“What happened?” I whisper.
“An alarm sounded that night. A rockslide was coming, and we had to clear out. There should’ve been plenty of time. But when the supplies were loaded into the wagon, I realized Sierra was missing. I found her at the rocks.” His voice breaks and he drops his face, his shoulders shaking, shaking, shaking.
My mouth falls. Is Mikey…crying? The leader of our community. The man who makes the toughest decisions without flinching. I’ve never seen him teary before, much less sobbing.
I fall to my knees and inch closer to him.
“She was trying to dig Jonas out. Oh Fates, Jessa, she wouldn’t leave him. I pleaded with her, I begged. I even lifted her and tried to drag her away. She fought me like a wild animal, and then she manacled herself to a tree. She said if Jonas couldn’t leave our campsite, then she wouldn’t, either. And then the rumbling started.” He looks up, then, his eyes as dull and black as coals. “Leaving her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” His voice breaks. “But if I hadn’t, I would’ve been buried there with her and Jonas. My sister. My nephew. They weren’t my first family, nor my last. But not a day goes by when I don’t think of them.”
He stands, scrubbing a hand down his face. Erasing his tears and the moment much like he clears holo-docs from the air—with a single swipe. “If I had to do it again, I would make the same decision, every time. I will always choose life over death. And that’s why you aren’t going to tell Logan about Callie. Because I won’t have him burying himself in the past when he could be living in the present.”
I don’t speak. I can’t. I’m sorry for Mikey’s tragedy, but Logan would want to know. Just like me.
“Would you want him to end up like your mom?” Mikey continues. “Holding onto what could’ve been. Pining for someone who may never come back. She hasn’t been able to let go, and that’s caused her to make decisions that have hurt the people around her. That have hurt you.”
I freeze. My knees become so weak I’m afraid they’re going to spill on the floor. Would I wish my mother’s fate on Logan? Would I wish my fate on Logan’s future children? I imagine a future where Logan is married, where he has kids—but he’s unable to give his family his full heart because he’s hung up on a girl who lies in a coma.
“Give it a few weeks. Your connection with Callie is so new, we don’t know what will become of it.” His gaze pins me against the wall screens, up high on a precipice with no rope and no water. “What do you say, Jessa? If you care about Logan at all, promise you won’t tell him. At least not yet.”
It’s not my place to decide. But Mikey’s right. I can’t bear to think of Logan winding up like my mom. I can’t bear to think of his children winding up like me.
Besides, what can a few weeks hurt? He’s already waited ten years to learn the truth.
“I promise,” I say. And hope to the Fates above that I’ve made the right choice.
18
I manage to avoid Logan for the next seven days. I focus my energies instead on my clandestine visits to Callie, on the memories I send into her mind. I choose only the good ones. Like the moment I returned from the wilderness and saw my mother for the first time. I barreled down the hall and took a running leap into her arms. She was laughing and smiling and crying, all at the same time, and I was certain I had never seen anyone so beautiful in my entire life.
Like my first date with a boy. It was the anniversary of the Underground’s truce with ComA, and he took me to dinner at a Meal Assembler café. I chose a café that served different varieties of tartare, thinking it sounded sophisticated. My dinner turned out to be a mound of raw beef—with a raw egg on top. I tried to eat it, I really did. But the texture was too much for me, and when I looked up, I saw that my date had hidden half of his dinner under a lettuce leaf, too.
Like the time I dove off the cliff behind the TechRA building into the roaring river below. Ryder and I inspected the area carefully, and we dipped a chain in the water to measure the depth. I even brought along a first aid kit. The most thrilling part was the jump itself. I stood erect at the edge of the cliff, my knees bent and my arms overhead. I swept my arms down and out, driving forward with my legs. Gravity pulled me into a vertical position, the wind rushing along my body, and I felt for one infinitesimal moment that I was with Callie once again.
I send all of these memories and more, and my sister’s vitals improve with each one. The memories distract me from the needle that Tanner plunged into my arm, drawing a vial of my blood. They distract me from the fact that my mom’s retreated further into herself and our relationship is more strained than ever, in spite of the fact that she accompanies me on every other visit to see Callie. The memories distract me from my promise to Mikey.
But at the end of the week, the first person I see when I return to the compound from a visit to the TechRA building is Logan.
And he’s not alone.
In the long straightaway running through the middle of our compound, a woman balances on a board hovering a few inches off the ground. Logan has a hand on her hip, steadying her, while he gestures in the air with his other hand. She leans over to kiss his cheek—which sends the board shooting out from underneath her. She tumbles into his arms, and they both fall to the ground, a tangle of limbs.
I dislike her on sight.
Logan’s eyes are lit with laughter. He looks…happy. Oh Fates, I want him happy. There was a time I would’ve given up all my safety gear if only he would snicker at one of my jokes.
But now, seeing him with this girl, while knowing Callie is still alive, feels like a stake through my heart.
Logan glances up and waves. I wave back, but I don’t go over to them. I can’t. I’m just not up to meeting my sister’s replacement right now.
Logan says something to his date, and then he jogs over and gives me a big hug. “Hey, there. How’s my favorite girl?”
“Okay.” I shrug. “Keeping busy, you know, with school and all.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.
“I’m glad you’re here.” We walk down the straightaway. The concrete is gray and smooth, and interlocking tracks of magnets lay underneath it. I’m wearing my hovershoes, with flecks of metal mixed into the soles, and each step fuses me briefly to the ground, before I break the suction with my next step.
“I’ve been thinking about what you and Angela said,” he says, shortening his stride to match mine. “And you’re right. My memory’s not much proof that Callie’s still alive.” He pauses, and I know he’s come to a big decision. One I’m not going to like, even though I encouraged it myself a couple of weeks ago. “I think…it’s time to start living again. I like Ainsley. I’ve known her for a long time, and she has a kindness in her, an inherent goodness you can’t fake.”
We walk a few more paces. Step, stick, wrench out. Step, stick, wrench out. A regular rhythm, but not a comfortable one. Kinda like my heart. Kinda like my life.
“I will never forget Callie, and I will never stop loving her,” he bursts out. “But she isn’t here anymore, and she hasn’t been for a very long time. I think she’d want this for me.”
“Of course she would.” I study my high-top sneakers, the silver laces, the special soles that help me stick a landing. That’s Callie. That’s always been Callie, thinking of others first.
He takes a deep breath. “I’d like to have your blessing to be with Ainsley.”