by Debra Driza
I pushed away from the wall, cocking my head. “Did you hear that?”
Hunter shot to his feet like his Vans were spring-loaded. “No, what was it?” he said, his eyes trained on the barn door.
My hand flew to my mouth to cover the smile that threatened to spill across my face. Hunter Lowe, who seemed so carefree and cool. Scared of a little bump in the night.
We both waited, him listening for a sound to follow the first imaginary one, and me pretending to listen. A horse snorted, followed by a solitary cricket chirp.
“Guess it was nothing,” I said a few seconds later.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, probably just one of the horses.”
His eyes flicked from me back to the door. “If your mom woke up . . .”
This time I was unable to stifle a small giggle. So that was it. Hunter was scared of being busted by Mom.
His shoulders relaxed. “Either way, I’d probably better go. Just to be safe.”
I led him to the door with slow steps, savoring every remaining moment. Once he vanished back into the night, the barn would feel empty again, robbed of his comforting presence. It would be quiet and still and lonely. “So were you really terrified of running into my mom back there? Disappointing.” I tsked.
He paused just as his lean fingers encircled the door handle. Out of nowhere, he turned and grabbed my hands.
I jumped, sending a strand of hair slipping forward into my eyes. Acutely aware that the space separating us had dwindled to mere inches.
“Yes, terrified . . . of being busted and ruining my chances to make a good first impression,” he said.
And then he stepped closer, and the entire world went still. I felt the soft swish of air on my forehead as his hand reached for my face. The warmth of his skin as his fingers slid down my wisp of stray hair. The sensation of my heart stopping as he leaned closer . . . only to pluck a loose bit of straw from the top of my head.
The smile that sprawled across his lips may have been a tinge smug as he tossed the straw to the floor. But he still didn’t make a move for the door. Instead, his hand slid under my chin, tilting my face up. My stomach coiled, my eyes closed. This, this was exactly what I needed.
One kiss, to turn my horrible nightmare into a fairy tale.
One kiss, to prove I was normal, once and for all.
One kiss, to give me a real story to tell.
But before his lips could so much as brush mine, a slamming door shattered our perfect moment. Our front door.
Mom.
Hunter released me and leaped back. I froze. For all my earlier teasing, the thought of Mom discovering I’d allowed someone onto the property at night made me slightly panicky. I couldn’t handle one of her lectures. Not tonight.
“Back door,” I whispered, pointing.
“See you tomorrow,” Hunter said. And then he bolted, running to the far end of the corridor, unlocking the latch, and slipping into the dark.
I hurried over and relocked the door behind him, turning just in time to see the other doorway frame a familiar figure.
“Mila? It’s late. You should come inside.”
Mom peered at me blearily. The red streaks in her eyes startled me, but I refused to soften. Especially not when I saw the emerald pendant peeping above her blue pajama top, restored to its former prominence around her neck.
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I padded over to her silently. I made a deliberate, conspicuous effort to duck the hand that reached for my shoulder, to avoid contact completely. She’d had plenty of opportunities for that kind of comforting before the big reveal. She’d chosen to pass them up then.
Now it was my turn to return the favor. Especially when every touch felt like a lie.
With the darkness surrounding us, our silent walk to the house was like a cruel parody of our return from the barn last night. With Mom smiling at me, her arm linked through mine, I’d felt like part of a real mother-daughter duo for the first time in months. Or so I’d thought.
Little had I known it’d been the first time, period.
Mom lagged a few paces behind when I turned and slammed my bedroom door in her face.
I sprawled on my bed in a spent heap, realizing the tale I’d manufactured earlier was probably delusional. Somehow I’d come up with the notion that Hunter could set me free. Like some twisted version of Sleeping Beauty. But instead of saving me from an evil spell, his kiss would save me from the iPod.
I’d convinced myself, in that tiny space of time, that Hunter’s kiss would make me human.
