A Long, Long Sleep (10 page)

I frowned. Maybe I’m just messed up about losing everyone.

That might be it, he wrote, but I don’t think either one of us believed it.

You lost people, too, I wrote. I wished I could whisper it; it was such a terrible thing. Do you recognize it?

I do, Otto wrote, but that’s something else, too. I think it was more immediately brutal to me than it is to you. There’s something of a dreamlike horror to your situation. I think there’s probably a part of you that still thinks you’re going to wake up and find everything back the way it was. Am I right?

How can you know me so well?

Observation, Watson! Besides, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there’s something less concrete about waking up and finding everyone gone, compared to holding your best friend as her brain hemorrhages.

I blinked at that coldly written phrase. Oh, God, Otto. You were touching her?

He waited a long time before writing. I died with her. Or my mind did. God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. They had to drag me away, and I knocked four of them unconscious before they realized they couldn’t touch me. They just don’t think.

I’m surprised you don’t hate them.

It’s not their fault. They’re just employees.

The way he called everyone who cared for his family “them” made me wonder.

Didn’t any of them love you?

You’re astute, aren’t you.

I miss my parents, I told him honestly, as an explanation. It was an explanation that made sense to him, apparently, because he didn’t ask for clarification.

No one’s ever asked me that before. We love one another. We have no biological parents. Some of our surrogates — the implantation mothers — got together after we were born and made sure we were given human rights. But only Penny’s surrogate was part of that group. The other few were all carriers for the simple ones. They visit on the weekends, too, sometimes.

And Penny’s surrogate?

Got married and had another child. Still sends Penny Christmas presents.

That’s it?

Yup. Doesn’t matter. We’re glad to be designated human.

I can imagine so! But they didn’t give you foster parents, or anything? Who cared for you as babies?

Registered nurses. They were tender, but it was a job. We’ve had tutors, supervisors. Lots of them are nice enough, but no. They’re all hired by UniCorp. We don’t belong to them. Or with them.

I swallowed. For a long time, I considered whether or not I was going to write it down, and then I decided, what the hell. I had nothing to lose. You could belong to me, I wrote. I had to write it quickly, or I knew I’d never get it out. I’d love you. I’m as much of an anomaly as you, and I don’t seem to belong with anyone.

You’re the only thing that seems to really fit. We can be family.

The moment I pressed send, I wished I could erase it. There was a pause at least as long as the one I’d left before I’d written. I sat there feeling like an idiot.

Even reading it over I sounded desperate and hopeless. I’d said too much. No doubt I’d scared him and he was about to run screaming.

Thank you. The words appeared on the screen. That means a lot.

I hoped he meant it.

There was a long pause before he wrote, Are you going to ask Bren out? as a way of changing the subject.

By comparison, this was actually an easy subject. I don’t know yet.

Well, maybe Mina can help. She helped me sort out Nabiki and me a dozen times.

I can imagine it’s hard for you to have a relationship.

Easier in some ways. Harder in others, I suspect. It’s hardest on Nabiki. She gets a lot of grief over it. And her parents don’t approve.

Why not?

Would you approve of your daughter dating a blue- skinned alien?

If the alien was as adorable as you, absolutely.

There was a bit of a pause before Otto wrote, Did you know I blush purple?

Jamal’s teasing me about it.

Is he reading this? I asked, horrified.

No.

Sorry I made you blush.

I’m not. Good night, Briar Rose.

Good night, blue- skinned alien.

“Okay,” I told Dr. Bija. “I genuinely have something you can help me with.”

“What’s that?” Mina asked, her face brightening.

“How do you know if you like someone?”

The question seemed to confuse her. “Pardon me?”

“How can you tell if you like someone? I mean, dating like.”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Generally people just know.”

I frowned. That didn’t help me.

“Why are you asking this? Is this about Bren?”

“You could tell?” I asked sheepishly.

Mina shrugged. “Process of elimination. You don’t talk about anyone else.”

“I really don’t talk to anyone else.”

“You don’t?”

I shook my head. “Except Otto. But we don’t really talk.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“Why is that?”

