style="font-size:15px;"> Mistakes.
We were sitting outside, staring at the stars. I couldn’t remember ever seeing the stars like that—sharp, clear. It was late, so late it wasn’t night but infant morning, and the view was dizzying. I was freezing. A brave wind stole through a copse nearby, filling the air with steady sound. I was full of cake. Warner smelled like sugar, like decadence. I felt drunk on joy.
I don’t want to wait, he said, taking my hand. Squeezing it. Let’s not wait.
I blinked up at him. For what?
For what?
For what?
How did I forget what had happened just hours earlier? How did I forget the moment he asked me to marry him?
It was a glitch. It felt like a glitch. Where there was once a memory was suddenly a vacancy, a cavity held empty only until nudged into realignment.
I recovered, remembered. Warner laughed.
I did not.
I forgot the name of Castle’s daughter. I forgot how we landed at the Sanctuary. I forgot, for a full two minutes, how I ever escaped Oceania. But my errors were temporary; they seemed like natural delays. I experienced only confusion as my mind buffered, hesitation as the memories resurfaced, waterlogged and vague. I thought maybe I was tired. Overwhelmed. I took none of it seriously, not until I was sitting under the stars and couldn’t remember promising to spend the rest of my life with someone.
Mortification.
Mortification so acute I thought I’d expire from the full force of it. Even now fresh heat floods my face, and I find I’m relieved Warner can’t see in the dark.
Aaron, not Warner.
Aaron.
“I can’t tell just now whether you’re afraid or embarrassed,” he says, and exhales softly. It sounds almost like a laugh. “Are you worried about Kenji? About the others?”
I grab on to this half-truth with my whole heart.
“Yes,” I say. “Kenji. James. Adam.”
Kenji has been sick in bed since very early this morning. I squint at the slant of moon through our window and remember that it’s long past midnight, which would mean that, technically, Kenji got sick yesterday morning.
Regardless, it was terrifying for all of us.
The drugs Nazeera forced into Kenji on their international flight from Sector 45 to Oceania were a dose too strong, and he’s been reeling ever since. He finally collapsed—the twins, Sonya and Sara, have checked in on him and say he’s going to be just fine—but not before we learned that Anderson has been rounding up the children of the supreme commanders.
Adam and James and Lena and Valentina and Nicolás are all in Anderson’s custody.
James is in his custody.
It’s been a devastating, awful couple of days. It’s been a devastating, awful couple of weeks.
Months, really.
Years.
Some days, no matter how far back I go, I can’t seem to find the good times. Some days, the occasional happiness I’ve known feels like a bizarre dream. An error. Hyperreal and unfocused, the colors too bright and the sounds too strong.
Figments of my imagination.
It was just days ago that clarity came to me, bearing gifts. Just days ago that the worst seemed behind me, that the world seemed full of potential, that my body was stronger than ever, my mind fuller, sharper, more capable than I’d ever known it.
But now
But now
But now I feel like I’m clinging to the blurring edges of sanity, that elusive, fair-weather friend always breaking my heart.
Aaron pulls me close and I melt into him, grateful for his warmth, for the steadiness of his arms around me. I take a deep, shuddering breath and let it all go, exhaling against him. I inhale the rich, heady scent of his skin, the faint aroma of gardenias he somehow carries with him always. Seconds pass in perfect silence and we listen to each other breathe.
Slowly, my heart rate steadies.
The tears dry up. The fears take five. Terror is distracted by a passing butterfly and sadness takes a nap.
For a little while it’s just me and him and us and everything is untarnished, untouched by darkness.
I knew I loved Warner Aaron before all this—before we were captured by The Reestablishment, before we were ripped apart, before we learned of our shared history—but that love was new, green, its depths uncharted, untested. In that brief, glimmering window during which the gaping holes in my memory felt fully accounted for, things between us changed. Everything between us changed. Even now, even with the noise in my head, I feel it.
Here.
This.
My bones against his bones. This is my home.
I feel him suddenly stiffen and I pull back, concerned. I can’t see much of him in this perfect darkness, but I feel the delicate rise of goose bumps along his arms when he says, “What are you thinking about?”
My eyes widen, comprehension dethroning concern. “I was thinking about you.”
“Me?”
I close the gap between us again. Nod against his chest.
He says nothing, but I can hear his heart, racing in the quiet, and eventually I hear him exhale. It’s a heavy, uneven sound, like he might’ve been holding his breath for too long. I wish I could see his face. No matter how much time we spend together, I still forget how much he can feel my emotions, especially at times like this, when our bodies are pressed together.
Gently, I run my hand down his back. “I was thinking about how much I love you,” I say.
He goes uncommonly still, but only for a moment. And then he touches my hair, his fingers slowly combing the strands.
“Did you feel it?” I ask.
When he doesn’t answer, I pull back again. I blink against the black until I’m able to make out the glint of his eyes, the shadow of his mouth.
“Aaron?”
“Yes,” he says, but he sounds a little breathless.
“Yes, you felt it?”
“Yes,” he says again.
“What does it feel like?”
He sighs. Rolls onto his back. He’s quiet for so long that, for a while, I’m not sure he’s going to answer. Then, softly, he says:
“It’s