Eleven
When I woke the next morning, I experienced one perfect moment of peace. One serene, crazy-free moment, until yesterday’s events slammed me with avalanche force: iPod Man, neuromatrices, programmed memories. A false past, a false mom and dad.
Everything about me, false, false, false.
It was like being buried alive in a landslide of hopelessness and despair. Except I wasn’t alive. That was the problem.
I dug my fingers into the mattress, squeezed my eyes shut, gasped in tiny, frantic breaths that, according to some stranger, I didn’t need, but that felt as natural to me as the sun rising. If I let these feelings consume me, what would I have left?
Nothing.
I needed to focus on something positive. I needed to get dressed, go to school, and try to get on with my life . . . whatever that entailed. Talk to Kaylee, talk to Hunter.
Hunter.
The memory of the almost-kiss flooded me and, despite the horror of yesterday and the questions flashing through my head, I felt the stirring of those same crazy flutters.
If I could feel that same breathless hope and anticipation over a boy Kaylee and Ella and even Parker talked about, then surely I was more teen girl than Mom thought? Someone, somewhere, had gotten it wrong?
Ultimately, those were the thoughts that propelled me out of bed and into my closet to forage for clean clothes.
After getting dressed, I followed the scent of warm toast into the kitchen. See? Hunger pangs. So normal, there couldn’t possibly be a reasonable explanation for a nonhuman to feel them.
“MILA contains just enough human cells to simulate biological functions.”
The voice could not have been referring to food and . . . stuff. No way.
My plunk into the chair at the counter made Mom spin around from the refrigerator, wielding a jar of strawberry preserves. “Good morning,” she said, her voice wary. Like she was testing the waters to see if my mood was stable.
Though she was dressed in clean jeans and a blue long-sleeved tee, and her hair was pulled back into that tidy ponytail, the hollows under her eyes looked deeper than usual. Her walk to the back counter to grab the plate of toast lacked her usual efficient pep.
“Morning,” I replied in a neutral tone and spread jelly on my toast.
Mom settled into the chair next to me. She yawned before propping her chin in her hands, watching me devour my breakfast. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked.
Hunter. Think about Hunter and seeing him at school. Nothing else. “Great,” I said, taking another bite.
Her mystified stare followed my movements as I chewed and swallowed. Obviously “great” wasn’t the response she’d been expecting.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She gave her head a tiny shake instead, slapped her hands on her sensible, faded work jeans, and stood. “Good. But if you change your mind and want to talk . . .”
“I won’t,” I said, wiping my mouth on a napkin.
I placed my empty plate in her outstretched hand and watched her carry it over to the sink. “I understand that you’re not ready yet,” she said. “But when you are—”
“Ever.” My voice was steady even as my insides trembled. “I don’t want to talk about yesterday ever.”
Amid the clank of dishes and the smell of green apple soap, I looked up at the pig-shaped clock that Mom called kitschy and I called lame. Then I wondered—was that th
e real me who’d come up with the term, or the programmed me? Or were they one and the same?
I closed my eyes and managed to block out the clock, but not the uneasy train of my thoughts. “Can you do those after you drop me off at school? I don’t want to be late.”
The clanking paused for a moment before resuming. “You aren’t going to school.”
The words blindsided me. I sat there, speechless in my shock until one crucial question surfaced. “Today?” I said, fighting off the gut-twisting burst of panic. “Or ever?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“What? Why?” That last shriek was probably twitching the horses’ ears back in the stable.
Hunter’s face popped into my head, and I clung to the image with everything I had. No school meant no Hunter, and I couldn’t give him up. I wouldn’t.
My question didn’t interrupt Mom’s steady scrub-rinse-dry cycle of clearing the stained porcelain sink.
As the pile of cheerful daisy-rimmed plates and silverware grew on top of the rooster-print dish towel, so did my urge to smash them to the ground. How could she drop a bombshell like that and not even bother to look at me?