Sometimes it was really aggravating how she just kept asking questions. “I’m a freak,” I said. Wasn’t it obvious? “I’m out- of- date, out of touch, out of time.”

“Do you think you’re making any progress assimilating?”

I sighed. I tried my hardest to talk about only the most trivial aspects of my life with her. We talked about my art a lot. And Patty and Barry, about whom I was hard- pressed to find something to say. I knew basically nothing about them.

They were still complete strangers, with whom I shared the evening meal. “I don’t know.”

“What’s going on that you had to ask?” Mina said.

“’Cause I think I like Bren. But it . . . it isn’t the same.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say, but Mina was.

“Not the same as with Xavier?”

I nodded.

“How did you and Xavier meet?”

“I was seven,” I said, but I didn’t finish the story. It would mean explaining that I’d come out of a long stint in stasis suffering from a mild bout of stass fatigue, so I couldn’t do much for a week besides sit in the garden. And Mrs.

Zellwegger, the next- door neighbor, had had an infant son. He was less than a year old, just learning to crawl, and she would take him out into the garden to get some fresh air. Since my eyes hurt if I read too long, and I was only seven, I hadn’t had a lot to do. So I’d taken up with little Xavy. I had had endless fun putting toys in the grass and crawling with him. We’d laugh and laugh. I’d sit him on my lap and tell him stories, and as he grew a bit, we’d draw pictures in the sandbox.

The garden was still there at the condo, but that sandbox was long gone now.

Just like Xavier.

“So you’d known each other for a long time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I really don’t want to talk about Xavier.”

“That’s okay. Do you think you’re going to tell Bren how you feel?”

“You think I should?” I asked.

“I can’t answer that for you,” Mina said. “Do you think you should tell him how you feel?”

I sighed. “The trouble is, I’m not sure how I feel.”

“Well, I can tell you this. Every love, every relationship, is different. It’s never going to be the same, not with anybody.”

I sighed. I was more than a little disappointed by that thought. To never have a touchstone again, to always be a floating seed, rootless, was a horrifying thought.

“It might be just as good,” Mina said. “But it’ll always be a little different.”

I took a deep breath. If that was the case, maybe this giddy, unyielding confusion and awe was a new, different type of love. Or at least the beginnings of such. And if that was the case, I really did want Bren to know how I was feeling.

So I’d tell him.

The next day, startled birds beat against my chest with my resolve. I wasn’t really sure how to go about this kind of thing. With Xavier it had been so easy.

We’d known each other for so long that our relationship was natural. Still, I had a general idea of how to manage it. I’d seen enough holomovies.

I told myself to wait until we were alone together in my limoskiff. I was terrified I might fail to catch him. If he took the Uni solarskimmer, I wasn’t sure I could stand another day of anticipation. I literally ran out of my last class, catching Bren in the quad just as he was about to go up to Otto and Nabiki. “You wanna ride today?” I babbled.

Bren seemed taken aback at first, until he deciphered my accelerated question.

“Oh. Um.” He glanced at Nabiki and Otto. Nabiki rolled her eyes and walked away, but Otto just stared at us. At me, actually, as had become his custom.

“Yeah, I guess.”

I felt a peculiar mixture of relief and horror at his acceptance. The first hurdle was over with. I knew what I had planned to say; I had plotted it out a hundred times since the night before. But the moment I had Bren alone in the limoskiff, all my careful preparations fled into the quad, leaving me with my mouth dry and my hands sweaty.

Bren tried to tell me about his next tennis game, but I barely heard one word out of twelve. The miles fled beneath my hovering skiff, and all my precious time alone with him was left behind. The skiff turned into the condo lot. Time was up.

All that wasted time!

“I want to go out with you,” I blurted.

Bren had been casually leaning back, telling me about the angle of the court and how to adapt to the nearness of the audience. He stopped midsentence and stared at me, his back rigid. “What was that?” he asked.

“I . . . I like you, and . . .” I swallowed.

