The Adjustment

by Suzanne Young

  I shake my head, telling him to stop. I don’t want to hear his apology; I can’t listen to an explanation. I lost him once. Or, rather, he lost me.

  And it could be the residual pain from the memory, or maybe I just fell in love with him all over again, but I’m not willing to let this Wes go. Not in this moment. Not yet.

  I lower myself to my knees to match his height, and he watches with apprehension, worry. I pull him closer, hearing him sigh out his relief just before I kiss him, his clothes freezing cold on my bare skin. And soon I find my hands slipping under the back of his shirt, my nails digging into his flesh there.

  Wes moans, and I kiss him hard on the mouth, my eyes closed tight. It isn’t romance, the way we tear at each other, the desperate way we feel for each other. But soon we’re upstairs in my room, and I push him down on my bed and climb on top of him. He strips his shirt over his head and reaches for a condom in his wallet.

  Because sometimes all you can do is feel; sometimes we’re all nerve endings and we’ll do anything to stop the pain there. We’ll blast them with sex or numb them with alcohol. And sometimes . . . it’s love. It’s holding on too tight, dangerous. Suffocating. Consuming.

  And as Wes moves inside me, we’re all those things. We’re emotional devastation. We’re love. We don’t know the difference anymore.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WE LIE TOGETHER, UNDRESSED IN my bed. My cheek rests on his shoulder, my thigh over his. There’s a moment of peace, like our minds have quieted enough for us to talk rationally. I don’t know how long this clarity will last. I wish it were forever, but every so often, Wes flinches.

  He turns, running his fingertip over the scratch on my cheek.We stay quiet a moment longer, and then I close my eyes.

  “Do you love her?” I ask, keeping the emotion out of my voice.

  “No,” he says immediately, like my question is dumb.

  “Did you?” I ask.

  And now he falls silent. I get up on my elbow and look down at him. He turns his face away, and his expression is all shame.

  “I don’t even know her,” he says. “Please, just—”

  A wild streak of anger flashes, and I have to rein it in. “Where did you go, Wes?” I ask. “The week you disappeared, where did you go and why did you come back? Why do you keep showing up at my house?”

  He closes his eyes at the sound of my pain, but I can tell he doesn’t remember those parts either. He was somebody else then.

  The storm of my emotions begins to rage again, but this time they come with a side of humiliation. The image of me begging him not to leave me. The idea that he actually did, even after that. I sit up and grab a shirt from the floor and pull it on.

  “Tate, can we just—”

  “No,” I interrupt. “I remembered something earlier,” I say. “Before you got here.” Wes listens as I give him a shortened version of our breakup, or at least one of them. I spare myself some embarrassment in the retelling.

  Wes listens, his head in his hands. He feels guilty, when really . . . I know it’s not his fault. People fall out of love. It sucks, but it happens.

  I just didn’t think it could happen to us.

  “I don’t know if it was those pills my grandmother gave me, but somehow I forgot it all,” I say. “So it’s my fault your memory was corrupted.”

  “I’m the one who ruined everything,” he says. “But I’ll fix it, Tate. I’ll make it right.”

  But I know it’s too late. The idea of us smashed, cracked beyond repair. I’ll never be able to think of us without pain. I’ll never be able to get past it. That version of me, so fucking broken in that Jeep, is all I can see now.

  I shake my head, trying to clear away the pain, and tell Wes to get dressed. Reluctantly he reaches to grab his clothes. I watch him from across the room. And there’s one question that I know I have to ask, even though it digs into my heart with claws.

  “Did you sleep with her?” I ask.

  “Today?” He looks offended by the question.

  “Before,” I say. “When you were together.”

  Wes curses and stands to pull on his pants, buttoning them quickly. “Don’t talk about it like that,” he says. “You know I don’t remember.”

  “But she does,” I say. “So what did she tell you? I have to know.”

  He keeps his back to me and crosses his arms over his bare chest. “No,” he says. And then he adds, quieter, “I don’t think so.”

