Skinned -1 (24 page)

“Lucky you, right?” I spat out. “So you could ditch me and go back to the one you real y wanted.” Now it made sense. Why he hadn’t wanted to touch me, why he hadn’t wanted to be with me. Why he hadn’t wanted me. Maybe it wasn’t me.

It was
her.

“We stopped for you,” he said. “I was wil ing to try. I told you that.”

Right. Because he pitied me.

“Give him a break,” Zo said. “You don’t know what he was wil ing to give up for you.”

“I guess I do know, now,” I said.
“You
.”

I didn’t ask if they actual y thought they were in love. I didn’t have to. I didn’t care.

“Why?” I asked. Not Walker; he wasn’t worth it. I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said lamely. “It just happened.” But she was lying, I knew that. Nothing “just happened” to Zo. It wasn’t the way she ran her life.

I didn’t have to push it. I could let this be like al the other times, when I just let it go, when I pretended things between us were the same as before, that she was just being Zo, nothing more, nothing less. I could keep pretending.

Except I
couldn’t
keep pretending. Not anymore.

“I mean, why do you hate me this much?”

Her expression didn’t change. “I don’t hate you.”

“You’ve got a weird way of showing it.”

“What do you want from me?” Zo asked. “You want me to give him up? For
you
?”

That would be a start.

“Blood is thicker than water, right?” she said, her lip curling into a sneer.

“Wel , yeah.”

“Then show me,” she said flatly.

“What?”

“Your blood.”

The anger was a flood, drowning my words.

“I can’t believe you,” I final y choked out. “Literal y, I can’t believe this is happening. You’re my
sister.
How the hel can you do this to me?”

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t want you anymore. None of this is my fault.”

“It’s al your fault!” I screamed. “
You
should have been the one in that car. It should have been
you
!” The world froze.

I’d never said it out loud before. I’d promised myself. I wouldn’t say it, I wouldn’t think it, I wouldn’t feel it. I
would not
blame her. I wouldn’t process the ifs.
If
she’d been in the car,
if
she’d died that day instead of me. I would stil have my body. I would stil have my boyfriend. I would stil have my life.

I couldn’t take it back.

Walker put an arm around her shoulder.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said slowly, her voice cold. “But it wasn’t me. It was you.” I didn’t know what she was thinking. We were sisters, but I never knew what she was thinking. She wrapped her arm around Walker’s waist. “Let’s go,” she murmured. He nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, over his shoulder as they walked away.

She never turned back.

I don’t know how I ended up on the ground. But suddenly that’s where I was, sitting with my back to the wal , only a few feet from where they’d been kissing.

Auden sat next to me. I stil couldn’t look at him. Not that I wanted him to go—but I didn’t want him to stay, either. I didn’t want anything except to not know. My brain was a computer: It should have been possible to delete.

“He’s not good enough for you,” Auden said final y.

I wanted to laugh. Such a lame cliché. True—but stil lame.

“And your sister…You know she didn’t mean what she said.”

“She meant it,” I said flatly. Zo had only told one lie that afternoon—that she didn’t hate me. Because obviously she did. Fine. That made us even.

“Okay, so she’s a bitch and he’s an asshole.” Auden looked hopeful. “Does that help?”

I had to laugh. “No. But thank you.”

“Do you think—No, never mind.”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s none of my business.”

“Auden, I think we’ve just established you’re the only one I’ve got. So if it’s not your business, then whose would it be?”

“I was just wondering…” He hesitated. “I mean, you’re obviously upset.”

“You noticed.”

“Is it because you stil …I mean, if Walker wanted to get back together, would you…?”

“You want to know if I’m stil in love with him?” I asked.

He nodded. “But like I say, it’s not real y my business, so…”

“It’s fine.” I just wasn’t sure how to answer. “I’m over him, I think,” I said, and it felt true. “If he was with someone else, anyone but—” I couldn’t say it out loud. Instead I lowered my head and pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes. “What he said, about being wil ing to try? He was. And what if he’s the only one who…What if no other guy…I mean, who would want me like this?”

