creeps into our picture, gripping the edges of the halo.

He bites down. His eyes squint shut as snow beckons his tears.

“I’m sorry, my sweet Sam,” he says, his breath catching, his fingers wrinkling the coat like sheets on my back. “I wish I could keep pretending with you.”

Our castle stands behind us, listening. As he cries into my shoulder, I only feel every moment he ever opened his eyes when I thought he wouldn’t. I feel the smiles we shared when death decided to give him back to me, over and over again.

So, I can only whisper, “I don’t understand.”

He presses his forehead to mine, streams burning trails down the frosted edges of his cheekbones, and a fear I used to know too well takes the place of his embrace.

“I’m happy you told me your secret,” he says, tears catching on the curve of his smile. “I’m happy that you’ll keep living even when I’m gone.”

He kisses me, snow and salt between our lips.

He kisses me like it’s the last time he’ll ever have the chance.

“Remember me,” he says. “Remember that just because the stars fell doesn’t mean they weren’t worth wishing on.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, but the kiss is over.

His touch has already fallen from my face. He’s already turned around and walked away. I reach for him again, to interlace our fingers, to pull him back as I always have, but death takes his hand instead.

“Wait.” His footprints fade beneath the white, erased. “Wait!”

He doesn’t hear me. He only hears the night calling from the other side of the bridge with the promise of peace.

“Wait–Please–” My tears find fruition because no matter how hard I try, I can’t follow him.

The shape of our memories thin, disappearing from the street lamp’s gaze and off into the shadows.

“No, you can’t–you haven’t–” I shake my head “–you can’t go yet- you can’t leave–you–”

You.

My light, my love, my reason.

“You’ll die.”

The fear digs between my ribs. It breaks my body, my lungs, and my heart.

When the dark swallows the last of him, reality comes to reap, and pain lays heavy in its hand like a scythe.

The snow turns into a storm. I try to gather the dancing flickers in my hands and somehow send them back to their sky. My knees fall to the earth, burning from the cold. My castle watches me with pity. My tears rain into the river, my whimpers turn to sobs, and my memories turn to nothing.

My stars are falling.

And I can’t save them.