Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

perfect witnesses, and Luke was also their minister, guiding them through their vows.

Hope and Josh exchanged their promises solemnly, skipping the “until death do you part” line, because as Hope had pointed out, considering her future freezer plans, that would bind Josh to her for an impossibly long time.

A long kiss sealed their alliance, and then Hope went to rest on the sofa, with her friends gathering around her for dinner.

In early December, when the first snow began to fall, Hope was forced to cut short a recording session as she struggled to breathe. A quick glance her way was all it took for Luke to understand that this was the last time she would ever put on her Neurolink headset.

Josh took her home. Once they had left, Luke tidied the headset away in a cupboard and switched off the terminal. He could only hope he had mapped out enough of her brain. He estimated that the copy contained at least 80 percent of the original.

Hope’s health was declining rapidly, and she was soon no longer able to go on her daily walks, although she forced Josh out alone for some fresh air and the chance to breathe. She couldn’t bear the thought of him chained to her side, watching her sleep.

One night when she felt a little better, she joined him in the living room, where he was eating dinner alone. Grasping the walls, she walked toward him, dragging her leg behind her like a log, and when Josh stood to help her along, she flapped at him to stay where he was.

She sat down opposite him, and her eyes were full of something close to anger.

“Have I done something wrong?” Josh raised an eyebrow.

“Wrong, no. But not right.”

“If you’re talking about this mac and cheese, I agree there’s more cheese than anything else.” He cast his eyes down to his plate. “But I’m too young to be worrying about my cholesterol.”

“I’m talking about that look you always have, this life you’re living. All the days you spend doing nothing other than watching over me. It’s not right. Not for you, and not for me. You’ve given Bart a fast-track ticket to success, and I don’t want him having anything that easily. Especially not gifted by you. If you can’t handle it, then I get it. But in that case, just pack your bags and get out of here already.”

“Stop with the Bart crap. This is about the two of us,” Josh replied. “I can do what I want with my free time, and there’s only one thing I do want: to make the most of every second with you. I don’t want to miss a single second. I want to soak it all up—how you smell, the warmth of your skin, your eyes, the feeling of your heartbeat. There’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be than here.”

“I can’t let you do this, Joshy. Supersmart Brenda was the one who broke your heart, remember?” Hope smiled. “I want to be the one you always think of with this surge of love. So much love that the thing you’ll know best to do in this life is how to love. You know, when it comes down to it, life is basically about two things: love and fear,” she said, and then continued. “Once I’m gone, when you get over the fear, all that will be left for you to do is to love with everything you’ve got. Loving every day that remains, relentlessly. I want you to promise me that, because that’s the only eternal truth of which I’m certain. And if you ever fight with the girl who comes after me, you can think of me, and you’ll know I’m watching over you, and that if you don’t kiss and make up right away, I’ll drown you in rainfall. Because believe me, I’m pretty sure I’ll have that power. Now”—she nodded—“take me over to that window, and promise me that, with the clouds as our witnesses. I can see a crocodile floating by . . .”

Josh helped her up, and they looked out the window together.

“It looks more like a boa constrictor to me,” he said, and he felt his throat tighten.

“You’re blind, Joshy. Since when do snakes have legs?”

A veil of mist was gliding over the moon.

“You need to call Amelia tomorrow. I want to see my dad.”

Sam took the red-eye from west to east, and when the loft’s doorbell rang, Hope begged Josh to leave them alone together, but not for too long.

Josh’s entire body felt numb as he walked to the grocery store, where Alberto welcomed him in and pressed a coffee into his hand.

He left a little while later, drifting through the neighborhood streets, and stopping in front of a store window. A sky-blue sweater had caught his eye, and he imagined Hope trying it on, biting a lip and considering herself in the mirror with an overly worried expression on her face, asking him if he thought it cost too much.

Maybe happiness was all those little moments of life pieced together.

Sam was waiting outside the apartment, his cab double-parked.

The two men looked at each other in silence.

“Begging online so you can produce a music demo is one thing,” Sam said finally, “but for what you two are planning, it was positively indecent. I wanted to knock your lights out, but Hope forbid me to do it. You know all of this is just asking for trouble, right? Science is still light-years away from what those cryotherapy companies claim is possible. You’ve denied me the opportunity to visit my child’s grave. You’ve denied me the ability to grieve her, to be able to one day move on, in whatever small way.” Sam shook his head. “Knowing that she’s floating there, in her nitrogen tank, is going to be torture, day after day. Because it’s unnatural. We all have to die