Root of Unity (22 page)

“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “But do you know what—the way you’re talking, what you’re saying, it sounds…it sounds like something happened. To you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My memories jumbled up against each other, a chaos of kaleidoscoping emotion. “Yeah,” I said. “Something happened.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” That much I was sure of.

“Okay,” he said.

I took a sip of the cider. It was still too hot, but the scalding burn fit my mood. The whiskey spread through my senses, a blessed surcease.

“I wish I could do something,” Checker said, the words low and weighted like it was what he wanted more than anything in the world right now. “I wish I could fix it for you.”

“Me too,” I said. Emotions I didn’t want to have balled up inside me, stifling, strangling.

Checker snaked one arm around me and leaned me into him. I stiffened for a moment and then let him. The sensation was odd, a warring mix of relief and strangeness, that someone would touch me like that who wasn’t trying to hurt me. I leaned into the strangeness, trying to let my mind blank out, to divorce myself from the desolation just for a moment.

Some time later, a faint
ding
sounded from the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” Checker murmured. He gave me a squeeze and kissed the top of my head before shifting back to his chair and heading into the kitchen.

Wait.

What?

People didn’t make affectionate gestures toward me. I didn’t know how to parse one. Didn’t know what I was supposed to do in response.

I sat and waited, trying to mull it over, but my brain stalled out against the swamp of depression and self-pity. I finished the cider instead of thinking; it was lukewarm now but still spicy-sweet, the whiskey strong and sharp.

Checker came back after a few minutes, balancing a tray with steaming soup bowls. He slid it to the coffee table and moved to sit next to me again, leaning forward to arrange the food. “Here. You should eat something. It’s good, I promise.”

“You kissed me,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I said it, except he’d confused me, and I was too drained, too empty, to try to translate social cues the way I was probably supposed to.

“Sorry?” He looked up, and I could almost see his thoughts rewind. “Oh! I wasn’t—sorry. I didn’t mean—not that I don’t find you attractive, of course, but I wasn’t trying to—”

“No, it’s okay,” I assured him. “Wait. Attractive?”

He looked befuddled. “Well, yes.”

I squinted at him. These sorts of revelations were supposed to make you happy or angry or upset or disconcerted or…or something, but I didn’t feel anything like that. It didn’t matter whether Checker wanted to jump into bed with me, or whatever he might want. Because nothing mattered.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” Checker said earnestly. “It’s not like I want to—well, anything. I just meant, you know, in the semi-objective sense of women I would find attractive, being that I’m me, I mean…you’re on the list. It’s, uh, it’s not like I want anything from you.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” I said. “I was just confused.”

“About what?”

“You flirt with everyone,” I pointed out mechanically. “You don’t do it with me.”

His face wrinkled in surprise. “Well, I
did,
when we first met, but you never flirted back. I try not to be a creeper.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Cas?” He touched my arm. I’d never taken note before of how tactile Checker was. The relief-mixed-with-strangeness flooded back, an almost dangerous feeling. Daring me.

“I don’t want anything from you, either,” I said. I slid my hand down so I was touching his, very lightly. It was the strangest sensation in the world. “But I want…to not think for a while. Is that okay? Can we do that?”

He turned his hand under mine, rotating it to interlace our fingers. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. We can do that.”

We let the soup grow cold on the coffee table.

Chapter 22

Checker’s breath
was slow and even beside me, but I stayed staring up into the dark. I hadn’t drunk enough to pass out, and right now I wasn’t even sure if that would be enough.

Besides, I felt…strange. Not better, not exactly, but less…untethered. Not because of the sex; I didn’t think that was the important piece. All I knew was that I felt less desolate, here, with the warmth of another person beside me, a person who cared enough to let me in out of the rain and be…whatever I needed.

Weird.

I didn’t realize I’d said the word out loud until Checker stirred next to me. “Weird?” he said sleepily, a touch of humor in his voice. “Well, I’ve had girls say worse.”