The screech of my chair interrupted the cycle. Mom dried her hands and finally turned to give me her full attention.
As I looked at her, I wondered how it could all be a lie. Her slim, wiry figure, her blue eyes, the sound and smell and feel of her. The way she fiddled with the nosepiece of her glasses on the rare occasion she struggled for words, like she was doing right now. All of that felt so real, like I’d known her for so much longer than months.
“I’m sorry, but after what happened yesterday, we just can’t take the risk. Not now.”
“You mean the risk that I might actually have a semi-normal life—that risk?”
She yanked off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I know this is difficult. But we’re in a very precarious situation here.”
“And whose fault is that? Not mine, but I’m the one being punished!” I stopped, took a deep breath. Reason, I had to reason with her. “Anyway, you’re being paranoid. Who’s going to come looking for us in the middle of nowhere?”
Mom’s hands froze on her eyes for the briefest of moments. When she replaced her glasses, her voice was quiet. “You have no idea . . . and I’d like to keep it that way. But we need to take precautions. Then, if it’s safe, you can go back.”
She turned back to the pile of dishes, patting away nonexistent wet spots with a dish towel. Pretending.
Both of us, always pretending.
The sight of her, returning to some mindless, completely insignificant activity instead of actually talking to me, pushed me over the edge. “You’re lying. You’re never going to let me go back, are you?” I shouted.
Mom whirled. “Mila!” she started, cutting off when she saw me blinking in rapid succession. “Mila,” she said, more gently, stepping over the mess and reaching for me.
A trap. Just like everything else.
I scrambled out of reach. “Why? Why even steal me in the first place, if you were never really going to let me live?” I whispered. Just before I turned and bolted for my room.
I slumped on my bed and stared at nothing. When Mom came to check on me an hour later, I rolled onto my left side and refused to look at her.
The mattress creaked and lowered.
“I know you’re upset, but will you just talk to me for a minute?”
A head study of a bay horse hung on my wall, right next to the checkered green-and-white curtains. The brushstrokes captured the face so well, I could almost imagine the horse was staring back at me. I wondered how the artist did it, how he breathed the illusion of life into a blank piece of paper. The paper horse stared, and I closed my eyes.
Ultimately, that’s all it was. An illusion.
The bed creaked again as Mom shifted her weight, trying to find a comfortable position. Good luck with that—under these crazy circumstances, I seriously doubted one existed.
At least ten seconds ticked by before I blurted, “Why even risk letting me go to school in the first place? Why take a stupid job? Why not just hide out in a cave or something?”
When Mom answered, her voice was thick. “Because I do want you to live, Mila. I want you to have everything this time. And if that means hiding you in plain sight, so be it.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t even make sense! This time? What this time? What else are you hiding from me?”
I felt the soft stroke of her fingers, down, down, down my hair. Slowly, like she was savoring every inch. The strangest image flashed into my head. A little girl with long brown hair, squirming through a haircut while a younger version of Mom stood behind her, wielding a pair of scissors in one hand and a lollipop in the other.
But this memory was blurry, fragmented. Nothing at all like the crystal-clear ones of Dad. Maybe some of them were starting to go bad. Maybe, one by one, they’d all bleed away, until I had nothing left to remind me of my fake family.
I curled into a tighter ball.
“I think you’ve had enough revelations for now.” The bed creaked again. “I came in here to tell you that I have to go out on a call—Mr. Danning’s gelding just went lame. Stay inside the house or barn, but no rides today. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
When I didn’t respond, she stood with a heavy sigh, closing the door softly behind her.
The second I heard her car reverse down the gravel driveway, I was up. I couldn’t live like this, trapped like an animal in a cage. Going to school couldn’t hurt. I’d prove it to her.
Bolstered by the image of Hunter’s warm blue eyes, I gathered my backpack and set off on foot for Clearwater High.
Strike number one—I was late to homeroom.
