Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

Palm Springs, 2030

 

I sat in the window, watching the gray day as the rain came down.

Her reflection and mine were so close, our eyes almost matching in the lost stare we both had. Her gown was the difference. That and the gauntness of her face.

Lana sat in the chair, permanently gone. The dose of nanobots was in her, letting her live, freeing her, taking over her brain.

Her mouth was slack and her eyes dead, her skin gray and her nails peeling. Her lips were chapped and if you looked closely enough, they moved. She whispered to you the secrets of where she was. She told you of what she’d done that day, and she let you into the most intimate of moments. Sometimes a flush hit her cheeks or her lips almost puckered.

In her eyes, the day and nights moved at a pace she dictated.

In the real world she withered, sitting in front of a false window where it always rained and it was always gray, neither awake nor asleep, just gone.

It broke my heart to see it, to feel the lifeless touch of her hand in mine.

But at the same time, I told myself, she wanted this. She wanted this end. She wanted her family and her life there.

The real world was lost to her.

Lana Delacroix had climbed the icy banks of the shore, saved by the man who would be swept away seconds later. She met his eyes as he bobbed once, just above the water for a second. She saw the lifetime they might have shared slip away with the freezing muddy water. In that instant, he’d pulled her with him. He’d taken her heart, her whole heart, with him to his icy grave. He’d saved it, protected it in heaven.

But Lana was not like me. She could live without a heart.

She coasted and floated and acted like a person.

She married someone her parents needed her to.

She bought shoes and perfume and had sex, never making love.

She lived as a shell in a half life, already a robot when the nanobots found her.

They had brought her back.

They alone gave her the life she had witnessed once in a flash, before it was taken.

And now Lana sat, alone, truly a robot.

In the reflection of the window, I saw it all. Me here, me sitting next to her. Not holding her hands, but slumped in my seat as well. In one version of this tale, this cautionary tale, we matched, she and I.

My hospital gown was baggy and my hair was thinning. My skin was pale and my heart missing. The spark in my eyes, the one that suggested I had thoughts and feelings and hopes, was gone.

I too sat, staring out at the gray world, the one where it was always raining and cloudy.

I too saw the world passing by in the flecks of my eyes as I lived in my mind, a host to a whole world. A world with a real moon, stars, and sun and a son, daughter, and husband—a whole galaxy living inside the flecks in my eyes.

This was my nightmare. A ghost I had brought out of the machine with me.

Every time it rained, I checked, to ensure I wasn't in the machine. I wasn't sitting in front of the rain wall in the hospital with Lana, lost in the dreariness of it all.

There was always a chance that I’d gone in and this world was a figment of my imagination.

And I wondered what I would want.

I contemplated the syringe in my bag, the one that linked to the tablet next to it. The one that would bring her back.

The one that would ease my guilt.

I could wake her up and she would be forced back to the land of the living, and she could choose how she lived or died.

She wouldn’t be a slave to the games played with her mind, the games she was playing.

It would ease my guilt to know she was alive and whatever harm fell upon her was her choice.

I reached into the bag, touching it, feeling the cold glass of the siren’s holder, and I contemplated for the longest second of my life.

I glanced back at Lana once more, putting the syringe back at the bottom of my purse.

“I am so sorry, Lana. I want to wish we’d never met.” I blinked a single tear and stared out at the rainy day once more.

The selfish truth was that had I not met Lana, I never would have found my heart again. It would still be lost in la la land, buried. I’d had to crawl through the levels of hell to find it; punish myself enough for everything that I’d fucked up, to dig it up from the ashes where I’d left it. But now that I’d found it, I didn't entirely regret sacrificing her to have it back. For the truth in all this, was that I was the evil queen and she was the sleeping princess.

Had I not joined her in the trip to rock bottom, I wouldn't be clawing my way back up to the land of the living.

But she would be different too. Maybe alive. Probably not. But Gilda would be.

Gilda.

Pushing it all away as a cold shiver of self-hatred crossed my body, I squeezed her hand once more before letting go and getting up.

I walked for the door, taking my guilt with me and leaving her the freedom she had so badly wanted. If my peace of mind over what I’d done to her couldn’t be gained through time and healing, it certainly wouldn’t be gained by bringing Lana back.

She would never recover from being away from her kids in la la land.

I left the hospital in Palm Springs and went directly to the airport, with the window open and my face in the fresh air. I no longer feared the rebirth of spring or the bloom of summer. I no longer hated the feeling of being alive.

Life was for the living and I was amongst them again, a place Lana never wanted to be.

I lived it for Jonathan and Danny and Lana.

I lived it for the kids we would never have and the lives that would never be real.

My heart was no longer with the dead. Splintered little pieces of it remained, but I felt them returned to me in the night when I slept, truly slept. Jonathan or God or maybe the devil himself, returned them with every real dream I enjoyed or suffered. I woke most days refreshed. Sometimes I woke sweaty, shaking with a nightmare, but even those moments were better than being in the dream.

