The Ones We're Meant to Find(72)

“It’s the law.”

“The law serves the people.” Kay doesn’t reply. “Kay. Listen to me. You belong here, you hear that?” Her eyes shut, and I pull her close. “You belong here,” I say, cupping the back of her skull in my hand. It feels small. There’s so much brilliance in there, but at the end of the day, she’s just an eleven-year-old kid. When she needed me, I wasn’t here for her.

That changes now. From this point onward, I’m going to be a better sister.

I wait until she falls asleep, then shimmy off the bed, careful not to wake her.

Dad’s not in his room. I go into mine, step into my stasis pod, and holo to P2C headquarters. There, I find him still at his desk. Its surface glows with all of Mom’s legislation. I used to think of his determination to finish it as noble. Now I only feel disgust. We, his flesh-and-blood children, were left behind too, and I doubt he’s even aware of the trouble Kay’s in when I grab his chair by the back and spin it around.

“What—Celia?”

“You have to help her,” I say.

“Wake up,” I say.

I grip the arms of his chair and shake it. “Do you want to lose her, too?”



* * *



Sunlight streams past the curtains, burning away the dream like mist over the sea. But it doesn’t burn away the lump in my throat—or the tears on my face. Fresh ones, already cooling as I lie on the floor of M.M.’s bedroom, among the isles of clothing we shed last night. The skin dries tight.

Right. Happiness leads to memories.

At least I’m still in the house. To think I used to be scared of waking up in the ocean. Now I’m scared I’ll find her in my sleep—physically, and figuratively. I’m scared of seeing her eyes whenever I close mine. Scared I made the wrong choice—that despite everything, she is my Kay and I’m not Cee, but Celia. My hand can still feel the curve of Kay’s skull. The silk of her hair. My heart takes to the false memories like a sponge, absorbing them until it feels like I might burst, and I’d bolt to the sea right then and there if not for Hero’s arm, a weight around my waist, and the weave of our legs.

I wiggle around to face him, the boy who anchors me. His bangs cover his right eye. His lips are parted slightly in his sleep. I run a fingertip over the bottom one, smile when I remember the way I judged his face, the first I’d seen in three years. Then my smile fades.

I must have been made to look like Celia. Was Hero modeled after someone too?

So what if he is? If he isn’t? His face belongs to him. He gives it life, not the other way around, and it’s grown on me, becoming as beautiful as his voice. I drink in its sight for a minute, then disentangle myself, grabbing a bathroom towel and wearing it like a strapless dress as I head into the kitchen, where I brew some dandelion-leaf tea. I drink it as if it’s served in a china cup. The hot ceramic against my knuckles borders on painful, but even pain is sensation. I can’t imagine ever being without. To not be able to feel the steam on my face, or the sea wind, brisk when I open the door to a bright blue sky, stitched with white seagulls.

My days of seeing in black-and-white feel like a strange dream. Maybe this unease in my gut will too, along with the guilt of lying to Hero, once it no longer matters if we’re human or not. We’ll be the only ones in the world.

The only ones in the world.

The tea I just swallowed rises back up my throat. I shut the door, brew a new mug, and set it down on the bedroom floor as I kneel by Hero.

“Hey.” I place a hand on his shoulder. “Rise and shine.”

He doesn’t wake. I envy him. No nightmares. No walking to the sea. But that’s the way it should be. The way it will be, if I can hold out three more days. One, really, if it takes me two to swim to the dome.

One.

Day.

Left.

Smart of Hero to sleep off the time. I’ll leave him to it. I start to rise.

A hand closes around my ankle.

Hero lets out a pained oof as I fall backward and onto him.

“Serves you right,” I say, rolling off to see his watering eyes.

“Stay.”

“Make me.”

He cocks his head to the side. Then, before I can do a thing, he rolls me over so that I’m flat on my back and he’s leaning over me on locked elbows.

He undoes my towel. My skin puckers from the sudden onslaught of air, and my arms move to cover myself.

He stops me. Unfolds me, carefully, tenderly, reverently, like I’m an origami bird and he’s learning the sequence of how I came to be. I feel every spot his gaze lands, and flush. Celia’s used to impassioned meetings in the dark, like yesterday’s. But today the sky is clear and the sun is up, rays from the window baring us anew.

Light ripples over Hero’s shoulders as he leans in.

He presses a kiss to the hollow between my collarbones.

He draws the fuse down, from throat to sternum to navel. Past my navel, to a point where his lips linger, and I think he might stop there and come back up for air.

He doesn’t stop.



* * *



The dizziness starts in the morning and worsens by night. Horrible timing. It’s Tabitha’s eighteenth birthday, and I pulled out all the stops to get our party of fourteen into πthons, one of the few clubs that still exist outside of holo. Just coming here will cause our ranks to go up by a tenth of a decimal. But you only turn legal once, and when Tabitha insisted on staying with me by the bar, I told her to forget about it.