Twenty-Seven Inesa
Twenty-Seven
Inesa
I kiss her, and it feels like I’ve finally learned to breathe. I’ve been panting, struggling for air, and living by half measures. Everything I want just barely out of my grasp. Now I don’t have to fight.
There’s only a sliver of space between us, but it’s still too much—her hand presses the small of my back, drawing me closer. My hands tangle in her long hair, the strange, beautiful color that looks almost silver in some light. It’s even softer than I imagined it would be, sliding through my fingers like water.
Melino? is the one to break the kiss. We’re both breathing hard, our chests rising and falling, the rhythms perfectly synced.
Her heart is beating so close to mine that I can feel it. Like the pulse of a thousand tiny wings. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
She bites down on her slightly swollen lip. “So have I.”
“I was afraid to do it,” I say quietly. “I was afraid you would hate me.”
“I never hated you.” She pauses, looking up from under her pale lashes. “That was always the most terrifying thing. That I couldn’t hate you even with my hands around your throat.”
The memory of it—that horrible, clenching pressure—is as distant as a dream. All I know now is the softness of her touch. The warmth of her body, her lips.
“Oh,” I say. “I was just afraid you would hate me for being a terrible kisser.”
She laughs. I think it surprises us both, how easily the sound slips out. It’s low and breathy, but it’s real, and threaded with affection.
“No,” she says. “But I’m easy to impress. I’ve never kissed anyone before.”
I laugh, too. A dark-gold, molten feeling pools at the bottom of my belly.
“Well,” I say, “you’re the first person I’ve wanted to.”
Jacob doesn’t count. Neither does Adrian Pietersen, or the handful of other boys who awkwardly stuck their tongues down my throat while I stood there, still and cold as a fish. With Melino? holding me, I feel as new and alive as shoots of green showing themselves in the earth.
I reach for her again. Cupping her face, my thumbs brush her cheekbones. Her dark eyes are like pools under the new moon, showing me my own reflection. I remember how I once cowered under her gaze, the prosthetic staring down at me, depthless and inhuman. With her so fragile now, stripped in every sense of the word, the eye becomes a lovely thing, as precious as a rare jewel.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper.
That faint purple flush comes over her. “It’s just the surgeries. It’s not real.”
“You feel real to me.”
Our lips meet again, with more insistence this time. She pushes herself up on her knees, and I can only imagine how much it hurts, with her legs as blistered as they are—but if she feels any pain, she doesn’t let me know. She just holds me tighter, so that her bones are pressed against my bones, her bare skin against the fabric of my clothes, and I want to wrap her up, envelop her, keep her safe from the danger and the cold.
The air is still sooty with the remains of the fire, smoldering to ashes outside the door. There are holes in the wood where the light spills in, bright white as it reflects off the snow. It could be a dream: the outlying Counties of New Amsterdam, covered in a layer of impossible frost.
I know it will melt. Already water is dripping from the leaves and the branches, and the ice is draining into the dirt. But beneath the surface, there is a metamorphosis taking place, in the mud and the flower buds, just curling out of their seed hulls. The earth doesn’t remember snow, either. To the soil and the seeds, all of this is new, too. How could anyone expect it to stay the same?
We lie facing each other in the bed, close enough for our noses to brush. Our hair streams over our bare shoulders, tangling like a nexus of tree roots. Light braiding with dark. Melino? closes her eyes, breathing softly.
I remember the tug of jealousy I felt when she told me she had slept in the same bed as Keres. Now I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling, because I’m the one who gets to hold her, to touch her. To kiss her. I trace my thumb along her collarbone. Her lashes flutter.
“Can I tell you something?” I whisper.
She opens her eyes. Nods.
“I think you were wrong.”
“About what?”
“About people.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. There’s a scar just by her ear, too, a very faint one, half hidden beneath the soft fuzz on her temple. That’s where they must have implanted her comms chip. “There’s lots of reasons to have faith in them.”
A small furrow appears between her brows. She’s quiet, but after a moment, she replies, “Maybe just a single reason. Maybe just a single person.”
I slow my breathing until it matches hers. “Sometimes all you need is one.”