  It shouldn’t matter, I try to tell myself. We were (mostly) broken up. He’s gone through so much since. We’re both different people now. And, yet . . . the possibility kills me. I sniffle, and Wes spins to look at me.

  “Tate,” he murmurs so softly that I cry harder. He comes over and wraps me in a hug.

  “What else did she say?” I ask, wanting it all. Needing to get all the pain out now so I never have to feel it again. Maybe Kyle was right. Maybe I am broken.

  “She said it was emotional,” Wes says. “We brought out each other’s misery. And that’s it. I told her it was a mistake and she told me to go fuck myself. So that was nice. It’s been a great day.”

  “At least you had her, right?” I say. “When I wasn’t enough, you turned to her.”

  “I don’t know her,” he says, getting angry.

  I pull away, taking a few steps back from him. “But maybe you would have,” I say. “If she had gotten to your locker first the day you came back, she might have been the one you ended up with. Obviously my memories are skewed. Who knows,” I say miserably. “She might know you better than I do.”

  Wes’s eyes weaken like I’ve just invalidated our entire relationship. “Him,” he says. “She knew him. Not me.”

  And maybe I’m being unfair; I don’t even know anymore. I still don’t even understand how I could have forgotten this, pills or not.

  “Tate,” Wes says, putting his hand over his heart. “I’m in love with you. I’m deeply and helplessly in love with you. Right now.”

  My heart swells at the words—not because I’ve never heard “I love you” before. But because I’ve never heard them like this. They sound like the first time. They sound honest and pure. And I know I feel the same way. Our shared past aside, we both fell in love again. We fell in love with the same people.

  “I love you,” Wes repeats. “And I’m a shithead for hurting you before. But that guy, that version of me . . . Fuck him. I hate him. I just want to be with you.” His breath hitches on the start of a cry, but he holds it back.

  And although I don’t say anything in return, tears slip down from the corners of my eyes. I’m confused. I’m unsure of my place in my life, of the people in my life. I’m broken in so many ways that I wish my heart would dissolve into ash and drift away. That’s not the way love’s supposed to feel.

  Wes takes a step toward me like he’s going to keep apologizing, but I can’t listen anymore. I need to think. I step out of his reach and pull on the rest of my clothes. My body is sore from him—from us trying so hard to hold on to something we wanted rather than something we had.

  “You have to go,” I say, and start walking for my bedroom door. Wes reaches out to take my elbow to stop me, but I look pointedly at him and he apologizes and lets go. Without argument, he follows me downstairs. I pull open the door and the sound of rain is loud on the rooftop. Cool air breezes in, chilling my skin.

  Wes comes to pause in front of me, his eyes begging me to let him stay.

  “You told me once that it would kill us if we didn’t end our relationship,” I say, making him wince. “I understand what you meant now. Because it seems the more I love you, the more it hurts. So I can’t love you anymore, Weston,” I say, my voice cracking. “I won’t let myself.”

  “Tate,” he murmurs, the tone so soaked in pain that I want to fling myself into his arms. Instead I motion outside. Wes lowers his head and walks onto the porch.

  I turn away, about to close the door, when I hear a garbled scream. Startled, I swing
around to see Wes drop to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.

  “Wes?” I yell, and run outside.

  His eyes are squeezed shut, his teeth gritted. And as I kneel next to him, a steady stream of blood begins to pour from both nostrils, running over his lips and off his chin.

  “Fuck,” he moans, and collapses onto his side, pressing his temples like he’s trying to hold together the pieces of his skull.

  I’m frantic, not sure how to help him as he rolls around in agony. I run inside to grab my phone and then come back out, one hand on his shoulder, telling him that I’m here. I dial 911 and beg for an ambulance. They tell me there’s one en route, and I set the phone down to give Wes all my attention.

  His breaths are growing ragged, uneven. I roll him onto his side, and lean down so my face is near his. Blood is everywhere, and I see a thin brown line running from his ear.

  “Wes,” I sob out, putting my hands on his cheeks. And for a moment his body stills when I touch him, and he opens his eyes to look at me, a sharpness there that’s startling.