Thanks to a squeaky door, my arrival drew curious looks from the majority of my classmates. I hesitated just inside, tempted to bolt but curbing the impulse. I wanted this, I reminded myself. To go to school, to be normal. Still, their stares felt like an accusation during my walk down the middle row to hand Mrs. Stegmeyer my yellow tardy slip. Like they knew something about me was different, and they were trying to pinpoint what it was.
I’d never enjoyed being the center of attention before, but now it seemed downright dangerous.
Strike number two—the desk under the window was empty. No Hunter.
Strike number three—I couldn’t even sit in my own seat.
Leslie, a girl I’d never seen Kaylee exchange more than a few brief greetings with, lounged in my spot, looking far too comfortable with her red head tilted toward Kaylee’s. A girl who always reeked a little of the nail polish that she was constantly using to decorate her notebooks—a habit that usually had Kaylee rolling her eyes.
When I made eye contact with Kaylee, she gave me a small, no-teeth smile. Her fake smile.
That couldn’t be good. Especially not when combined with the conspicuous shortage of texts.
Or maybe that was just paranoia talking. Mom’s stress, crawling under my skin and writhing there until I was just as jumpy as her.
Writhing under my bioengineered skin among wires and plastic and everything else that wasn’t human.
Stop it.
I forced a smile that was way more cheerful than I felt and headed for the far back corner where Leslie usually sat, sneaking texts to her friends and defacing her notebooks. And the desk, it looked like, from the bright splash of purple along the inner edge.
Leslie glanced my way. But it wasn’t her overly bright smile that made the paranoia swamp me again. It was the focal point of her attention. My arm. The same one I’d injured yesterday.
I shoved my arm under my desk and slouched into my chair, trying to act engrossed in my English lit book. I tried to tune everyone else out, convince myself that it was just my imagination. That Kaylee wouldn’t, couldn’t, have said anything.
Then I caught the whisper. Super low, but not low enough. At least, not for my ears.
“Can you tell?” Kaylee
asked.
They could be talking about anything, I told myself.
But I didn’t really believe it.
When the bell finally rang, I was ready. I bolted out of my chair and hurried over to Kaylee, who still managed to beat me out the door, Leslie in tow. “Kaylee, wait!”
She didn’t stop, just fluttered aqua-blue fingernails over her shoulder. “Sorry, gotta run . . . later!”
As I watched her scurry away, the niggle of doubt exploded into a full-blown spasm, one that grew in intensity as every class ended with no sign of Kaylee. Plus in physics, the girl across the aisle poked her partner and then jerked her head toward me.
When the lunch bell rang, still no Kaylee. Or Hunter. I wove my way to my locker, fighting off the ever-present trapped sensation as a noxious blend of voices and smells and footsteps flooded the hallway around me. Every time someone glanced my way, my hands curled and my legs tensed, preparing me to bolt. Ridiculous, I knew that, and yet I couldn’t stop the fear from spreading. All it would take was one student, just one, to discover what I was, and my life was over.
I reached my locker, and no Kaylee there, either. After shoving my book inside, I clung to the door, focusing on the cool, slick feel of metal in an effort to generate calm. Okay, so Kaylee was a little shocked and yes, maybe angry, about finding out about my arm that way. She’d obviously expected me to tell her about the prosthesis long ago. I got that.
I closed my eyes. Of course, if I really had a prosthesis to tell her about, I wouldn’t be panicking right about now. Still . . . all I had to do was talk to her. Explain about my prosthesis in person and make sure she knew I wanted it kept a secret. An easy fix.
I’d just about convinced myself when Jim Dyson, a starter on the football team with a locker next to mine, bumped me with his shoulder. “Hey, did you really try to chop off your own arm and send it to your ex-boyfriend when he broke up with you?”
He leaned against his locker and stared down at me expectantly, his thick brown eyebrows almost merging into a single line across his potato-shaped face, his off-center nose suggesting more than one break.
