Freshwater(39)

“He can’t make us leave,” said Vincent, because he could see through the back of my open brain. “We’ll always be here with you, Ada. And if we sleep a little more because you have him, maybe that’s a good thing. Even if he leaves, we’ll be here to pick up your pieces. We’ll always be here, yeah? We promise. Right, As?ghara?”

I nodded because my throat was too tight for words. This felt too much like the day I was born, the way she had been entered and hurt.

“You’re safe now,” I managed to say. “We’re never going to leave you.”

I knelt beside her and held her hand tightly in mine.

“Breathe,” said Vincent.



It must’ve gotten better. I don’t remember much—I was sleeping more, just like Vincent had predicted. I was giving Ada a life because Ewan made her happy, and honestly, the girl deserved a little happiness. He left Texas and moved outside Boston to be with her. They got their first apartment together there. He proposed in a library in Cambridge and they got engaged and Saachi was furious, but she thawed after she met him and realized that Ada was going to marry him whether Saachi approved or not. So Saachi flew herself and A?uli to Ireland to meet Ewan’s family, who was throwing an engagement party for him and Ada. When they returned to the States, Ewan and Ada quietly got married in Manhattan, at City Hall, and Ewan had tears in his eyes when he said his vows. They moved to Brooklyn, enrolled in graduate school, got a cat and named it The Prophet Jagger.

I left Ada to her new family. When she came to sit with me in the marble, we talked like old friends, as if we’d never planned to kill each other.

“He wants us to be equal,” she told me.

I crossed my legs and frowned. “Like how?”

Ada blushed. “Like during sex.” I stared and she lifted her shoulders, then dropped them and hugged her knees. “You know, on plain footing. With no one having more power over the other.”

I laughed. “But that’s impossible.”

Ada shrugged again and fiddled with a broken nail. “Who knows,” she said.

“It doesn’t work like that, Ada, not when the clothes come off.”

“You mean, not when you’re there.”

Oh. I hadn’t realized I was still helping her with that, but it made sense. I was automatic at that point, a shell she could drag over her, whether I was asleep or not. “I guess I’m always there when the clothes come off,” I said. “The promise must be holding.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We can’t change that?”

I shook my head and took her palm. “You’re just not capable of it, sorry. Or rather, we’re not capable of it.” Ada watched my nails slide between her fingers as I massaged her hand. All my bones were slightly longer than hers.

“How are you?” she asked.

I gave her a look. “I’m fine. I come when you need me, like now.”

Ada looked a little ashamed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around that much.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “As long as you remember that we can’t be separated, Ada. Without us, you’re nothing—you won’t feel anything, you won’t see anything, you won’t write anything. You have to be at peace with us, you hear? We’re you.”

“Yeah, I know I have to remember,” she said. “Otherwise I wake up not knowing who I am.”

“Exactly.” I patted her hand. “We’re the buffer between you and madness, we’re not the madness.”

She nodded. “Where’s Saint Vincent?”

“He’s sleeping. Do you want me to call him?”

“No, let him rest.” She watched as I cracked her knuckles one by one. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said, her voice small.

“Biko, how many times do I have to tell you? We’re not going anywhere.” She made a face and I rolled my eyes. “Ada, stop feeling guilty about being happy with Ewan. We’re fine.”

She blushed and looked down. “He wants me to give myself to him completely.”

I looked at her, confused. “What?”

“Completely. You know. All of me. Like how he’s given himself to me.”

I didn’t like how she said it, with a tinge of hope, so I tried to be gentle. “Me, I don’t think that’s possible, sha.”

“Why not? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you’re in love?”

I groaned and dropped her hand. “My friend, it has nothing to do with love.”

She frowned. “What is it then?”

I looked at her, and I swear, if I could’ve freed Ada right then and there to love and be happy and normal, I would have. But I didn’t start any of this and I didn’t know how to stop it, only how to finish it.

“What is it?” she demanded.

I took a deep breath and hoped for grace. “Look, you can’t give yourself to him because you’re not yours to give. That’s it. I’m sorry.”

It took a minute for Ada to understand, to realize that she was locked away, that all those parts of her he wanted, the parts she wanted to give, the parts that would complete the love they had—all those parts were gone. Or if they weren’t gone, they’d been put somewhere so far away that not even Ada could touch them, let alone Ewan. I watched her face fall, and when she started crying, I held her and whispered apologies for what felt like forever.