  “I remember,” he murmurs.

  My lips part, shock rocking me back. “What?”

  “I remember everything. I came back for you, Tate. I came back to save you from The Program.”

  He reaches out his hand, but before he can touch me, Wes’s eyes roll back in his head, and his body begins to convulse with a seizure.

  • • •

  It’s a blur. Nathan came running over when he heard the sirens, Jana waiting on his porch as she watched in horror. She ended up leaving, and I rode with Nathan to the hospital. He called Foster and asked him to meet us. As we drove, I left a message at the Adjustment office. I told Dr. McKee what had happened and begged him to help us.

  When we get to the hospital, they admit Wes immediately. Nathan offers to call my grandparents to let them know what happened. I don’t tell him about the earlier breakup—I’d kept it secret from him. I know that much. Seems I’ve lied to him before. And I don’t tell him now about Kyle or about the pills. I can’t think about any of that right now.

  While Nathan makes calls, I sit in the waiting-room chair, my arms wrapped around myself. The nurse tells me that Dr. McKee has already arrived and that he’s currently with Wes. She says he’ll be over to talk to me in a moment. But that moment feels like eternity. The double doors open and Dr. McKee comes rushing out. I jump up and meet him in the center of the hall, my anger flashing when I see him in person, all of my rage suddenly pointed at him, deflecting the real source of my worry and concern. “You’re a liar,” I say to him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Kyle? You knew something was wrong, and you . . . you—” But I start to cry because I don’t care about the past right now. I just need Wes. “Tell me he’s okay,” I beg desperately. “Because it didn’t fix him. The truth didn’t fix him.”

  Dr. McKee puts his hands on my shoulders, looking devastated. “Tatum, I’m going to need you to calm down.”

  “Calm down? This is your fault,” I tell him, pushing him away. “You tampered with his memories—you took Kyle out of them. What else did you change? You said you cared about us. You said you weren’t like The Program.”

  Dr. McKee straightens his back, like he’s getting ready to take a punch. “You’re right,” he says. “It’s my fault. I thought . . . I saw the way his guilt was triggered by the memory of Kyle. I thought if he didn’t know, it would be better for both of you.” He stops and shakes his head. “I do sound like The Program,” he says, mostly to himself.

  “Wes said he remembered everything, but then . . . he started to convulse. And after that I couldn’t wake him up. How is he now?”

  Dr. McKee nods, but it’s with a hopeless expression. “I’ll be honest, Tatum. I’m not sure what I can do for him at this point,” he says. “We’ve run into some complications. His memories crashed back all at once, but it was too strong. He had so many emotions. . . . He’s not well. He might not make it.”

  I fall back a step. That was the same thing they’d said about Vanessa. And she’d died.

  “But . . . you were the cure,” I say weakly. “How can you kill him if you were the cure?” I nearly gag on my cry, holding my stomach, fear washing over my head and pulling me under.

  “I understand you’re upset,” Dr. McKee says carefully, his voice taking on an edge. “But you need to be careful here. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m not going to kill myself,” I spit out like he’s stupid.

  “That’s not what I meant. Listen, Tatum,” he says, redirecting, “I’m going to go back to Weston now. But his brain is in full recall mode. Memories are pouring in. Too many at once. Think of it like a fuse box. He keeps tripping the switch, and his body is shutting him down. If he continues on like this, he’ll die.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” I ask.

  Dr. McKee bites down hard. “We either let him reboot in the hopes he’ll recover,” he says, “or we remove the corrupted memories. We remove . . . all the memories.”

  Another wave of panic crashes. “What do you mean, all ?”

  “The problem isn’t just with the implanted memories,” he says. “It has skewed others. Infected his reality. His perspective. The only safe bet would be to remove everything from the day he left The Program. More if necessary.”

  “You want to reset him?” I ask, struck down with fear. “Like The Program did?”

  “I’m not sure he’ll recover otherwise.”