His hand brushed my neck, flitted to my shoulder, then disappeared. “He’s not the only one.”

“Whatever.”

“No. Lia. I’ve been waiting to—I mean, I didn’t know how—I have to tel you—” The hand was back, resting firmly on my shoulder this time, heavy. “He’s not the only one who would. Want you. Like this.”

Shit.

“Auden, you don’t have to—”

But he wouldn’t stop.

“I know you probably don’t see me like that,” he said, talking quickly, like if he paused for breath he wouldn’t get himself going again, although I guess that was too much to ask for. “But I think you’re amazing and when I’m with you, it’s like we real y understand each other, you know, and I think you’re beautiful, you’re more beautiful like this than you ever were before—”

Not now,
I thought, furious with him, furious with myself.
Not now, when I
need
you. Don’t do this.

“I know I shouldn’t say anything, I know, I always say something, I always ruin things, I should just let it happen, but I can’t let you think that no one would—because I would, I do, I just…” His entire body had gone rigid. “What do you think?”

“I’m a little…This has been a weird day for me,” I said, stal ing. “You know, with—” I glanced toward the spot they’d been leaning against, where I imagined I could stil see their afterimage bright against the bricks.

“I know.” He shook himself al over. “I know. It was stupid. Bad timing.”

Damn right. But, “No, it’s okay.”

“It’s
not
okay. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have thought—”

I kissed him.

Because he wanted me to. Because he
wanted
me. Because no one else did. Because he’d saved me, more than once.

Because why not?

And in the fairy tale that’s it, the end, happily ever after.

In the fairy tale they never mention the part about your tongues scraping against each other or your foreheads bumping or your nose getting bent and flattened or his tongue just sitting there in your mouth, limp and wet, and then spinning around like a pinwheel, bouncing back and forth between your fake palate and your porcelain teeth. In the fairy tale they never mention how it tastes, although to me it didn’t taste like anything at al .

I’m not saying he was a bad kisser.

I’m not saying he was great, because he wasn’t. But I’m not saying it was his fault, even though maybe it was. Or maybe it was mine.

I’m just saying it was bad.

Worse than bad. It was nothing. Like kissing my own bal ed-up fist, as I’d done for practice when I was a kid. I wanted not to care, to just go with it, because it would have been so easy, it would have made him happy, and it would have made me…not alone.

When our faces separated, he was smiling, his eyes glazed and dewy, his mouth half open, like he wasn’t sure whether to speak or to lunge in for another round.

“I’m sorry,” I said as gently as I could. “I can’t.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No!” I said quickly. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

He sagged, a deflated bal oon. “I should have known you would never…not with me.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just too much right now.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he said bitterly. “I know I’m not Walker. I do have a mirror, you know. I get it.”

“It
not
you.” I wanted to touch him, to shake him. “Everything’s so…screwed up. And I’m”—I gestured down at myself, at the body—“I’m different.
We’re
different, and I don’t think the two of us…”

“Is this about what that guy said? Jude?” Auden’s fingers flickered across the bandage on his palm. “I told you, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“It’s not about what he said. It’s what I know. This wouldn’t work. And if it didn’t…” Now I did touch him—I took his hand. He pul ed away. “I don’t want to mess this up, what we have. I can’t risk that.”

“Why not?” He was edging toward a whine. “If you real y want something, sometimes it’s worth taking a chance.” But what if you real y
didn’t
want something?

“It’s not going to work, Auden.”

“Because you don’t
want
it to work,” he snapped.

“Because it won’t!” Why couldn’t he just let it go? “Stop pushing it!”

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “I’m scared too. But we can try this together. We
can
.”

I needed to make him stop. And I was pretty sure I knew how to do it.

“Why do you real y want this so bad?” I asked in a low voice. “Is it me, or is it this stupid body?”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Admit it, you’re obsessed with what I am, with what it’s like being a mech, with everything about it—”

“Because I’m your friend,” he protested. “Because I care!”