His response was the worst I could have anticipated. I didn’t expect him to fall at my feet with protestations of adoration. But I really didn’t expect him to scramble for the door of the limoskiff, desperate to get away from me, his face twisted with a trapped panic that tore my heart. He dropped his notescreen in his confusion and picked it up awkwardly from the ground. “Sorry, Rose. No,”

he said once he was safely out of the skiff.

I don’t know what perverse imp caused me to continue talking. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “I know,” I said. “I didn’t expect you to say yes. I mean, it’s not . . . not that important. I just . . .” My cheeks were hot, and my ears were hot. I felt on fire with embarrassment, and I heard my own voice finish. “I thought you liked me.”

“Coit!” Bren swore. “Look. Rose. Oh, burn it.” He glanced up at the sky as if looking for strength. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, okay? I wasn’t trying to lead you on. I —I think this is probably my fault, and there’s probably some kind of . . . culture . . . thing . . . going on. It’s just that my granddad told me to look after you. I mean, he and Guillory are worried about the company, okay? They just told me to make sure you weren’t . . . I don’t know. ‘Led astray’ was, I think, the phrase Guillory used. Actually I think Granddad was just worried about you —he’s not as mercenary- minded as Reggie. So I’ve been here for you, but I really didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea, and I don’t know how this kind of thing worked sixty years ago, and I’ve probably put my foot in it or something. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded panicked.

“So . . . you don’t like me,” I whispered.

“Not . . . like that. I mean, you’re nice enough, but you give me the creeps!

You’re like a ghost or something!” He bit off his next words, realizing he’d already said too much. “Sorry,” he added. “That’s not your fault. You’re really sweet, but it’s just . . . I can’t, okay?”

A fierce hand gripped my chest, squeezing my lungs. No, it wasn’t my lungs. It was my heart. It was breaking.

Wasn’t I stronger than this?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Bren stared at me, and the panic left his face. Behind it I saw remorse, and . . .

oh, no. I didn’t want that look. That was pity. “So am I.” He pulled his notescreen to his chest and stared at me awkwardly. “I’ll . . . I’ll still see you at lunch tomorrow. It’s not like . . .” He trailed off.

“Right,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Bren said. “Bye.”

I sat in the skiff for a long time after he had gone. My stass- fatigued eyes were often burning and blurry, so I didn’t realize I was crying until I saw the raw wet patch on the skirt of my uniform. I dashed the wetness from my face and headed up the lift, hoping that neither Barry nor Patty had come home early from work. I was in luck. They were out. As usual.

Zavier met me at the door, his tail wagging, waiting to be taken out. I couldn’t bring myself to walk him today, so I dragged myself out to the garden and sank to the grass.

Zavier ran around and chased butterflies. I wished I could be so carefree. The tears started falling again when I looked at my surroundings. In sixty years, many of the plants had changed, some of the paths had been altered, but many of the ornamental trees were still there, arching over the courtyard with their blossoms and their red leaves. But now they were four times as thick around, and now when I walked beneath them, I would never again find my Xavier.

It had been so perfect with Xavier. Friendship had melted into love so quickly that we could hardly tell the difference between the two.

...

Mom and Dad had let me out of stass, and we had a fabulous champagne breakfast to welcome me back. It had been late autumn when I’d gone into stass, but it was early summer now. I’d just missed the end of school, and I was glad.

After our breakfast, Mom took me down to Jacquard’s to go shopping, and we had a spree. She got me a whole new wardrobe, the latest summer fashions.

Indian cotton was in this year, replacing the light silks that had been popular in my last wardrobe. By the time we were done it was midafternoon, so Mom had gone home and settled in for her afternoon nap. Daddy was somewhere doing something for UniCorp, and I didn’t feel like napping. I could have gone down to the pool or the tennis courts, but I didn’t feel up to it. I’d been in stass long enough to feel a stiffness in my muscles, the first hints of stass fatigue.

Rather than settle into my room, I dug around until I found a sketchbook and headed to the garden to draw.

I didn’t recognize him. Not at first. I thought the tall, rangy youth who was walking the paths was a new tenant, so I avoided him, taking a different path.

There was a pause in the crunch of the footsteps behind me, and then he began to run after me.

“Rose?”

