I Fell in Love with Hope(3)

“We’re in a candy aisle, you idiot!” Neo’s wheelchair creaks when he throws his head back to look at me. “Sam. Tell her she’s an idiot.”

I would, but I value my life.

“Um, no–”

“Sony, you’re an idiot,” Neo says, grabbing his pen and slamming it onto the notebook page in his lap, scribbling 4:05 pm: Sony is an idiot.

Neo is our scribe-the one who records our great deeds. Granted, he didn’t exactly agree to the title. He didn’t even agree to come along on this mission. But when your spine is hook-shaped, you can’t escape the shackles of friendship. The wheelchair groans when I pull it just out of Sony’s reach.

“It’s a wonder you need back surgery at all, baby.” Sony doesn’t have a title per se. She’s the giver of titles, our leader, doubling as the devil on my shoulder. With hair the color of fire, she wears nothing but toothy, shameless grins. “That stick up your ass could surely serve as a spine, no?”

“You talk a lot of shit for someone who can’t go up a flight of stairs,” Neo growls. I pull his wheelchair a little further back.

“It’s a gift,” Sony sighs, her one lung filled with ambition. “Now watch me work, and don’t break my concentration.”

Neo and I watch as Sony marches to the front counter, her dirty white sneakers squeaking against the tiles. The devil doesn’t forget to sneak a lollipop into her back pocket on the way.

Neo grumbles, “Klepto.”

“Excuse me!” Sony puts her arm straight up over her head, waving her hand around in front of the cashier. He gives her a sidelong glance that becomes a double-take.

Sony’s pretty. The kind of pretty that’s brutal, bright-eyed, and heavy-handed. But I’m guessing his stares have more to do with the breathing tubes trailing the space under her nose and around her cheeks.

The cigarette box she points to behind the counter just digs her grave.

“Just this, please,” Sony says.

“Miss, I–” the gas station attendant interrupts himself, looking at the cigarettes and then back at her. “Are you sure? I don’t think I could give these to you in good conscience.”

“He’s staring at her chest in good conscience,” Neo bites like he’s about to chew on the fist holding his head up.

“Oh, no, sir, they’re not for me-um,” Sony recoils, dipping her head. “My friends and I, we–” The devil is quick to tears. She presses a hand to her lips. “We don’t know how much time we have left. Neo, the boy there. He has to get surgery tomorrow. Cancer.”

She points over her shoulder to Neo and me, the attendant making eye contact with us. Neo and I instantly look away. Neo goes so far as to pretend he’s browsing for chewing gum by looking at the ingredients on the back.

Sony sniffles dry air and wipes at tears that haven’t fallen. “We just wanted to go to the roof like old times, rebel a little,” she says, shrugging her shoulders, laughing at herself. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t make it. He’s such a good soul. He lost his parents in a fire you know, and his puppy! I–”

“Okay, okay!” The cashier grabs the cigarettes from the back and shoves them forward. “Just take them. Go on.”

“Why, thank you,” Sony chirps, taking them without a second thought and prancing out the door.

In shock that even worked, Neo and I chase after her. He manages to swipe a bag of gummy bears, tucking it between his leg and the armrest. Once we’re out and the door shuts behind us, we both exhale our jitters onto the sidewalk while Sony takes giddy steps.

Neo does as he’s bid, writing in the notebook, 4:07 pm: The idiot has successfully conned a boob looker into giving her free cigarettes.

Sony flips the pack in the air and catches it in her palm. “What a sucker.”

“I don’t have cancer,” Neo says.

“No, you don’t. But cancer just saved us twenty bucks, which is the only good thing it’ll be doing anytime soon.”

“Sony,” I whine.

“What? The cancer kids love me. They always laugh when I run after them and keel over from lack of air. Quid pro quo, yeah?”

“You sure they weren’t crying?” Neo says.

“Quid-pro- quo?” I ask, syllables broken.

You’ll come to learn I’m not well versed in commonalities, things everybody knows. Sarcasm, irony, idioms, sports. Such complex things elude me till Neo explains.

“It means something for something in Latin,” he says. Neo knows everything.

“Yeah!” Sony chimes in, making all sorts of motions with her arms. “Like when you kill somebody, so they kill you. Like karma! That’s how quid pro quo works.”

I look at Neo. “Is it?”

“It isn’t. Is there a reason I had to be here for this?” he asks, his wheelchair suddenly creaking, the weight disturbed by something slipped into the cubby beneath it. Neo’s brows crinkle. He turns as much as his back will allow, looking down to see a case of beer bottles hidden beneath his seat.

Behind Neo’s wheelchair, our mission’s brawn has arrived. He looks more man than boy, tall and beautiful, dark skin and hair, a skyscraper really. With his hands tucked in his pockets, he gently shoves the six-pack further into its hiding place with his foot.