Skinned (27 page)

H
e’s not dead,
I told myself, standing outside the hospital, wondering what to do next. That’s what counts. He won’t die, not for a long time—and not because of this.

It should have felt like good news.

He doesn’t want to die,
I told myself. He may have said it. But only because he didn’t yet understand that some things are bearable, even when you’re sure that they’re not.

I understand,
I told myself.
I can help him.

But the second part of that was a lie. And maybe he was right, and the first part was too.

I told myself:
This is not your fault.

I told myself the anger would pass, and he would forgive.

Denial bleeds into anger,
I told myself. Then would come bargaining and depression, and then, finally, always, acceptance. He would grieve the loss of the life he had wanted. He would accept my help.

I told myself I would find a way to get by without his.

I lied.

It was a cold day. It was always a cold day. And, as always, it didn’t matter to me.

Who was I supposed to go to with this?
Auden
was the person I went to. Auden was the one who understood. He was supposed to be the solution, not the problem. So who was I supposed to talk to about losing the only person I could talk to? Who was supposed to cure my loneliness if I was alone?

I was alone.

And maybe it was my fault.

Or maybe not,
I thought suddenly. Auden would never have been hurt if I hadn’t gone to the waterfall, but I would never have gone to the waterfall if Jude hadn’t shown me the way. If he hadn’t practically
dared
me to jump, turned it into some huge symbolic statement of my identity instead of what it was: a dumb stunt. Crazy, like Auden had said. Not that I had bothered to listen.

I need to see you
,
now
, I texted Jude, and he sent me an address without asking why. Maybe he just assumed I’d always needed him and was only now realizing it. He was just enough of an ass to think that way.

This is not my fault,
I told myself again, and there was more force behind it this time.
It’s his.

It was a different house than before. More of an estate, really; almost a feudal village, complete with outlying buildings dotting the grounds and, atop the highest hill, a turreted Gothic monstrosity that looked like a fairy-tale castle if the fairy tale was
Sleeping Beauty
, where the princess’s home was decrepit, covered with thorns and forgotten. Jude met me outside.

“You live
here
?”

“It’s Quinn’s,” Jude said. “She’s invited some of us to stay…for a while.”

“She barely knows you.”

His lips curled up. “I guess she knows enough.” He guided us down an overgrown path, headed toward a giant greenhouse. There was nothing inside but a thicket of dead plants. Most of the windowpanes were empty; the ground crunched with shattered glass. “So, you come here to chat about real estate?”

“It’s Auden,” I said, suddenly sorry I had come. It felt wrong to say his name out loud, here. To Jude. “He’s hurt.”

Jude nodded. “He’s an org. I hear it happens from time to time.”

I couldn’t believe him. “You don’t even care? You’re not even going to ask how bad?”

“He’s not my friend, as he’s always been so quick to point out. Why should I care?”

“Bad,”
I informed him, whether he cared or not. “Thanks to
you
.”

Jude raised an eyebrow. Nothing touched him.
Nothing
.

“You pushed me,” I said. “You wouldn’t accept that I wasn’t like you. And you just had to keep pushing and pushing, all that crap about losing control and letting go and I finally did, and
he’s
the one who has to pay? Congratulations, Jude,” I said bitterly. “It all worked out according to your plan. He hates me, and I’ve got nothing, just like you wanted. Just like you predicted, right? I’m fucking alone. Thanks for your help. Thanks a lot.”

Jude leaned against the door frame of the greenhouse, ignoring the protruding shards of glass. “Deciphering incoherent rants isn’t really a specialty of mine,” he said, still perfectly calm. Detached. “But if I’ve got this right, you did something, your org got hurt, and this is somehow my fault because I told you to do it in the first place? You always do everything you’re told?”

I let myself sink to the ground. It sounded even stupider out loud than it had in my head. The grass was still wet from a morning rain, and the cold water seeped into my filthy, borrowed clothes.

“I hate you,” I said.

“Not much of an apology. But I’ll take it. Want to tell me what happened?”

I told him. All of it, from the fight with Zo straight through to the moment in the hospital room, the sound of Auden’s voice—the
tone
of Auden’s voice, cold and mechanical—when he told me to leave.

And when I was done, Jude nodded. “Tragic,” he said. As emotionless as ever. I wondered if he’d discovered the secret to shutting down his emotions for good. And if he would teach it to me.

“Feel free to do your little happy dance,” I said. “I know you hated him.”

“I never hated him. I hated the idea of you pretending that he could matter to you or that he could ever understand you. That the two of you were anything but a disaster.”

“Disaster’s right.
I
was the disaster,” I said. “I ruined his life.”

Jude didn’t say anything. I looked up. “Aren’t you going to tell me it wasn’t my fault? That I shouldn’t blame myself?”

Jude shrugged. “I don’t lie.”

“
He
decided to jump in after me. I didn’t force him. I didn’t need saving.”

“
I
know,” Jude said. “Because of who I am. He didn’t—because of who he is.”

“Why is it so important to you to believe that we’re different, mechs and orgs?” I said. “Why do you need me to hate them?”

He shook his head slowly. “We don’t hate them, Lia. They hate us.”

Auden didn’t hate me.

At least, he didn’t used to.

“We’re machines,” Jude said. “Unchanging. Perfect—and that perfection is our only flaw. They age, they get sick, injured, always something. They
decay
. We stay the same. We drift in time; they drown in it. They’ve got a deadline; we don’t. And it’s the one thing they can’t forgive.”

“It doesn’t have to make us inhuman.”

