The Ones We're Meant to Find(33)
I wonder if he’s glad I’m here, too.
If he is, he doesn’t say so. Only, “You should take the bed.”
“I like it better here.”
Silence.
Stay with me, I think as the boy takes a breath.
And says, “Good night, Cee.”
“Night.” I watch as he goes, something yawning open in my chest. It hurts like a wound, even though I’m used to being alone.
Except I’m not alone. Alone is an island. It’s an uncrossable sea, being too far from another soul, whereas lonely is being too close, in the same house yet separated by walls because we choose to be, and when I fall asleep, the pain of loneliness follows me as I dream of more walls—this time between me and Kay. I can feel her in my mind, but I can’t feel her, and so I break the wall, tear it apart with my bare hands, to find nothing on the other side but whiteness, blindingly bright, and the cry of gulls.
12
THE COPTERBOT LANDED ON THE gray sands of the shore.
This was it. The island. There was the house up on the rocks, looking no different than it had since the sisters’ last visit four months ago. It just felt like a lifetime, and Kasey a changed person.
Or so she thought. Her vision of how this would go—starting with having the grief-stricken courage to expose herself—vanished like the fantasy it was when the copterbot door opened on Actinium’s side and her brain defaulted to logic mode. She caught his arm. “The radioaxons—”
“It’s safe.”
Safe. You’re safe with me, Celia had said, her expression harrowingly similar to Actinium’s as he went on to say, “I wouldn’t put you in danger,” before his gaze fell to Kasey’s hand, still on his arm.
She knew what he had to be thinking: She hadn’t reached for him when he’d cut himself. Hadn’t seemed nearly as concerned. But that damage was visible. Repairable. Radioaxon poisoning was neither and all the more dangerous for it.
Still, she forced herself to release him. Watched, helpless, as Actinium stepped into the open air in nothing more than the black button-down and jeans they’d purchased on stratum-25. He turned back to her, offering a hand. She didn’t take it. She told herself it was because of his bandages but in reality, she was afraid he’d feel her fingers shaking in fear for her own life despite losing one so much more vibrant than hers.
By herself, she climbed down, disoriented, as always, to enter a new world. That’s what Landmass-660 felt like to her. It didn’t technically belong to any outside territory, but it was as far “outside” as Kasey had ever gone, and nothing like the eco-city. The ground here was alive, sand shifting under her feet. The sky above was mold-gray and far deeper than the ninety meters allotted per stratum, and wind existed, exploding in erratic, sneeze-like bursts. Was it spreading radioaxons? Suppressing the thought and the panic it sprung, Kasey looked to the house on the beach as a figure emerged on its porch, waving at them. Actinium waved back, leaving Kasey no choice but to lift an arm too, trying to wave but not quite able to because this wasn’t right. She should have been here with Celia.
Waving at the woman in the iron-on pug sweater with Celia.
They’d met Leona upon docking Hubert at the pier. She’d shown them around the island, from the cove to the levee, a holdover from pre–arctic melt times, even though she’d been under no obligation to do so, or to treat the girls like her own. Yet she had, and as she jogged toward them, the sand beneath Kasey’s feet liquified and her mind sank. If it hadn’t been for Leona, Celia might not have returned to the island. Might not have snuck out, poisoned herself again and again—not that Leona could have known, which only angered Kasey more, to see the grief on the woman’s features when ignorance still protected her. She started to back away, but then Leona’s arms were around her, her voice by her ear—“Oh, Kasey”—and Kasey’s vision darkened, a memory dragging her under. Midnight. A knock on her door. A whisper—Still up? Her sister’s heartbeat against her brow. You belong here.
“The boat,” Kasey managed to choke out.
A nod against her shoulder. Leona released her, and Kasey noticed something troubling about the scene other than Celia’s absence from it.
“Where’s your mask?” Not just that, but antiskin. Goggles. Leona was wearing no protective gear.
“Didn’t Act tell you?” asked Leona. “The island’s safe.”
Act. The familiarity of the nickname did not slip by Kasey unnoticed, nor did the ease with which Leona took them both by the arms. As they walked down-shore, Kasey thought back to all the times Leona and Celia would chat on the couch while Kasey fiddled with Leona’s teachbot—a gift, Leona explained, from her sister. Had Kasey missed news of Celia and Actinium’s relationship then? Or had Celia deliberately kept it from Kasey because she knew Kasey’s shameful secret—that she had trouble remembering Celia’s boys?
Which was it? she wanted to ask Leona, followed by How is the island safe? But whatever questions she had were blasted away when they reached the cove and Kasey saw it.
On the rocks before they curved into the cove. Tugged out of the tide’s reach.
The boat hadn’t made a lasting impression before. Now the sight of it speared Kasey. She stopped in her tracks, her inner world grinding to a halt as the world outside continued to roar with the wind and the sea. A squeeze of her arm—“Take as long as you need; I’ll be in the house”—and Kasey found herself left by Leona. Alone with Actinium.