We were supposed to grow up.
Riley leaned against the car, arms crossed. He tipped his head back, gazing up at the swirling clouds. It was clearer here, since the wind blew most of the crap inland, and I wondered if at night you might actually be able to see the moon. “I chose this,” he said wonderingly. “I chose to live like this.”
“You chose to live,” I corrected him. “Anyone would.” I joined him at the car, my back resting on the metal, our arms almost touching.
“Would you?” Riley asked. “If you could go back? If you’d had a choice?”
“I’d choose for the accident not to happen,” I said. “After that, there were no more choices.”
“Jude loves it. Being a mech.”
“You’re not Jude.”
“He hates talking about this stuff. Thinks we should forget all about it. That we’re lucky now.”
“You’re not him,” I said again.
“Yeah.” He turned to face me. “He’s right, though. It’s hard. Talking about it.” He shook his head. “So I just don’t. But you’re different. You get it, right? You miss it too, you know?”
No, I thought. Because that was the answer I gave everyone, including myself. “I miss home,” I admitted. “I miss who I used to be. I don’t…” But that was enough truth telling for the day. I couldn’t say it out loud. I don’t want to live like this.
I didn’t say it because there was no point. It didn’t matter what I wanted. This was reality. This was life.
“Thank you,” he said. “For not lying.” He leaned forward, raised his fingers to my jaw, grazing the skin midway between my cheek and chin. So lightly I could barely feel it. “It’s good talking to you. Like I can say anything.”
I should tell him about Ben, I thought. Riley would know what to do. Whether I should give call-me-Ben what he wanted, whether it my was job to keep Jude’s secrets.
I should tell him, because not telling him is a lie.
But telling him would be like telling Jude. Telling him meant no more choices.
Riley rested his other hand at my waist. Drew me toward him. “I don’t know who you used to be. But this version isn’t so bad.”
“Because you don’t know me.” But I let him hold on, and I let him believe. And when his fingers traced the line of my jaw, down my neck, I pressed my hand over his. Flesh to flesh.
“You don’t know me either,” he said.
His lips were soft and fit perfectly against mine, as I fit in his arms, huddled against his chest.
His lips were soft, and his kiss was soft, and if I didn’t feel it in my body, if it didn’t rip me open, leave me trembling, torn out of myself, if the sensors on my lips, my back, my chest, my fingertips registered the pressure of his skin, the temperature, and not the electric shock of raw desire, it didn’t matter.
Because we fit together. Because his lips were soft but his arms were strong and they held me up.
And when he let go, I held on, his hand in mine, our fingers linked. And I wasn’t alone.
15. SAFE OR SORRY
As always: Things got back to normal.
As always: Nothing got back to normal.
But this time, in a good way.
This time, Riley was there.
We spent hours, whole days, walking through the orchards, watching apple blossoms flutter to the ground as we walked, hands linked, sometimes silent but often, more often than I would have expected, talking. Never about Jude, who had barricaded himself in the vidroom, searching for a clue about how to turn the tide of public opinion in our favor; never about Ani, who was rarely around anymore and rarely wanted to talk when she was; never about the Brotherhood-inspired crowds camped out at the estate borders, shouting, spray painting the gate, throwing things over the electrified fence, usually things like rocks and fiery wads of paper and rotted fruit, sometimes things like pig intestines, and once a thing set to explode, a homemade thing with a timer and a defective fuse.
Never about the messages I got daily from call-me-Ben, messages that were gradually turning into threats. He’d given me a deadline. Two weeks to choose: Give up Jude (with information I didn’t have), or let Ben give me up to the secops (for crimes I hadn’t committed). To decide whether I wanted to be a traitor or a martyr.
I let Riley believe I had no secrets. I let the time slip by. I deleted the messages.
We talked only about the past. I told him about Zo and Walker and my father and, after a week had passed and my hand felt empty without his hand pressed against it, about Auden.
He asked more than he answered, and there were certain things I still wasn’t allowed to know. How he got shot, or why he blamed himself. Why he owed so much to Jude—and it was more than just the mutual protection he’d alluded to by the flood zone. There was something specific, some chain that bound them together—that was clear. We edged near it a few times, but then we drew too close, I asked one question too many, and he would shut down again.
Sometimes it was better not to talk. Sometimes it was good just to lie there with him, under a tree, a cold wind blowing that neither of us could feel, my head against his silent chest, his arms curled around me. It was strange being with another mech. I could still close my eyes and remember the feel of Walker’s arms around me, his body cradling mine. I was used to Walker’s steady, even breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, his warm breath misting my cheek. When I lay my head on Riley’s chest, it rested there, completely still. When we looked into each other’s eyes, we didn’t blink.
No one said anything to us about what we were, whatever it was. Not even Jude, who had something to say about everything. They all just accepted it as if it was old news. All except Ani, and she tried only once. “Remember when you asked me what Quinn and I had in common?” she asked. She never talked about Quinn anymore.
“You said it didn’t really matter. That it wasn’t about that.”
“Turns out it did,” she said. “And it was. Just so you know.”
And maybe that was her admitting that she needed something, that she’d lost something and was ready to talk about it, if I’d just asked the right question and gave her space to answer. But maybe she just wanted to talk about me and Riley, and what was wrong with us being together—and so I didn’t ask. I smiled and pretended not to understand or care, then made a pathetic joke about Riley’s taste in shoes, or lack thereof, and then she was gone, back to wherever she went to get away. And I went back to Riley.
We didn’t do anything more than kiss—nor did we talk about the fact that we weren’t doing any more than that. I didn’t ask how much he’d experimented since the download. In all the talking we did about the past, I didn’t tell him about the night with Walker, when we’d tried to go backward. When I’d touched him and felt nothing, felt nothing when he touched me. Cringed from his hands on my body and from the repulsion in his eyes.
Sometimes I felt something when Riley touched me, when he ran a finger down my spine or his lips found a hollow at the base of my neck.
Sometimes it was the same nothing as always.
We were designed to simulate human life. Our brains were wired to emulate hormonal processes, neurotransmitters, all the bells and whistles of feeling, of pain, of pleasure. It wasn’t the same.
But it was enough.
I didn’t know if he wanted more. We didn’t talk about that.
We had time.