“But that came later. You were obsessed before—before you even knew me. You couldn’t stay away.”

“So I was curious! So what? And you know I was just trying to help.”

“Maybe—or maybe you’ve got some weird mech fetish. And you can’t stop until you know how
everything
works, right?” He drew himself up very straight and very stil . “I can’t believe you would say that.”

I couldn’t believe it either. And I couldn’t keep going, even if it was the one thing guaranteed to drive him away. Because I didn’t want him to go away. I just wanted him to shut up and leave it alone.

“I didn’t mean it,” I admitted.

“I would never…” I could barely hear him. “That’s not who I am.”

“I know.”

Then neither of us said anything. We just sat with our backs to the wal and our shoulders almost, but not quite, touching.

“I shouldn’t have pushed,” he said, final y cutting through the dead air.

“I shouldn’t have said that to you. That was cruel.”

Another long pause.

“We would never have been friends, would we, if it weren’t for your accident,” he said, asking a question that wasn’t a question. “We probably would have graduated without ever having a single conversation.”

I kept staring straight ahead. “Probably.”

“And even if we had talked…”

“You would have hated me,” I said. “Shal ow, superficial bitch, remember?”

“You wouldn’t have bothered to hate me. It wouldn’t have been worth it to you.”

I didn’t deny it.

“But I’m different now,” I said. “Everything’s different.”

“I know. But would you keep it that way?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had a choice, if you could go backward. Would you want to be the old Lia Kahn again, with your old life and your old friends—or stay like this, who you are now?”
Stay
with me,
he didn’t say, but it was al over his face.

“Auden—”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “Please.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “I’d go back. Of course I’d go back.”

“Even if it meant losing—”

“No matter what it meant,” I said firmly. “If I could have my body back, my
life
back, don’t you think I’d want it? No matter what?”

“No matter what.” He stood up. “Good to know.”

“Auden, that’s not fair. You can’t expect me to—”

“I don’t expect anything.”

“Don’t go,” I said. “Not like this.”

“I can’t stay,” he said. “Not like this.”

He left. I stayed.
Maybe I should have tried,
I thought.
Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was me.

Before, rejecting guys had been easy—and I’d had a lot of practice. Before, I knew what it felt like when it felt right. I knew what I wanted. And I knew there would always be someone new who would want me.

Before.

He’s just not my type
, I thought.
Too scrawny. Too intense. Too weird.

But I couldn’t be sure. Walker was my type—and I didn’t want him, either. Not real y. Not anymore.

Maybe I wasn’t programmed to want. Maybe that was just something else lost, like running, like music. Something else that had slipped through the cracks of their scanning and modeling. Maybe it was one of those intangibles—like a soul, like free wil —that didn’t exist, not physical y, and so wasn’t supposed to exist at al .

“Nothing was left but an absence.”

T
he waterfal wasn’t loud enough to drown out my thoughts. But it was a start. I found myself a wide, flat rock near the bank, a few feet from where the water plunged over the edge. The place looked different in the light. For one thing, you could see the bottom clearly. Which made it look even farther away. Beyond the rumbling white water, the river ribboned out flat and calm again, but not for long. There was another precipice, another plunge, another fal . From where I sat, I couldn’t see whether it was as long or as deep; the river just dropped away. I took a pic—not of the second waterfal , but of the empty space beyond the river, the air where there should have been land. It was crap—a little crooked, like I’d tried an artistic shot and failed miserably when, in fact, I just hadn’t cared enough to steady the lens. I posted it to my new zone anyway. Anything to fil up the empty space.

A mist rose from the gushing water. I was tempted to stand by the edge, wave my hand through the dewy cloud, but that seemed too close. I might have fal en in; I might have jumped. I stayed where I was, watching the water, trying not to think about Auden and Walker, and especial y not about Zo.

But I couldn’t help hoping that one of them might voice me to apologize, to tel me I’d misunderstood and the whole thing was a hideous mistake. One hour passed, then two. No one did.