Those nightmares were my regrets and guilt overwhelming me, a feeling I deserved.

Gilda had been a great woman and her death was partially on my hands.

I should have acted sooner.

I should have cut Lana off.

I should have had her admitted.

I should have acknowledged to myself that my machine was evil, that I was too.

I just never did the things I should, not soon enough.

I got lost in numbers and codes and what-ifs and possibilities.

When I landed back in Rhode Island, exhausted and yet enjoying the sensation of being so tired my eyes would hardly remain open, I was jolted awake by a smile from across the airport arrivals gate.

It was the one I had grown to love.

We were friends, and that was okay.

It wasn’t my place to ask for more.

I hadn’t earned the right to more.

Like Anne Elliot, I had chosen the wrong thing, costing me the love of a man I deeply respected.

Mike waved me over as I headed down the arrivals ramp.

“How is she?” he asked, still concerned about my sending Lana to the hospital she had always enjoyed, the one with the window that lied and showed you what you wanted to see.

“I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring her back. She’s stuck awake and sleeping. Exactly as she would have it.” I had nothing else to say about that. She was nothing and everything at every waking moment in my life.

All my guilt. All my possibility. All my warnings.

Most of all, she was my reason for destroying the remaining machines.

She was my reason for taking down the beds and making the room into a second office.

She was my reason for selling my home.

But he was my reason for staying in Rhode Island.

I linked my arm in his and walked to his truck. “How does the old place look?” I asked, acting casual about it. There was nothing casual about selling my house. Nothing casual about the fact that I couldn’t sleep there. Nothing casual about Gilda’s murder. Nothing casual about the blood on the floor and the crazy woman who had lived upstairs.

“It looks good.” He lifted his phone and flashed a picture of the new sign. It had daisies on it and a whimsical name. “Apparently, they’re putting in a pool.”

“Wind Swept Inn.” I smiled, almost laughing.

The poor house. It had been such a scary old Gothic mansion once upon a time and now it was a beachy luxury inn. I wasn't sure the bones would agree with the change, but it was done.

“Will you miss it?” he asked as he got my door.

“No.” I knew my eyes betrayed me with the lie I told.

“I will too.” He shrugged. “But I think you need a fresh start.”

“The new place is so small,” I joked, forcing us to move on in the conversation.

“Yeah, it is. But you’ll get used to five thousand square feet of beachfront property.” He rolled his eyes.

“Are you mocking me?” I narrowed my gaze.

“Of course I am. If I don't, who will?” He nudged me.

The truck ride was occupied with fillers. Small talk and laughing, fake laughing. He kept me at arms reach and I understood, grateful to even be this close.

When he dropped me off, I pointed at the house. “You wanna come in?”

“No, I have to work in the morning. Have a good sleep.” His tone when he said it killed off a piece of me. I hated that he only saw the liar and the villain. He didn’t see the person behind her. The one I was sometimes. The one I was now. The one who had gotten lost. He didn't understand, and I didn't know how to make him see. “Night, Em.”

“You called me a hag and a witch,” I spoke before I could stop myself. “When I met you, I didn’t know I’d gone so far the other way. I needed a renovation because a friend had come by and she saw us and lost her mind. We thought maybe she would bring doctors and straightjackets and lock us up. So we called you to come and fix the house, so at least we weren’t living in some run-down shack.” Tears filled my eyes. “But we weren’t fixing the house up for ourselves. It was so the machines wouldn’t get taken away. All my decisions were for those machines, for that world. Lana’s too.”

“Emma—”

“Let me finish, Mike. I didn’t know what I looked like. I was this broken woman, a shell of a human. I was living in the machine and pretending this life was the lie, and I didn’t look in mirrors or see the house because this world had nothing for me. There was nothing here for me to stay for. I could have died and no one would’ve noticed except Lana, and only because she needed me to bring her out.” The cold hard reality of it burned like acid in my throat but I pressed on, “And then you came and I started to notice things. You might not have seen me, but I saw you. I saw myself through you. Those stares, the horrified stares. They changed everything. They killed me. They forced me to take a hard look. And pretty soon what was in the fantasy of la la land wasn’t better than what was in the real world. Because of you—you, who called me a hag and a witch and told me I looked awful. And when you assumed cancer, I didn’t have the heart to tell you how or why I was so ugly. I just kept trying to fix it. And then you started looking at me like a normal person, sometimes even more than that, and I couldn’t go back. And it was wrong and I’m sorry. I never meant to mislead you or try to evoke your sympathies. I was just so ashamed.” I stepped back, closing the door. I turned and walked to the house, hating that I couldn’t get through it without sobbing.

“Emma, wait.” He jumped out after me.

“No. You don't have to add anything. I don't need a lecture, Mike. I’m not ever going to forgive myself for what I did. I don’t need you to hate me for it too. There is nothing you can say or do that will make me feel worse than I already do. My best friend in the whole world has disowned me. My other best friend is a vegetable who killed her caretaker, a sweet old widow I was really starting to love. And that is on me.” I held my hands out as if to show him the blood on them.

