Undiscovered (Unremembered #1.5)(12)

The words began to form on my tongue.

Don’t, I warned. Don’t ask. It will only cause you disappointment.

But I didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen. The words came bubbling forth on their own. “How long will you be gone?” I cried out, hating the desperation in my tone as much as I hated myself for speaking. As much as I hated her for leaving without more than a one-word explanation.

She stopped, turned, and for a moment, I saw something flash in her eyes. Something unrecognizable.

Was it sympathy?

Was it regret?

I guess I would never know.

“However long it takes” was all she said as she slipped out the door.





10: Peace


I ran to her.

I couldn’t stay in that apartment. I couldn’t stay in that abandoned place with my mother’s empty departing words hanging in the air like stale vapor.

I stormed out the door and I ran the entire way there, my legs aching and my lungs burning.

I needed to see her, touch her, breathe her.

I needed to be next to her.

The entire time I ran, I felt the fear chasing me. The fear that I would arrive and her father would be there. The fear that they had already gotten to her memories and she would stare at me like she’d never seen me.

It only made me run faster.

The rain started as soon as I made it through the VersaScreen. I was actually surprised when my mother’s fingerprint and retina opened the door. I was almost certain her clearances would have been suspended while she was away on her research trip. But perhaps she simply hadn’t left yet.

I was soaked through by the time I landed on the other side of the wall. A single light illuminated the window. I strained to make out the identity of the shadow that moved within. Was it a man or was it her?

A moment later the porch light came on, the front door opened and I saw her. She was dressed in the same gray pants and shirt she always wore, but something about her was more radiant than ever.

I think it was the moonlight.

Or maybe it was simply the thrill of seeing her at this hour of the night.

And the adrenaline of knowing she might not be alone.

I waited for recognition to register on her face. It felt like an eternity. A million raindrops pelted me in the space between.

And then, I saw it.

The smile.

The knowing.

The remembering.

I ran to her. I sprinted across those twenty final steps until I was painfully close. Until she was all I could see. All I could smell.

She surprised me when she reached out and touched my rain-soaked face, catching one of the rivulets on her fingertip and studying it as though it contained every answer to every question in the world.

“Do you know what a kiss is?” I asked, breathless from the running, breathless from the waiting.

From being so near her.

She lowered her hand and looked at me, that same curious tilt to her head that accompanied all the new words and ideas that I’d brought her over the last few months.

“Kiss,” she repeated, rolling it over in her mind, trying to find a matching definition. I had a suspicion she wouldn’t find one.

“No,” she finally concluded. “Will you define it for me?”

“No,” I said adamantly, shaking my head.

My answer confused her. I’ve always provided her with definitions whenever she asked for them. She opened her mouth to speak—to protest—but I didn’t let her.

“I will show you,” I vowed.

I placed my wet, trembling hands on her warm cheeks and guided her lips to mine. I half expected her to fight, to pull away, and I was ready to release her the second I felt any opposition.

But she didn’t fight.

She didn’t pull away.

She let herself be drawn to me.

Our mouths met and her body shuddered at the collision. At the shock. But it quickly melted away and she softened beneath my lips. She gave in to me. Welcomed me to her.

Kissing Seraphina was more than anything I could have ever imagined. I’d always pictured fireworks. Music. An explosion of sights and sounds.

But there was none of that.

It was better.

It was as though the world simply went to sleep. Slipped away over a horizon and left us completely alone. Even though I knew this place wasn’t safe for either of us, even though I knew this memory would be stolen from her like every other memory, in that moment, I felt like I could protect her from anything.

And yet, I felt like there was nothing left to protect her from.

We were safe.

If only for a fleeting instant.

Her lips were warm and they started to move with mine. They started to reach for mine. Hunger for mine. It wasn’t something I could ever teach her or define for her or point to in a book.

It was something she just instinctively knew.

Perhaps something we all know.

Rainwater tangled between our lips, and I deepened into her. Her arms wrapped around me, pressing our bodies tightly together, sending shivers between us. The kiss—which had started out soft and tentative and testing—had grown stronger. More urgent.

More everything.

I didn’t ever want to stop. I didn’t ever want to pull away. But I wanted to make certain she was okay. I wanted to read her expression and know that she was enjoying this as much as I was.