  I rub roughly at my face and turn away from him. I look around the waiting room wishing Nathan was back. Wishing my grandparents were here, or Foster. “What will Wes remember?” I ask the doctor.

  “He’ll know his name,” he says quietly. “He might remember his parents, but that’s not a given. He won’t know you or me. As far as he’s concerned, he’s never seen us before in his life.”

  Less than an hour ago I tried to end our relationship, but the truth is I fell in love with Wes—this Wes. And he loved me back. He loved me deeply and honestly, even without our past. But I was hurt and I took it out on him. This time I ruined us. And I can’t fix it.

  Because now . . . now he’ll be gone forever. Like I never happened to him. Like I was never real. The horror of my erasure buries itself in my bones, a sharp pain that I think might never go away.

  “It’s the only choice,” Dr. McKee says sympathetically. “If we hope to wake him up, it’s the only choice. It’s what his parents want.”

  “And what about the returners who are breaking down?” I ask. “Won’t that still happen to him?”

  “No,” Dr. McKee says. “This reset will be complete—more thorough than The Program. There will be no chance of memory recovery. Not ever.”

  The wave of hurt is crushing—I’ll never get him back. He will never ever remember me again. We’re over.

  I wipe my nose and turn to the doctor, fire burning up my heart. “Tell me something,” I say bitterly. “Your Adjustment, your promises—did they ever work? Did you ever save anyone?”

  His eyes glass over, and he grows very still and solemn. “Once,” he says. “Our case study.”

  Nathan had been right all along. I shouldn’t have trusted this. Yes, the returners are crashing back, but with therapy . . . maybe we could have figured this out. Wes could be here right now. Awake. Healthy. I ruined everything.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says, his voice sympathetic. “Weston did get his memories back, but he got them back all at once. Unfortunately, not everyone can deal with that. We can give him a chance to fight this on his own, but even if he does wake up, he’ll need intensive therapy, the kind that doesn’t even exist yet.” He shakes his head. “The memories will crash and collide—they’ll all be there in some form or another—but I’m not sure his brain will be able to make sense of them. Reset or recovery, those are the only two choices . . . and one could end up killing him. Ethically, resetting is only one answer. I’m just giving you the courtesy of letting you
know why.”

  The decision’s been made, but really . . . I lose Wes either way. Because the Wes before The Program left me; he was with somebody else. The Wes after The Program didn’t know me at all. And with this complete reset, he never will.

  I walk over to the nurse’s desk, and she offers me a tissue. I thank her, sure I look a mess, and swipe under my nose. I can barely face the doctor when I say, “Save his life, Dr. McKee. Whatever you do, just save his life.”

  Dr. McKee nods, and then heads back to the treatment rooms. When the doors close behind him, I walk over to the waiting-room chairs and sit on the edge of one, shaking all over. The muscle above my right eye twitches.

  Nathan comes back a few minutes later with Foster, who must have just arrived. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see the absolute devastation in Foster’s eyes when he looks over at me.

  They sit down with me, one on either side like they can protect me from the world. From myself. I tell them what Dr. McKee said. I tell him about me and Wes breaking up, about Kyle. Nathan curses, swearing he had no idea about any of it. But Foster falls quiet, and I turn to look at him.

  “You knew?” I ask.

  He shifts his jaw, like he can’t believe it himself. “Yeah,” he says. “I knew something was up.” Foster glances at me, his expression apologetic. “I had no idea about Kyle, though. I swear.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask.

  Foster shrugs. “The one time I tried to ask you about your relationship, you nicely told me to mind my own fucking business.” He smiles. “Then I didn’t hear from you for a while; I thought you were mad. But then Weston disappeared, and I figured . . . I figured it didn’t matter what had happened before. You loved each other. All that mattered was getting him back. I didn’t realize . . . I was never sure, Tatum. And when you didn’t bring it up again, I figured it was none of my business. Just a bump in the road—or whatever bullshit relationship saying goes here.”

  “Could have mentioned it to me,” Nathan says, glaring over at him.

  “I could have,” Foster says. “But I didn’t think it was any of your business either.”