“No, Emma, it’s not.” He walked to me, grabbing me by the arms roughly. “You didn’t choose for Lana. She chose for herself.”

“I could have stopped her.”

“No, she was a junkie. She would have found a way to make it happen for herself. She would have found her way back into that world. Or she would have killed you in the process of trying. You didn’t kill Gilda and you didn’t force Lana to go into the machine. And I shouldn’t have called you a hag and a witch. I say the worst shit when I’m nervous and trying to be funny. My mom says I’m nowhere near as funny as I think I am.”

“Please don’t.” I stepped back, shoving him off. “I just wanted you to know I didn’t want to lie to you—I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. I know I’m not a good person.”

“You’re not the bad one you think you are.”

“I’m also not the one you think I am.”

“Emma, I don't think you’re a good person or a bad one. I think you’re a human who fucks up like the rest of us. You make mistakes. You’re real. This is the real world.”

“My mistakes cost lives.”

“Yeah, they did. So did mine.” His eyes welled too. “I can’t do this anymore.” He admitted it like it was a great secret. His voice cracked and his eyes flooded with emotion joining the tears. “I love you. I have loved you for a long time. Not the moment I met you”—he laughed that bitter chuckle—“but sometime after that. I built that library because I loved you. I spent nights on that stupid Pinterest, going over everything you pinned, smiling and plotting. I thought about you, long before I realized. And when you called me and sounded so terrified, and you said Lana had killed Gilda, I have never been that scared in my life.” His voice cracked again, making more tears spring from my eyes. “I drove across town like a madman. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to you.”

“I’m so sorry, Mike. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not okay, I’m not gonna say it’s okay. It’s fucking insane, is what it is.” He laughed again but this time it sounded like a sob. “But if this pile of insane shit is your burden to carry through life, then I am here to help you carry it. I am here, because I can’t stay away. I know I should. Your baggage puts the head-and-shoulders mom of six kids from five guys, saying she’s an average build, to shame.” He stepped closer, lifting a hand and wiping away a tear. “But I love you, crazy baggage and all. And I will never be as sorry as I am right now for the way I spoke to you and treated you. It was honestly meant to make you laugh, not tear you down.”

“Mike,” I whispered.

“Shut up, Emma. You love me and you want to share your burden and your life with me. I already know that. I’m already carrying some of it for you.” He scooped me up into his arms, pressing his lips against mine.

It was hands down the worst declaration of love in the history of declarations, but it was true.

I sobbed into the kiss and the embrace and he held me. He sat on the bench until the tears slowed and eventually stopped.

He carried me inside, like crossing the threshold of the house after a wedding, kicking the door closed and turning for the bedroom.

Being alone in the house, with no one but my ghosts of course, meant leaving the bedroom door open as he laid me on the bed.

He stood over me, maybe checking my puffy eyes for the permission gentlemen sought before.

I didn't reply with words but chose actions. I started to drag my jacket and tee shirt off as I kicked off my shoes and hauled my jeans down.

He sprung to life as well, grinning in a way that made my heartbeat hasten more than it already was.

He stripped completely naked, completely at attention, and climbed over me, hovering there for a second. “You are so beautiful.” His honey-brown eyes dazzled me, but he wasn't trying to be charming. He was being earnest.

“So are you.” I pulled him down onto me, letting the weight of him become the only weight in my life as he pressed me into the bed and brought me back even more.

Sex in a fantasy was based on all the things you wanted in another person. Sex as an adult in the real world was based entirely on sensation and experience, of which Mike clearly had loads.

We became a mixed-up jumble of sweat and moaning, lip biting and groaning, silhouettes of writhing pleasure against the backdrop of the sea. The sounds and feelings reminded me of la la land but the pleasure wasn't the same, it was truer. It was intense and satisfying, and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, astride his cock, riding him with his hands cupping my breasts as I leaned back, I didn't look the same. We didn't look the same, as in la la land. We were real.

And when it was over there was no awkwardness or rules or polite society. There was a shower filled with laughter and exploring each other’s bodies more.

He had scars, loads of them. A large one on his back from falling off a roof onto a saw bench. His hands were rough and callused but the feel of them against my soft skin was exactly as wonderful as I had imagined. His knees were bad from years of construction, and his heart was bruised from an ex-wife who cheated on him with a workmate before she left him and died.

He didn't easily declare anything and he never offered his feelings without provocation.

He snored and ate terribly.

But he could cook and he loved his mom who he talked on the phone with every week.

He feared his dad who had died years ago but still haunted him in some ways.

He worked too much and laughed too little, but the moment you won that smile from him made up for all the grumpy faces you endured in his presence.

He was real and flawed and that meant he was perfect.

We made love, we didn't fuck. All the things he didn't say were explained there, physically. His hands and his lips and the way he held me so tightly to him that I thought I might burst, enlightened me to the way he felt.