I smacked him lightly across the chest. “No, I meant…” I wasn’t sure what I had meant. I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, or why, or even if the physical intimacy had been significant. What did I usually feel after sex? I thought back, but the memories were hazy, like mirages that were only there if I saw them out of the corner of my eye. Maybe they weren’t even real at all.

“Don’t worry about it,” murmured Checker, shifting to snug one arm around me under the blanket. His goatee was tickling my shoulder, and he was very warm. And smelled nice, like slightly burned plastic. “The legs thing, I know. It’s different.”

I could feel myself flushing in the dark, and tried to explain too fast, my sudden discomfort at what he had thought making the words trip over each other. “That’s not what I—that wasn’t even—okay? It’s all weird to me. That’s what I meant. Not you, but, this.” I wasn’t even sure what I meant by “this”—intimacy, friendship, the bizarre idea that someone would be there to catch me when I fell—but I didn’t know how to articulate any of that, so I went with the easiest option. “Sex,” I grumbled at the ceiling. “I don’t remember if I ever—I think this might have been the first time, for me.”

Checker didn’t say anything.

“Christ,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not. I’m just…confused,” he said, and I was acutely and awkwardly aware we were reversing our conversation from the previous night. “What do you mean, you think?”

“It’s one of those things,” I said, already tired of discussing this. “I thought I had, but I can’t pinpoint…you know.”

“No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t.”

“I probably forgot, that’s all,” I mumbled into the pillow.

“You…forgot?” he echoed.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything else, but the silence was too weighty, full of pressure and worry and expectation.

“Look,” I exploded, “It’s not a big deal. Maybe I just got really drunk one night and forgot.”

“You’re incapable of getting that drunk. You’d have to inject it into your veins.”

“Then maybe it was something other than alcohol. Or something. Look, there are a hundred possible explanations. I’m telling you, it’s no big deal.”

“You think someone might have
drugged
you and you say—you say it isn’t a big deal?” Checker shifted, levering himself up on one elbow next to me. “Cas, you’re worrying me. Roofies make you forget; it could’ve been—” He bit down on the sentence.

“Rape?” I supplied. “So what?”

“So
what?”

“If it was, it’s my business. It’s my life, and I say it’s nothing. Drop it.”

“It is your life, but—Cas,
please.”

“Oh, come on!” I cried. The exclamation ripped out of me too raw, the emotions from the past twenty-four hours tearing forth in a torrent. “Why are you making such a big deal about this? Haven’t you ever forgotten anything? Like, who was the first person you kissed? What was your first computer? The first guy you ever saw play Doctor Who? See?”

“Charlene Gilligan, an IBM 286 in my foster parents’ basement—and the first actor I ever saw as
the Doctor
was Peter Davison,” said Checker.

I digested that. I hadn’t expected him to be able to answer. “You must have a freakishly good memory.”

“I don’t.”

“Then clearly you have a skewed sense of priorities, if that’s what you’re using your brain space for.” I put as much snideness into the words as I could.

“What do you use yours for, then?” He didn’t sound offended, only a little queer.

“Important stuff.” I pulled away from him, turning over. “Job details. Things I might actually need.”

“And what did you do before retrieval work?” asked Checker, still in that strange-sounding voice.

“Kid stuff, I guess. Let it go.”

“You guess?”

“It was a long time ago,” I growled. “And I told you to drop it.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, I get it,” said Checker. “I do. But just tell me one thing. This thing about you not remembering your first time—that’s not a cover? You really don’t remember?”

I blinked. My emotions were spiraling back down into depression, and I was so
tired.
I didn’t have the energy for this. “I said I don’t remember.”

“So it’s not a cover for, uh, for whatever you did before.”

I snorted. “Don’t be an idiot. If I wanted to have a cover for anything in my past, I’d have a good story; I wouldn’t claim a bad memory.”

“That’s kind of what I thought.” He still sounded funny.

I buried my face in the pillow. “Christ almighty, Checker. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“What was your name?” he said. “Before you were Cas Russell?”

I felt as if I had been walking through the dark and had missed a step, even though I was still lying on the bed. The interview with the DHS flashed back to me, Agent Jones aggressive and in my face:
What’s your real name?
“That’s always been my name,” I said.

