But the emotions were quickly hijacked by a flash of suspicion and distrust. Why had they kept her memories intact? Why hadn't they wiped them? What were they planning now?
I picked up the small wooden symbol and turned to find Seraphina gazing at me from the front porch of the house.
She smiled and walked tentatively in my direction.
I held up the knot. "I didn't tell you about this symbol the last time."
"I found it," she proclaimed. "I found it drawn on the wall next to my bed. I believe I drew it there. As a reminder. I made the assumption that the symbol was a reference to you."
I smiled. "It was."
She nodded. "What does it mean?"
I took a deep breath and walked toward her. "I means eternity. It means forever."
"Forever," she repeated quietly, playing with the word on her perfect lips. She reached out and touched the knot of twigs. "I like the symbol."
I never took my eyes off of her. It was an easy thing to do ... stare at her forever.
"I know," I whispered. "It's your favorite symbol."
"Why?" she asked, looking up to meet my gaze. My eyes blazed with the connection, heat radiating through my entire body.
I reached out my hand and slowly extended it toward her face. I shivered as my fingertips grazed her flawless skin. "Because you said we are forever. Like the poem."
"'Sonnet 116' by William Shakespeare," she said, referencing our time together just the other night, when I used the poem to trigger her memory of me.
"Yes."
"Will you read it to me?" she asked.
I smiled. "Always."
Two hours later, the sun was low in the sky, almost completely vanished behind the wall that they built between us. Sera lay with her head in my lap and I softly stroked her hair, trying to commit each individual silky strand to memory.
It felt like a perfect moment.
So perfect, I could almost make myself forget all the ways they tried to keep us apart.
"One more time," she demanded.
I dragged my fingers behind her ear and tickled her. "Again?" I teased. "But you must have it memorized by now."
"Of course I have it memorized," she said. "I've had it memorized since the first time you read it. But it sounds so much better when you say it."
I laughed and picked up the old leather-bound book lying next to me, opening it to the earmarked page. The only poem she ever wanted to hear.
She reached up and touched the worn spine. "Where did you get this?" she asked.
I gazed down at her, loving the way the fading sunlight danced across her face. "From the Diotech historical archives. Is this the first time you've seen a real book?"
I knew it wasn't. I had brought her so many books before. Books I knew she didn't remember now. She loved the feeling of their soft paper pages, the slightly raised texture of the words. I admitted there was something about them that my slate just didn't have.
She shook her head, surprising me. For a moment I thought she was going to tell me that she remembered. That the stories and texts I shared with her somehow stayed with her. But she didn't. Instead, she said, "Rio collects them."
A dark shadow suddenly passed over us. Everything came screaming back to me like a head-on collision with a hovercopter. Diotech. This house. This prison. Dr. Rio and his infuriating arrogance.
"So are you going to read it or not? Because I don't have all day." Her voice was teasing and demanding, it brought me back to her with a chuckle. Just like she had always been able to do.
I tapped her nose with my fingertip and focused back on the book.
I cleared my throat importantly and began to read the sonnet in the most obnoxious British accent I could muster. "'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.'"
She batted at my arm. "No! Not like that."
"What?" I asked, gazing down at her with a coy smile. "You don't like my British accent? I'm just trying to give you a real authentic experience. Shakespeare was British, you know, so that's probably how it sounded in his head."
She giggled. It was like birds chirping, angels singing, everything beautiful wrapped up into one precious sound. "Read it your way," she insisted.
I smiled endearingly at her. "Okay."
I had started over so many times with Seraphina. I had watched her unremember and re-remember me over and over again. But this was something I would never tire of reminding her.
I would read her this poem for as long as I lived.
As I spoke the words printed on the ancient page, I let them sink deep into me. I let them drown me in the emotion of a forgotten time when things like this were actually said. When love was actually expressed this way.
A time before Diotech.
Before walls.
Before memories were ripped out of your brain like uprooted trees.
"'Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"
When I looked down, Sera's eyes were closed, her long dark lashes fluttering slightly.
I didn't speak, knowing that I couldn't top Shakespeare's words if I tried. They would always be enough and never be enough at the same time.
Nothing would ever be enough when it came to Seraphina.
Including me.
"Shakespeare couldn't have written that poem today." Her voice broke through the silence, startling me slightly. I hadn't even noticed I'd absentmindedly started stroking her hair again.
"Why not?"
"Because love like that can't exist today."
The raw pain in her voice was like someone standing on my chest.
"That's not true," I tried to assure her, bending down and kissing her forehead. "What about us?"
