The Ones We're Meant to Find(42)

Sky. Air. Ground.

The impact jettisons the breath out of my lungs.

I don’t know how long I lie there, on my back, before a face eclipses the yellow sun.

The boy’s.

“Cee, can you hear me?” He sounds distant. “What hurts?”

“My shoulder.” And everything else.

The skin on my arm burns as the boy slides up my sweater sleeve. He slips one hand through mine and holds my elbow with the other.

“Okay,” he breathes, almost to himself. “This will hurt before it gets better.”

“What—”

The boy tugs on my arm. Someone screams. I think it’s me. I claw at him—Make the pain stop make it stop—while my muscles flex against the pressure, the tension in my shoulder mounting until it feels maxed out— The ball slides back into the socket.

The boy helps me sit up. When I’m ready to stand, he drapes my good arm over his shoulder and uses his body to support me. Either I’m shaking, or he’s shaking, or we’re both shaking. Our first few steps almost send me sprawling back on the ground.

The rest of the walk is a slow, silent hobble.

Halfway through, U-me suddenly speaks without prompting.

“Hero: a person who is admired or idealized for courage, noun.”

I feel the boy stiffen under my arm.

“Hero: a person who is admired or idealized for courage, noun.”

The sun descends from its midday summit.

“Hero: a person who is admired or idealized for courage, noun.”

Hours later, we finally reach the house. The boy guides me to the couch, then takes off without a word. I have don’t have the mental or physical capacity to wonder where he’s going. My head lolls back, and I stare at the ceiling, tie-dyed violet from the sunset.

Joules.

What a day.

Yes, I gained a shit ton of memories. Yes, I’m also seeing in color. That may explain why I was careless in my climb, but it doesn’t explain the untied rope. I haven’t had such a close call since I perfected my knot technique two years ago.

I try to think back to the scene right before the fall. U-me was at the bottom of the ridge. The boy was at the top.

I didn’t see him untie the rope.

I wasn’t looking at him either.

What am I thinking? If killing me was his goal, he could have done it while I was flat on the ground. A rock to the temple. It would have been over in a second. Instead, he hovered over me, his face shining with sweat and worry, and maybe he could have faked the emotion, but he couldn’t have faked the pounding of his heart. He fixed my shoulder, half carried me back, and now nothing adds up. Not the untied rope, or the way he froze at the top while I hung on for dear life.

Unless it was just that: He froze up. It’s not every day you have to be a hero.

I know one thing for sure: I don’t want to believe the boy had anything to do with my fall. He’s become more to me than a visitor or a guest. He’s a friend. And as his friend, I drag my ass off the couch when he doesn’t return by night.

He’s not on the shore, or at the sunken pier, awash in the midnight tide.

The same tide rushes into the cove, a secret place tucked past the rocks west of M.M.’s house. The sand glows with all the colors of mother-of-pearl in the moonlight. The boy, a mere blip against the waterline, is indigo.

He doesn’t turn as I approach. I sit beside him. For several minutes, the only sound comes from the surf, shushing the night as it tumbles in.

“It’s my fault.” His voice is low and dark with shame. “Back on the ridge, when I saw you fall … My whole body…” His pain is palpable and I find myself rubbing circles onto his back. His muscles bunch under my hand. “Locked.” He lets out a frustrated breath. “Except that’s not the right word.”

I might be battered and bruised, but he sounds scarred. And who wouldn’t be? He’s not like me, hardened by the brutality of island living.

“Hey,” I say gently. “No hard feelings. You managed in the end.”

“But what if I didn’t?”

“You did. That’s all that matters.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t have any memories. I don’t have a name. All I have are my current thoughts, the things I feel and think and want. If I can’t even act on those, then…”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. His unspoken words live in my heart. They’re the same ones that keep me up at night, when I worry Kay’s face is fading. I worry who I would be without her. Just some girl on an abandoned island, with no past to draw on, no future to live for.

Who am I? he wants to ask. I can’t answer that.

But I can offer something. “Hero.”

“What?”

“You do have a name. Hero.”

The boy breathes in. “That’s—”

“U-me’s pick. And mine, too.”

Some names are found. Others are earned.

This one is both.

The boy, Hero, frowns. “It’s cheesy.”

“Well, it’s either that or Dmitri. Cheesy or hunky. Take your pick.”

He sighs. Not calmed. Not comforted. I’m all for exploring emotions, but his are a swamp right now. They’ll only suck him down. I need to distract him. Pivot his mind.