“I don’t think it was.” Checker’s voice was very soft.

“You’re on crack,” I snapped. “You’re trying to tell me what my name is?”

“Who was it?” said Checker. “Who erased you?”

“Who
what?”

“Prior to a few years ago, you don’t exist. I’m
good,
Cas. Who erased you?”

“You background checked me?” I squawked.

“Oh, don’t sound so shocked! Of course I background checked you. Arthur comes in with some new person, who works with you-know-who, not to mention I’m
paranoid,
Russell, as you well know; I background check everybody, just like you do! And you don’t exist more than a few years back.” He laughed a little, but it didn’t have much humor in it. “I always wanted to ask you who did it. Someone good, it had to be, to hide it from me—”

“
Nobody
erased me!” I cut in over him. “Or maybe you did to be funny and you forgot, huh? Ever think of that?”

“No, because it’s stupid!”

“You’re calling me stupid now?”

“What—no! Cas, talk to me—”

I tumbled gracelessly off the bed into the narrow space next to it and began angrily gathering up my things. “My childhood just isn’t that interesting. End of story. I—
ow!”
I cried, barking my shin on something hard and sharp in the dark.

“Lights,” barked Checker. The lights flared brightly for a moment, exploding painfully against my retinas, before Checker cried, “Dim!” and they retreated to a more comfortable grayness, leaving purple splotches dancing in my vision. “Cas,” he said more quietly, and it almost sounded like pleading. “Just tell me
something.
Something from your childhood. A movie you liked. Your parents’ names. A pet you had. I don’t know. Something. Please.”

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“Something,” he repeated. “Humor me? Please?”

“No. This is dumb.”

“For love of God! Tell me something or I swear I will plague you in person and through every electronic device you own until you do!”

I tried to look at him, but the purple splotches were still floating in front of me, and I could only vaguely see his outline sitting up in bed. I couldn’t figure out why this was so important to him.

I cast back for the type of stupid sentimental thing he was looking for, just to end this conversation forever. It was one of those things that seemed like it should be easy but wasn’t once I started to think about it, as if I’d been told to think of five blue-eyed people off the top of my head. I’d know that I’d met five, or at least seen them in movies, but doing it on the spot?

“Come on,” I said after a moment. “It’s dumb kid stuff. Who cares?”

“Anything,” Checker insisted. “A book you read. A teacher you had. A friend’s name—”

“Yeah, like I had a lot of friends.”

“Then an enemy’s name! Something!”

I paused a moment longer, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it, I guess. Why the hell do you care so much?”

“Because someone erased all records of you, and you don’t remember whether you’ve had sex before, and neither of those things bother you when they should freak you the hell out!”

“What?” The purple splotches were clearing from my vision, and I could see Checker’s face now. He was…upset. Agitated. “I just don’t want to talk about this, okay? Forget I said anything.”

“Forget,” he said bitterly. “Like you have?”

Anger surged up in me, hot and black and unexpected in its intensity. “Just because I don’t remember a few minor details—”

“Cas!” With a grunt, Checker had levered himself forward to the edge of the bed, and was suddenly grabbing me, his grip surprisingly strong. “Listen to yourself! Something is wrong here!”

I shouldered him off. “Nothing is wrong with me!”

“
Yes, there is!
And you should be able to tell that by the fact that you won’t even entertain the possibility! Go ahead. Prove me wrong. You’re a mathematician—prove it, and I won’t say anything ever again.”

“I’m not a mathematician,” I said coldly. “I’m a computationalist at best.”

“Bullshit. Prove me wrong.” I stared at him in shock, the weight of my confession the previous night pressing down on us, but he stared back defiantly, and something in me was insanely glad he still thought of me as a mathematician even after what I had told him.

Even though this was a pointless exercise for me, given that I already knew he was wrong. And could prove it, as soon as I thought of some innocuous, trivial fact that would satisfy his stupid requirement.

“Did you go to an elementary school?” Checker pressed. “High school?”