But the sorrow was already creeping into me, penetrating my veins, flowing through my blood. Because deep down, I knew she was right. I'd known it since the moment I knew I loved her.
Even if we were the exception to the rule, our circumstances made it impossible for us to truly be together.
But I didn't want her to know I was feeling that way. I was determined to be the ray of sunlight in her dark life.
"You are my ever-fixed mark," I whispered into her ear. "Just like in the poem."
She lifted her wrist and traced the thin black line with her fingertip, the one we tried to cut out only a few nights before. "We will always be kept apart. As long as we're here, we can never be together. They'll never let us."
She peered into my eyes then, and I knew I couldn't hide it anymore. I couldn't deny the truth. My sunlight was waning.
In a swift motion, she was suddenly on her knees, facing me, her voice strong and full of conviction. "Shakespeare was lucky. He was born in a time before computers and brain scans and DNA sequencers. Love could survive because technology wasn't around to destroy it. Science wasn't powerful enough to ruin people's lives."
I remained quiet. Not because I didn't agree, but because I did. She was absolutely right. As long as we were living within Diotech's walls, we could never really be together. As long as they were controlling her-manipulating her-they would always cast shadows. I stared at the towering prison wall that they'd built to attempt to hide her. To contain her.
"That's the only place we can be together," she said.
I felt something warm and soft against my cheek. I blinked and realized she had rested her beautiful hand there. "Where?" I asked, slightly dazed.
Her face brightened with a smile. "1609."
I glanced down at the open book. The publication date of the poem was inscribed on the page, under the title.
1609.
The numbers echoed thunderously inside my brain, like rocks tumbling inside a metal canister.
The only place we can be together.
My vision went hazy then as my mind flashed on the memory I saw last night. The one they'd stolen from me.
"This whole place has gone spastic. I mean, time travel? Seriously? What does she think this is? An H.G. Wells novel?"
The two scientists. They'd thought the idea was ludicrous. And I didn't blame them. It was ludicrous. But what if...?
What if ... it wasn't?
Why would Diotech go through so much trouble to erase something if it wasn't at least plausible?
Or better yet, why would they even invest in a project that wasn't conceivable?
"Zen?" Sera's voice brought me back to her.
"Hmmm?" I replied, still distracted.
But suddenly her lips were on mine and the sweet taste of her was all I could focus on. Her kiss had the power to erase thoughts. Stop time. Move stars. I wrapped my hands around the back of her head, pulling her deeper to me, wanting so much more of her. Wanting all of her.
But I knew I couldn't have all of her. Because she didn't have all of herself to give.
As long as she was trapped here, Diotech would always have a piece of her. They would always lay claim to some portion of her soul.
Never enough.
Never enough.
Never enough.
I pulled away, feeling breathless with passion and fury. A common combination when it came to my visits here.
And yet, this time, something was different.
A small seed of hope had implanted itself in the pit of my stomach. A small flicker of light that, if cultivated, had the potential to brighten Seraphina's dark world forever.
I rose abruptly to my feet, offering my hand to help her up. Not that she needed it. But I would always offer.
"What are you doing?" she asked and I could hear the hurt in her voice. It shattered me. But I couldn't share this with her yet. There was still too much to be done, too much to learn. I couldn't give her false hope. Not to mention I had to be very careful from here on out. Anything she knew, they would undoubtedly know, too.
"I need to go," I told her, cringing at her wounded reaction.
"But it's not time yet," she argued. "We still have another thirty minutes before Rio comes home."
"I know," I admitted. "But there's something I have to do."
She bit her lip, looking irresistible, and it took everything in me not to sweep her into my arms, carry her into the house, and spend every second of those last thirty minutes tangled up in her.
"Okay," she said softly, splintering my heart.
I pulled her close. "Don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow." Then I leaned in and whispered into her ear, "close your eyes."
I could see the resistance on her face. She knew what this meant. It meant I was really leaving. I always asked her to close her eyes. So she wouldn't have to watch me go. I never wanted her final memory to be of me leaving. Especially since I never knew when it would really be her final memory.
Her eyelids drifted shut, and I gently pressed my lips to hers, stealing one last taste before running toward the wall. I leaped up, scrambling over the top and landing in a crouch on the other side.
All the while, I could hear her counting softly.
When she got to fifty, I would be gone.
Normally leaving her was the most miserable part of my day. Because I never knew what I'd find when I returned. A girl who knew me, loved me, missed me. Or a girl who looked at me like I was a ghost.