The Ones We're Meant to Find(22)

“Where did this happen?” the boy finally asks.

“Out there.” I nod toward the window. “This is an abandoned island. You’re currently staying in M.M.’s humble abode. No, she’s not around. No, I’m not sure where she is. It has been three years, though, so make of that what you will. For now, it’s just us. You and me.”

“Disagree,” says U-me from the doorway of the bedroom.

“And U-me, the bot.”

I wait for a reaction. Receive none. The boy says nothing for a long time. Then:

“How, exactly, did I get here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” I stop rocking and lean forward. “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think harder.”

“I said, I don’t know!” As quickly as his voice rises, it also ebbs. “Please—can I just be untied?”

My heart steels itself against his plea. Remember your agenda. “You really can’t remember anything?” Naked and without memories—of last night and of his past. The boy and I may be more similar than I’d thought, which would be comforting—I’m not the only one—if I weren’t relying on him for answers to help me find Kay.

“Try,” I order. “Try to remember something. An image. A person. A place.”

The boy’s response is to tug on his wrists so hard that dark gray liquid wells at the rope.

Shit. I shoot up from the rocking chair as the liquid runs down to his elbows. “Stop that. Stop.”

I grab him by the forearms, only to be startled by the warmth of his bare skin. A fellow human. Who’s now bleeding because of me. I thought washing ashore alone was bad, but how would I feel if I woke to some stranger interrogating me under duress?

I let go of him, my palms tingling where we touched. He tried to kill me. That still stands. But I’m alive. So is he. We’re the only two people on this island. Coexisting in peace would be better than our current setup. Maybe this is a mistake, but—

“I’m going to untie you,” I say, enunciating each syllable to buy time to think. Lay down the ground rules. “On the condition you don’t try to kill me again.”

Joules, save me—that’s the best I can do? I have no way of enforcing this, and certainly no way of punishing him from the grave if he breaks his word.

Thankfully, the boy doesn’t ridicule me. If anything, he’s taking this too seriously. “‘Again’?” he challenges. “How can it be ‘again’ if I don’t remember the first time?”

I don’t know. The semantics are beyond me. “Do you want to be untied or not?”

He nods. I wait. He catches on. “Fine. I promise.”

“Sincerity, please.”

“It’s not sincere if I can’t remember,” he protests.

“Picture this: you, me, on the beach. Your hands on my neck.”

The boy closes his eyes, a pleat between his brows. He’s earnest, I’ll give him that, and I take pity on him when he reopens his eyes and says, “I’ve never wanted to kill you, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to kill you, but I swear I won’t act on those urges if they ever seize me.” A pause. “Again.”

“Swear on your life.”

“On my life.”

Future-me had better not regret this.

I untie him—then realize I probably should’ve warned him that he’s got nothing on beneath the blanket.

“What … fuck!”

“Fuck,” repeats U-me. “To engage in sexual intercourse, verb; to mess with, verb; to deal with unfairly or harshly, verb.”

“Curse at your own risk,” I say as the boy scrambles back into bed, drawing the blanket around him.

“What did you do to my clothes?”

Ripped them off you. The words come reflexively. Maybe I’ve said them to the boys in my past, but I know better than to repeat them to the boy in front of me right now, his eyes stretched to the whites. “You woke up like this, love,” I say as gently as I can.

He shakes his head. “You did something to them!” He points a trembling finger at me, cheeks darkening—reddening, I assume. “You said so yourself! That y-you—you like it—”

“Joules, that was a joke.”

“My name isn’t Jules!” Emotions break over his face. I can’t decipher them as easily as I used to, but I think I see fear. Disbelief. Anger.

“That wasn’t what I was trying to say.” My head’s starting to swim. Just when I thought I’d pacified him, too. “Look, love. I’m sorry about your clothes. I know you don’t trust me, and you don’t have to, but you really did wake up like this. It’s okay, though.” I go to the closet, fling open the doors, and grab as many sweaters as I can carry. “We can dress you right now.” I pile the sweaters over his lap, then sit at the edge of the bed. “Have at it.”

The boy says nothing. Does nothing. Doesn’t move.

His silence scares me. I reach out to him; he flinches away.

Been awhile since I’ve faced any sort of rejection. “Why don’t you tell me your name?” I ask, hiding the sting of it. “Mine is Cee,” I offer, to pave the way.