Undiscovered (Unremembered #1.5)(10)

“What is that?” was her favorite question to ask.

“It’s my DigiSlate,” I told her one afternoon as we were sitting on the grass outside her house. She was ten feet away from me, but it was still early. I had started analyzing her movements, her patterns. On a good day, she moved within reach of me in less than an hour. On a really good day, I got to touch her hand.

But nothing more.

And I never tried.

I was afraid of her reaction. Afraid of my reaction. Afraid if I touched her face, or hair, or lips, I may never recover. I may never be able to handle the crushing feeling I’d surely get the next day when she once again looked at me as though she didn’t know me.

Every day, she inched closer to me. Every day, I fought the urge to pull her into my lap, press my cheek against hers, inhale her scent.

I protected myself.

Every day.

“What does it do?” she asked, fingering the ultrathin device that I had unrolled in front of her. It was the fifth time she’d seen my slate. And the fifth time I’d explained its function.

“It does everything,” I told her. “Anything you want.”

I waited for the fascination to light up her face. I had memorized that light.

“You can read stories on it,” I suggested.

She didn’t understand. She never did. So I showed her. I scrolled through the various texts I’d downloaded for her. Yesterday she’d read about world history—now it was all gone. The day before that, she’d read a series of classic fairy tales—those had been erased, too.

Today, I had brought her poetry.

I loved watching her read. She devoured words faster than I devoured air. It was one of the many abilities I had discovered over the past month. And it was my favorite one. Even though I knew it was the most pointless.

What good is the ability to rapidly consume information if it will only be stolen from you hours later?

That didn’t matter, though. Reading made her happy. So I brought her things to read.

But today, she didn’t look happy. She absorbed an entire book of poetry in a few minutes and looked up at me with tortured eyes.

I smiled. “Read it aloud. I’ll help you.”

I leaned in close to glance over her shoulder at the title of the poem.

“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare.

To my surprise, she didn’t recoil from my proximity. My face was inches from her face. Her long, shimmering hair tickled the tops of my ears. I tried not to focus on the fact that we were breathing the same air.

I closed my eyes to regain strength and then finally pulled away, leaning back onto my hands. Away from her magnetic pulse and intoxicating scent.

I knew not to push it. Never to push it.

It was my silent vow to her.

She had to come to me.

I had to let her.

“’Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,’” she read the first lines and then looked to me for an explanation. “How can minds be married?”

I shook my head. “Poetry is different from normal text. You can’t read it literally. You have to dig deeper and search for a meaning.”

She bit her lip thoughtfully.

“It’s saying that if two people really love each other, they should be together.”

She squinted at me. “Why isn’t it written like that?”

I laughed. “Because then it wouldn’t be as fun to read, I suppose. What’s the next sentence?”

“’Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.’” She looked up at me again. “What does that mean?”

I felt my mouth go dry. “It means,” I began uneasily, “that love doesn’t change given the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

I reached out and gently removed the slate from her hand. She let me.

“Unfavorable circumstances.” I cleared my throat uneasily. “You know what? Let’s find you something else to read.”

“But I enjoyed that,” she argued, her mouth falling into an irresistible pout.

“You did? Why?”

She thought for a moment. “It’s like a puzzle.”

“I guess it is.”

“Don’t you like puzzles?”

I turned my head and glanced at the wall. The sun was starting to set. I would have to leave soon. “Some puzzles are better than others.”

We sat in silence for a long time. And then I felt her move next to me. Close enough that our arms were touching. I turned my head and she was right there. Her eyes were piercing giant holes in me.

“Can we keep going?” she asked, and I felt her fingertips brush against mine as she removed the slate from my hand.

My body was too numb to say no.

Not that I ever would have.





8: Testing


One thing kept me going.

It was time.

Not the time that we spent apart. And not even the time that we spent together (which was always over too soon). But the time it took me to earn her trust every day. The time it took for her to move from twenty feet away to ten feet to shoulders touching.

After two months, I noticed that it was shrinking.

Gradually, little by little, she was opening up to me faster.

It was almost as though she was beginning to remember me. Despite what they were doing to manipulate her mind. Like some small part of her was holding on, refusing to forget.