False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(7)

I wonder sometimes if I started on this road as soon as they took the knife to us. She’s my better half, Taema. She’s the one with the sensible head on her shoulders, who would talk me out of doing stupid shit as kids because she didn’t want to be drawn into my trouble. She was usually drawn in anyway, though. It’s not like she had much of a choice.

If the news does get out, she’ll have to dodge paparazzi drones left and right—how many alleged murderers have an identical twin they were once conjoined with? And grew up in that crazy cult in the redwoods across the bay? They’ll have a field day. At least she’s not here in the cell with me, and she’s not going into stasis when if I do, so that’s something.

Ugh. I’m almost tempted to crumple this whole thing up and flush it down the toilet. I’m not stupid. Even though this is paper, they can read whatever I write on here and they’re going to rake through it with a fine-tooth comb to see what I’m trying to hide. When I’m in the shower or something, they’ll sneak in here and read it.

WON’T YOU, ASSHOLES?

It’s a waste of time. I might as well tell you now. There’s not going to be any confession in here. Don’t hold your breath.

The guards just dropped off my food. Boring meals of algae and vat-grown meat. The guards seem to like the look of me. Men always do. Plenty of women as well. But then their eyes drop to my chest, to the white scar against my brown skin, peeking over the collar of my prison uniform. They can’t hide their fear at what it represents: that I am only half of who I used to be.

*

I’ve just been sitting here the last few hours, trying to think of what to write next. It’s dusk outside now, and the stars are coming out one by one in that little patch of sky by the window. It reminds me of the fireflies Taema and I used to chase in Mana’s Hearth when we were little. We were good at catching them. We walked sideways then, like the lake crabs, but we never slowed each other down. One of us would reach out and sweep the fireflies into jars, take them back to the house to light our bedroom, and let them out a few hours later. I miss those days.

It was after I left the Hearth I learned the fireflies had only recently come to California, introduced to the area a few years after the Great Upheaval. How strange, that if that hadn’t happened, those memories wouldn’t have existed.

Out there, I think Taema has been trying to help. The lawyer’s dropped a couple of hints. Plus, I know her. Obviously. She’s not going to sit around, playing with her VivaFog machines, waiting for me to die. Or basically die.

She’ll be trying to follow a trail, to piece together what happened. I hope she doesn’t, and that the trail goes cold. I don’t want her to find out what I did that I shouldn’t have, and what I didn’t do that I should have. How I lost my innocence while she still has hers—but she might have to lose it, if she wants to save me.

Yep, that’s cryptic as hell. But remember: no confessions. Not from me.

Since I’m not going to write my last will and testament, and I’m not going to confess, I figure maybe I’ll write a different sort of testament, or a different kind of confession. It won’t be a beautiful story. Taema has a way with words, not me. She’s the thinker, following the rules, lost in her machines and books. I’m the unpredictable artist, always wanting to do things on the spur of the moment. Guess that’s why I’m here now.

I don’t even know who I’m writing to. The general masses, maybe, if this somehow leaks to the press. Or maybe I’m writing to my sister.

So this is the story of Taema and me, the life we had. Maybe, while writing it, I’ll figure out where it all went wrong.





FOUR

TAEMA

The first thing I do when I’m home is turn on the bots to clear up all the broken glass and to dry the carpets. I order a new door from the replicator, which will be ready by the morning, and draw the curtains against the breeze.

Everything’s been searched. They haven’t trashed the place, but so many things are not quite where they should be, and the whole apartment has the aura of being manhandled.

I turn music up loud in my auditory implants and try to set it to rights. I help the bots clean. I throw out the meal I spent all afternoon making, my appetite gone. I order a NutriPaste from the replicator and force the tasteless goop down my throat to keep my blood sugar even. I focus on cleaning with every fiber of my being, the pulse of the beats of scrubbing driving out all thought.

When everything is perfect again, I can no longer deceive myself.

I stand in the middle of my silent, spotless kitchen. My eyes snag on the cookie jar on the counter.

Tila and I have keys to each other’s places, of course. Our schedules have always been different—I work the standard nine to three, whereas Tila works nights. When we meet for dinner, it’s actually closer to her breakfast. When she first moved out eight months ago, I found it really difficult, and I wasn’t good at hiding it. I felt betrayed. When we fight, we know the perfect way to wound the other, but it’s like hitting a mirror—the glass cuts us just as deeply.

After that first, terrible fight, she left me an apology note in the cookie jar. Problem is, she eats more cookies than I do, so it took me three or four days to find the note. It worked, and I forgave her, not that I can ever stay mad at her for long. Over the next few weeks, she kept leaving notes in the cookie jar, dropping them off on the way to work for me to find on the way home. They were silly, full of in-jokes and puzzles. Then when she started acting more distant, working more hours at the club, they stopped. I haven’t even checked the cookie jar in days.