“It
does
!” he shouted, raising his voice for the first time. “Humans are mortals. Mortals die. Living creatures
die
. The whole concept of
living
is meaningless without its opposite. Light is defined by dark. Life is defined by death. Death makes them what they are. Absence of death makes us what
we
are. That’s the difference. It’s absolute. You don’t get to just wish it away.” Jude slammed his fist against the door frame, splintering the rotted wood. “You never understood. You never even bothered to try. It didn’t occur to you that
that’s
why we go to the waterfall, why we take risks, why we push ourselves past the brink? It’s a reminder—that for us, death is not an option. It’s a reminder of everything that makes us different. You can blame yourself for Auden all you want—because
you
didn’t want to remember. So you let yourself forget.”

“But—”

“No,” he said fiercely. “
You
came to
me
this time. So you can either go or you can listen. You want to hear this or not?”

And maybe that was the real reason I’d come. To hear what I already knew but couldn’t believe. Not unless I heard it from someone else. I nodded.

“You got careless,” Jude said. “You let yourself believe that you and Auden were the same. You got emotionally tied to an org and refused to accept the reality of who you are—and the fact that it’s
not
who you were. You ignored the truth, and that put everyone around you in danger. Especially him.”

“It was an accident,” I argued. “Bad luck.”

“What would it have been if
he’d
gotten shot last night, in the city?” Jude asked. “Or if some thug had jumped him while we were up on the roof? Could’ve happened.”

“I didn’t think—I don’t know.”

“You do know,” Jude said. “You knew then, too. You did what you wanted to do anyway. Like you should have. But he didn’t belong there in the first place. You knew that, too. You just didn’t care enough to stop.”

“I care about him more than someone like
you
could understand,” I spat out.

“You care about yourself,” Jude said, smiling. “Something I understand entirely too well.”

I stood up. “I don’t have to stay here and listen to this.”

“No.” Jude stretched himself along the door frame like a cat. “Run away. It’s what you’re best at.”

I stayed.

“You brought him to that waterfall,” Jude said. “You brought him to the city. You would have dragged him somewhere else tomorrow. Or the next day. He’s probably lucky this happened. The next stupid decision might have gotten him killed.”

“I would never—”

“And that would have been your fault too.”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked. “Lock myself in a closet and shut down, to keep the world safe from the horror that is me?”

“None of my business,” Jude said. “There’s no one I care about in the world. The org world, at least. But if I were you, and I still had someone, someone important…”

Auden, I thought, in his metal cage. My father, on his knees. Zo, hiding behind a locked door, guilt tearing her apart. We had more in common now, I thought suddenly. Just imagine the sisterly bonding possibilities:
So, who did
you
almost kill today?

“I would think about what I was doing to them by denying reality,” Jude said. “By pretending. I’d think about who I was hurting and who I would hurt next.”

And again, I saw him. My father. On his knees. Wishing me dead.

“You’ve got options,” Jude said.

“You?” I asked in disgust.

“Us. You’re one of us. Under the right conditions, you could thrive. Or…” He glanced behind him, into the yellowish brown forest of dead plants. “You know what they say. Live like an org…”

“Die like an org?” I guessed sourly.

Jude frowned. “Except that
you’ll
never be the one to die.”

“I’m not like you,” I said. “I don’t want to be like you.”

Jude stared at me, and when he spoke, his voice was low and intense, filled with a new emotion. Anger, maybe. Or regret. “
None
of us are volunteers.”

I left a message for my parents that I would meet them at BioMax, that I needed all of them, Zo included. That I was in trouble. And after not hearing from me in a couple days, I knew they would come.

Which meant I would be free to go home. Slip into the empty house, pack up the few things I couldn’t live without, and disappear again without any messy good-byes. Without anyone crying and pleading with me to stay, which I didn’t think I could handle. Or without anyone smiling and waving me out the door.

Which I
knew
I couldn’t handle.

My parents fell for it. But when I opened the door to my bedroom, Zo was sitting inside. Waiting for me.

“You’re not allowed in here when I’m not home,” I said automatically.

“This is my sister’s room. I’m allowed in here whenever I want.”

I decided to ignore her. She couldn’t stop me from leaving. Maybe it would even be easier with her there. The perfect reminder of why I couldn’t stay. Why everyone would be better off if I left.

“Whatever you are, I know how you think,” Zo said. “Because you think like Lia. Which means you can’t fool me.”

I stuffed some clothes into a bag. Not my favorites, just whatever was lying on top of the pile. I was supposed to be starting a new life, creating a new identity. Which meant my old favorites were irrelevant.

“You’re running away,” Zo said.

“What clued you in?” I muttered, even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t engage. Also not needed in the bag or in the new life: My track trophies. The dried petals from the rose Walker gave me after our first breakup and makeup. The stuffed tiger that had belonged to my mother and my grandmother when they were children, that I had never actually slept with myself because it smelled. The book, an actual paper book, Auden had found in his attic and given to me, because he liked that kind of thing and so I pretended to, something called
Galapagos
. I hadn’t read it, partly because I was afraid of breaking it and partly because it looked boring. Still, it had meant something to me, because it had meant something to him. Not anymore. I didn’t need any of it, I realized. Or at least, I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have come home at all.

“This is going to kill Mom and Dad,” Zo said. “Did you think about that?”

I dropped the bag, kicked it under the bed. I could get new clothes. Wasn’t that the point? New everything. “You’re the one who said I should disappear. That everyone would be happier that way.”

Zo shifted her weight and started rubbing her thumb back and forth across the knuckles of her other hand. The way she did when she was uncomfortable. Or embarrassed. “If this is about all that stuff I said…Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to make you—you know. Leave.”

“Not everything’s about you.”