Zo shook her head. “No.”
“Remember when we had that food fight with the onion dip? Or when we got iced in the house for a week and filmed our own vidlife?” I asked desperately. “Or how about the time you thought I hacked your zone and posted that baby pic of you, the one in the bathtub?”
“You did,” she muttered.
“Of course I did,” I said, grinning. “But only because you rigged my smartjeans and I ended up bare-assed in front of the whole seventh-grade class.”
She almost laughed.
“How would I know all that unless I was there?” I asked. “Every fight we ever had, every secret you ever blabbed, everything. I know it. Because I was there. Me, Zo. Lia. It’s still me.”
She looked like she wanted to believe it.
But she decided not to. I saw it happen. The mask fell back over her features, stiffening her lips, hardening her eyes. She decided not to care.
“No,” she said. “Lia’s dead. You’re a machine with her memories. That doesn’t make you real. It definitely doesn’t make you her.”
“Then why am I still here?” I asked angrily. “If I’m just some imposter, why do Mom and Dad—excuse me, your mother and father—want me living in Lia’s house? In Lia’s room.”
“They don’t,” she murmured.
“What?” But I’d heard her.
“They don’t,” she said louder. “They don’t want you here. They wish you’d never come.”
“You’re lying.”
“You wish.”
“They love me,” I said, needing to believe it. “They know it’s me.”
“They loved their daughter. Past tense. You just make it hurt more. They thought you’d make it better. That’s why they did it—made you, like you’d be some kind of replacement. But you make everything worse.”
“You’re lying,” I said again. It was the only weapon I had.
“If I am, then why is Dad up every night, crying?”
“He doesn’t cry.”
“He didn’t used to,” Zo said. “But he does now. Thanks to you. Every night since you came home. He waits until he thinks we’re all asleep, he goes to his study, and he cries. Sometimes all night. Don’t believe me? He’s probably at it right now. See for yourself.”
“Get out of my room.” Nothing she said could make me believe that about my father. Nothing.
“None of us want you here,” she said.
“Get out!”
Zo shook her head. “I should feel sorry for you, I guess. But I can’t.”
She slammed the door behind her.
I told myself she was lying. Being cruel for the sake of cruelty. And maybe I couldn’t blame her, if she really thought her sister was dead, if she thought it was her fault. But that didn’t mean I had to believe her about our parents.
If my mother had fallen apart, if she thought I was just an inferior copy—Well, that I could deal with. It made even more sense than Zo. Our mother was weak, always had been. It wasn’t her fault; it didn’t mean I didn’t love her. But it meant lower expectations.
My father was different.
He was the strong one, the smart one.
And, although I knew he would never admit it—not to me, not to Zo, not to anyone—I was his favorite. He was the one who knew me the best, who loved me the best. No, things hadn’t been the same since the accident, but they were getting better. It would take some time, but I would get him back. Because he saw me for who I was, Lia Kahn.
His daughter.
I knew Zo was lying. I was sure. But not so sure that I stayed in my room and lay down in bed and closed my eyes. Not so sure that I didn’t need proof.
My parents always turned on their soundproofing before they went to bed. So they wouldn’t have heard Zo and me fight, not if they were already asleep. As they should have been at three in the morning. But when I crept downstairs, I saw the light filtering through the crack between the door to the study and the marble floor. And when I pressed my ear to the heavy door, I heard something.
Gently, noiselessly, I eased open the door.
He was on his knees.
He faced away from me, his head bent. His shoulders shook.
“Please,” he said, in a hoarse, anguished voice. I flinched, thinking he must be speaking to me, that he knew I was there and wanted me to leave before I hurt him even more. But it was worse than that.
“Please, God, please believe me.”
My father didn’t pray. My father didn’t believe in God. Faith was for the weak, he had always taught us. Backward-thinking, cowering, misguided fools who preferred to imagine their destiny lay in someone else’s hands.
“I’m sorry.”
And worse than faith in God, my father had taught us, was the ridiculous faith in a God who listened to human prayers, who had nothing better to do than stroke egos and grant wishes. An omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being who troubled himself with the minor missteps of the mortal world.
“Please forgive me.”
He hunched over, bringing his forehead to his knees. “I did this to her. It was my choice. I did this. Please. Please forgive me. If I could do it again…” His whole body shuddered. “I would make the right choice this time. If I had a second chance, please…”
I closed the door on his sobs.
The right choice.
Meaning, the choice he hadn’t made.
The choice to let me die.
18. LETTING GO
There was only one place I wanted to go. And only one person I wanted with me. If he was willing. I left two messages, voice and text, both with the same apology, the same request, and the same coordinates. Then I snuck out of the house—easy enough when no one cared where you went or when—and pushed the car as fast as it would go, knowing that the longer it took to get there, the more likely I’d be to turn back. The waterfall looked even steeper than I’d remembered it.
I had forgotten how at night, you couldn’t see anything of the bottom except a fuzzy mist of white far, far below. I had forgotten how loud it was.
But I had also forgotten to be afraid.
Auden wasn’t there.
But then, I hadn’t told him to meet me at the top. My message had been very clear, the coordinates specific. If he’d woken up—and if he’d forgiven me—he would be waiting at the bottom. I would tell him everything that had happened, what my sister had said. I might even tell him how my father had looked, trembling on his knees, bowing down to a god in whom he was, apparently, too desperate not to believe. And just telling Auden would make it better. I knew that.
But this was something I had to do without him. Just another thing he could never understand, because he was an org. He was human, and I was—it was finally time to accept this—not. Which is why he was waiting at the bottom, if he was waiting at all. And I was at the top, alone.
I took off my shoes. Then, on impulse, I stripped off the rest of my clothes. That felt better. Nothing between me and the night. The wind was brutal. The water, I knew, would be like ice. But my body was designed to handle that, and more. My body would be just fine.
I waded into the water, fighting to keep my balance as the current swept over my ankles, my calves, my thighs, my waist. Wet, my brain informed me. Cold. And on the riverbed, muddy. Rocky. Sharp. The temperatures, the textures, they didn’t matter, not yet. But I knew when I got close enough to the edge, when the water swept me over, the sensations would flood me, and in the chaos the distance between me and the world would disappear.