"I've never seen them before."
I almost had to laugh. I almost had to argue. But instead I just said, "I know."
Through the clear glass of the tube, I saw her mouth curve into a beatific smile. "I think they're beautiful."
I waited for her to look at me, for her to lower the tube and for her eyes to meet mine. And then I repeated my answer. "I know."
7: Protection.
For the next few weeks, everything in my life faded into background noise. Like someone had painted a blurry halo around my life, and Seraphina was in the center. The only thing in focus.
I was determined to answer the questions that were crowding into my head on a daily basis, fighting for priority.
Who is she?
Why are they hiding her?
Why are they erasing her memories of me?
But each time I felt as though I was getting closer to an answer, a hundred more questions would pile on top of the others. I was drowning in my own inquisition. In my own need to know her and know about her.
Seraphina wasn't any help. Her vocabulary and knowledge of the world were too limited. I quickly determined they were hand-selecting what she knew. What she remembered. What made sense to her.
And almost every time I went to see her, I had to start over.
I had to regain her trust.
I fell in love with her a little bit more each day. And yet, nearly every time I climbed over that wall, she didn't know my name.
But I kept going. I kept introducing myself. I kept telling her the same stories over and over again. Teaching her the same words, answering the same questions, giving the same explanations.
"What is that?" was her favorite question to ask.
"It's my DigiSlate," I told her one afternoon as we were sitting on the grass outside her house. She was ten feet away from me, but it was still early. I had started analyzing her movements, her patterns. On a good day, she moved within reach of me in less than an hour. On a really good day, I got to touch her hand.
But nothing more.
And I never tried.
I was afraid of her reaction. Afraid of my reaction. Afraid if I touched her face, or hair, or lips, I may never recover. I may never be able to handle the crushing feeling I'd surely get the next day when she once again looked at me as though she didn't know me.
Every day, she inched closer to me. Every day, I fought the urge to pull her into my lap, press my cheek against hers, inhale her scent.
I protected myself.
Every day.
"What does it do?" she asked, fingering the ultrathin device that I had unrolled in front of her. It was the fifth time she'd seen my slate. And the fifth time I'd explained its function.
"It does everything," I told her. "Anything you want."
I waited for the fascination to light up her face. I had memorized that light.
"You can read stories on it," I suggested.
She didn't understand. She never did. So I showed her. I scrolled through the various texts I'd downloaded for her. Yesterday she'd read about world history-now it was all gone. The day before that, she'd read a series of classic fairy tales-those had been erased, too.
Today, I had brought her poetry.
I loved watching her read. She devoured words faster than I devoured air. It was one of the many abilities I had discovered over the past month. And it was my favorite one. Even though I knew it was the most pointless.
What good is the ability to rapidly consume information if it will only be stolen from you hours later?
That didn't matter, though. Reading made her happy. So I brought her things to read.
But today, she didn't look happy. She absorbed an entire book of poetry in a few minutes and looked up at me with tortured eyes.
I smiled. "Read it aloud. I'll help you."
I leaned in close to glance over her shoulder at the title of the poem.
"Sonnet 116" by William Shakespeare.
To my surprise, she didn't recoil from my proximity. My face was inches from her face. Her long, shimmering hair tickled the tops of my ears. I tried not to focus on the fact that we were breathing the same air.
I closed my eyes to regain strength and then finally pulled away, leaning back onto my hands. Away from her magnetic pulse and intoxicating scent.
I knew not to push it. Never to push it.
It was my silent vow to her.
She had to come to me.
I had to let her.
"'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,'" she read the first lines and then looked to me for an explanation. "How can minds be married?"
I shook my head. "Poetry is different from normal text. You can't read it literally. You have to dig deeper and search for a meaning."
She bit her lip thoughtfully.
"It's saying that if two people really love each other, they should be together."
She squinted at me. "Why isn't it written like that?"
I laughed. "Because then it wouldn't be as fun to read, I suppose. What's the next sentence?"
"'Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.'" She looked up at me again. "What does that mean?"
I felt my mouth go dry. "It means," I began uneasily, "that love doesn't change given the circumstances."
"What circumstances?"
I reached out and gently removed the slate from her hand. She let me.
"Unfavorable circumstances." I cleared my throat uneasily. "You know what? Let's find you something else to read."
"But I enjoyed that," she argued, her mouth falling into an irresistible pout.
"You did? Why?"
She thought for a moment. "It's like a puzzle."
"I guess it is."
"Don't you like puzzles?"
I turned my head and glanced at the wall. The sun was starting to set. I would have to leave soon. "Some puzzles are better than others."
We sat in silence for a long time. And then I felt her move next to me. Close enough that our arms were touching. I turned my head and she was right there. Her eyes were piercing giant holes in me.
"Can we keep going?" she asked, and I felt her fingertips brush against mine as she removed the slate from my hand.
My body was too numb to say no.
Not that I ever would have.
8: Testing.
One thing kept me going.
It was time.
Not the time that we spent apart. And not even the time that we spent together (which was always over too soon). But the time it took me to earn her trust every day. The time it took for her to move from twenty feet away to ten feet to shoulders touching.
After two months, I noticed that it was shrinking.
Gradually, little by little, she was opening up to me faster.
It was almost as though she was beginning to remember me. Despite what they were doing to manipulate her mind. Like some small part of her was holding on, refusing to forget.
And that was the part I clung to. The part I pulled my strength from.
Because I knew, without ever having to hear the words from her mouth, that it was the part that loved me back.
Some days I would get lucky. She would be waiting for me, a smile brightening her entire face. One time she remembered me for four days in a row.
These were the days that terrified me the most.
Because Diotech never did anything by accident. They didn't make mistakes.
They were sustaining her memories on purpose. And that purpose-whatever it may have been-gave me nightmares.
As the months wore on, these "lucky" days became more and more frequent, making me feel as though they were leading up to something, preparing for something. I decided I needed a more concrete way to track their movements. I needed some data of my own.
"Sera," I said, lightly touching her arm.
She looked up from the story she was reading, her eyes warm and inquisitive.
"I want to try something."
She stayed silent, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly.
I glanced around the sparse front yard of her house, and my eyes fell on the marble bench. The one she'd lifted over her head one day to show me her strength. I pointed at it. "You see that bench?"
She nodded.
I struggled, trying to figure out the right way to word it. "Every time you get home, I want you to put something under that bench."
I used the phrase "every time you get home" because I knew that's the way she remembered her mysterious daily trips. As "outings" with the man she referred to as her father. I was beginning to wonder if she ever really went anywhere at all. Except maybe a lab somewhere in this sector.
But regardless of what really happened each day, she always seemed to remember going somewhere.
An artificial memory to hide the truth. To hide whatever Diotech didn't want her to know.
She studied the bench. "What do you want me to put there?"
I shrugged and leaned back on my hands. "Anything you want."
"I don't understand."
"I promise to explain it later. But for now, will you just agree to do it?"
"Yes."
"Repeat it back to me," I told her.
"Every time I come home I will place something under the bench. For you."
I smiled. "Thank you."