Undiscovered (Unremembered #1.5)(25)
I would read her this poem for as long as I lived.
As I spoke the words printed on the ancient page, I let them sink deep into me. I let them drown me in the emotion of a forgotten time when things like this were actually said. When love was actually expressed this way.
A time before Diotech.
Before walls.
Before memories were ripped out of your brain like uprooted trees.
“‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’”
When I looked down, Sera’s eyes were closed, her long dark lashes fluttering slightly.
I didn’t speak, knowing that I couldn’t top Shakespeare’s words if I tried. They would always be enough and never be enough at the same time.
Nothing would ever be enough when it came to Seraphina.
Including me.
“Shakespeare couldn’t have written that poem today.” Her voice broke through the silence, startling me slightly. I hadn’t even noticed I’d absentmindedly started stroking her hair again.
“Why not?”
“Because love like that can’t exist today.”
The raw pain in her voice was like someone standing on my chest.
“That’s not true,” I tried to assure her, bending down and kissing her forehead. “What about us?”
But the sorrow was already creeping into me, penetrating my veins, flowing through my blood. Because deep down, I knew she was right. I’d known it since the moment I knew I loved her.
Even if we were the exception to the rule, our circumstances made it impossible for us to truly be together.
But I didn’t want her to know I was feeling that way. I was determined to be the ray of sunlight in her dark life.
“You are my ever-fixèd mark,” I whispered into her ear. “Just like in the poem.”
She lifted her wrist and traced the thin black line with her fingertip, the one we tried to cut out only a few nights before. “We will always be kept apart. As long as we’re here, we can never be together. They’ll never let us.”
She peered into my eyes then, and I knew I couldn’t hide it anymore. I couldn’t deny the truth. My sunlight was waning.
In a swift motion, she was suddenly on her knees, facing me, her voice strong and full of conviction. “Shakespeare was lucky. He was born in a time before computers and brain scans and DNA sequencers. Love could survive because technology wasn’t around to destroy it. Science wasn’t powerful enough to ruin people’s lives.”
I remained quiet. Not because I didn’t agree, but because I did. She was absolutely right. As long as we were living within Diotech’s walls, we could never really be together. As long as they were controlling her—manipulating her—they would always cast shadows. I stared at the towering prison wall that they’d built to attempt to hide her. To contain her.
“That’s the only place we can be together,” she said.
I felt something warm and soft against my cheek. I blinked and realized she had rested her beautiful hand there. “Where?” I asked, slightly dazed.
Her face brightened with a smile. “1609.”
I glanced down at the open book. The publication date of the poem was inscribed on the page, under the title.
1609.
The numbers echoed thunderously inside my brain, like rocks tumbling inside a metal canister.
The only place we can be together.
My vision went hazy then as my mind flashed on the memory I saw last night. The one they’d stolen from me.
“This whole place has gone spastic. I mean, time travel? Seriously? What does she think this is? An H.G. Wells novel?”
The two scientists. They’d thought the idea was ludicrous. And I didn’t blame them. It was ludicrous. But what if…?
What if … it wasn’t?
Why would Diotech go through so much trouble to erase something if it wasn’t at least plausible?
Or better yet, why would they even invest in a project that wasn’t conceivable?
“Zen?” Sera’s voice brought me back to her.
“Hmmm?” I replied, still distracted.
But suddenly her lips were on mine and the sweet taste of her was all I could focus on. Her kiss had the power to erase thoughts. Stop time. Move stars. I wrapped my hands around the back of her head, pulling her deeper to me, wanting so much more of her. Wanting all of her.
But I knew I couldn’t have all of her. Because she didn’t have all of herself to give.
As long as she was trapped here, Diotech would always have a piece of her. They would always lay claim to some portion of her soul.
Never enough.
Never enough.