2. Chapter 2- August #2
I let her.
She claws my wrist. Kicks my shin. Elbows my ribs. “Let me fucking go!” She yells thrashing against me.
“No.”
“It’s mine!”
“Exactly.” I whisper.
She stops. Her back is pressed against my chest.
My arm is around her waist.
Too close.
Fuck.
I can smell her hair.
Soap and sleep.
Her.
My body remembers before my mind can stop it. My hand tightens against her stomach.
Her breathing changes.
So does mine.
Neither of us moves.
This is how it happens.
Not with magic. Not with blood. Not with some ancient fucking incantation.
This.
Recognition.
Bodies remembering what minds have forgotten.
Her head tilts slightly.
My mouth is inches from her neck.
The fresh skin there glistens.
I can feel her pulse pounding rapidly beneath the skin.
Mine matches it.
“August.” My name in her mouth comes out so softly.
I close my eyes.
Don’t.
She turns in my arms. Her face is too close. “What were we?”
Nothing. We were nothing.
Say it. Destroy it.
“Tell me.”
I look into her eyes. I’ve watched those eyes die. I’ve watched them change color. I’ve watched them appear in faces I didn’t recognize.
But they’re always hers.
Somehow. Always.
“We were a mistake.”
Her face falls.
Good.
I release her and she steps away. “Fuck you.”
“There she is.”
“What is your problem?” She growls.
“You.” I snap.
Her mouth opens.
But I keep going because cruelty has saved me before. “You show up every few decades wearing another face, another body, another fucking life, and somehow you always find me.”
Her anger disappears and transforms into confusion. “What?”
“I move. You find me. I hide. You find me. I change names. Countries. Languages. Doesn’t matter.” I growl, crowding her space. Making sure that with every step I take sends her closer to the front door.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.” She runs her hands through her hair and a small piece of skin catches between her fingers.
She doesn’t notice but I do.
My stomach drops.
It’s accelerating.
“Go downstairs.”
“I’m getting really fucking tired of hearing that.”
“Then listen the first time.”
She glares at me.
There…good. Hate me. Please.
“Fine.” She spins and walks toward the door.
Relief nearly knocks me over then she stops. “August?”
Don’t turn around.
I do.
“Was I ever happy?”
Of all the questions. Of all the fucking things she could ask.
My throat closes.
She waits.
I see every version of her at once. Lenora dancing barefoot in a kitchen in 1897.
Lenora asleep against my shoulder on a train.
Lenora screaming at me in Paris. Lenora wearing my shirt.
Lenora standing beneath cherry blossoms. Lenora covered in my blood.
Lenora holding my face while my body came apart beneath her hands.
Lenora sobbing. Lenora laughing. Lenora loving me.
“Yes.”
Her expression softens. “With you?”
I can’t answer. I don’t need to.
She knows.
Fuck.
She walks out and the door closes behind her.
I stand alone in the middle of my living room heaving for air.
One second. Two. Three. Then my legs give out.
I hit the floor and pain explodes through my chest. “Fuck.”
I tear my shirt open. The skin over my sternum is red. Something beneath it moves. I press my palm against my chest. Another wave of pain tears through me. I bite down on my fist to keep from screaming.
No. Too fast.
She shouldn’t be this far yet.
We touched twice. That’s all.
Twice.
Unless…
My eyes move toward the shelf.
Specimen 08.
The jar is crooked.
She touched it, waking up the memory which strengthened the connection.
Fuck.
I crawl toward the cabinet beneath the oldest shelves.
My hands shake as I unlock it.
Inside are eight boxes.
One for every time I failed.
I pull out the last. 1988 the photograph sits on top.
I shouldn’t look but I do.
Lenora is smiling at the camera. Short dark hair. Red lipstick. My arm around her waist.
We look happy. We were.
For eleven days.
On the back, in her handwriting:
Maybe this time we get to keep each other.
I turn it over. Underneath are photographs I don’t need to see.
Medical notes. Newspaper clippings. Pieces of me. A tooth. Two fingernails. A lock of hair that isn’t the color of mine anymore. And the final page. My handwriting. Barely legible. Written while I was dying.
DAY 12: Dermal transfer.
DAY 18: Vocal changes.
DAY 23: Memory integration.
DAY 31: Skeletal replication.
DAY 37: She remembers everything.
Then one final sentence written darker than the rest. Pressed so hard the pen tore through the paper.
DAY 41: I am gone.
I stare at it.
Forty-one days.
That was the longest we ever had.
This time, the molt started before she even touched me.
I look toward the floor. Toward the apartment beneath mine. Toward Lenora.
Something is different. Something has changed.
My phone vibrates.
A message from her.
Lenora:
I found another piece.
My blood turns cold.
Three dots appear.
Then a photograph.
Her bathroom sink. A small white object rests beside the drain.
A tooth.
I touch my tongue to my molars. One is loose.
Fuck.
Another message arrives.
Lenora:
August.
Then…
Lenora:
Why does it look exactly like yours?
I close my eyes.
Eight times. Eight fucking times I have watched this happen.
Eight times I’ve loved her. Eight times she’s taken me apart. Eight times I’ve promised myself that if she ever returned, I would leave before she could make me love her again.
But I already know the truth. I knew it the moment I saw her standing in the lobby three months ago soaked from the rain annoyed because her umbrella had broken.
Alive.
Her eyes met mine.
And after thirty-eight years without her, my stupid fucking heart did exactly what it has always done.
It recognized her before she ever remembered me. Before she ever touched me. Before the first piece of skin fell from her body.
I loved her.
And somewhere beneath my feet, Lenora begins to scream.