I froze. I’d know that voice anywhere. Ever since he’d lost his lovely soprano at thirteen, Xavier’s voice had been a soft leather couch, warm and brown. I turned, questioning. “Xavier? Is that really you?”

Xavier had changed. A lot. His ash- blond hair had darkened to a brownish gold in the last nine months, and he had shot up like a weed. He towered over me now. Ten centimeters wasn’t so much, but I’d always been taller than him.

I’d also always been older than him. This Xavier was no longer a child. The downy fuzz he’d been cultivating when I went into stass had transformed overnight into a well- manicured goatee. When I said his name, the smile he flashed me was no longer wholly innocent. But most of all, his eyes watched me with an appetite I had never seen before.

My hands reached out to him, grabbing at the lapels of his open shirt, beneath which he wore a shirt with the UniCorp logo of a charging white unicorn. “Look at you!” I laughed, looking up and up at his new face. “You’re so tall!”

He laughed. “You always say that.”

“It’s always true.” I was stunned by his appearance. I reached up to touch his face and was surprised by the rough stubble left behind by a razor. “What’s happened to you! You’re . . . different.”

He was smiling at me, his green eyes shining in his freckled face. “Good,” he said. “I like being different for you.” His hand reached up and touched my hair, wrapping a lock around his finger. “You’re just the same, though.”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk about me. “What’d I miss?” I asked. I patted his newly muscled chest. “I mean, apart from the obvious.”

His fingers kept playing with my hair. Little trills passed down my scalp. That was . . . different. He’d played with my hair before now. Just yesterday, in fact .

. . or what I thought of as yesterday. So why did this feel different? Well, he was different, I guessed, but something else had changed.

“Not a lot,” Xavier said. He gazed into me, and his eyes were soft. “How long has it been?”

I couldn’t keep the laughter out of my voice. “You’d know better than I would.”

He smiled. He pulled me against him and squeezed me tightly. “I missed you!”

“Me too,” I said. I’d never meant it so much. I’d missed so much of him. He squeezed me even tighter and lifted me off my feet. I gasped. He’d never been strong enough to do that before. I laughed and he looked up at me, delighted.

With a mischievous grin he spun me around in a circle, and I squealed. “Stop it! Put me down, you colossus!”

He did, setting me lightly on my feet. “What do you think?” he asked. “Think I’ve filled out well enough?”

“I always said you’d make a handsome rogue!” I said, teasing him. But I wasn’t really teasing. I was amazed. I looked him up and down, his newly developed chest, his beautiful crop of hair, the strong arms that still held my shoulders. I shook my head. “Look at you!” I whispered.

“You like me, then?”

I tried to think of exactly what to say and found myself at a loss for words.

“Ahm, yeah,” I said. “Ah . . .” I trailed off, finally stating my approval in an expressive whistle.

“Mmm.” It was a very low sound. He closed his eyes and his breathing quickened. He looked away from me for moment, as if wrestling with himself.

Then his hands tightened on my shoulders. “Rose?” he asked, his tone deadly earnest. “We’ve always been friends, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose we have been.”

“You know . . . that won’t ever change. No matter . . . what else might change.”

I was afraid of this. I’d always known that one day I’d come out of stass and he would have outgrown me. A boy won’t follow his big sister around forever.

“Yeah, I know that.” I sighed. “I just . . . brought out my sketchbook; you can go do . . . whatever. I’ll see you later.”

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” he murmured.

Now I was confused. “Then what was with the . . . ?” I trailed off, distracted by his gaze. It was very, very deep. “Xavier . . .” I whispered.

“Ah,” Xavier groaned, closing his eyes. “You look just the same. I meant to wait on this, at least a few days, but I don’t think I can.”

“Wait on what?”

He stayed silent for a moment, his brow furrowed, looking deep into whatever blackness was inside his closed lids. “Rose,” he said at last. “If you don’t want this, just say so. It won’t make any difference.”

“What?”

“Shh.” He put a finger over my mouth and stared at me. His eyes burned with an amber flame deep amid the hazel green. “It’s just I’ve been thinking about this since last autumn. Well, every impossible day for the last four years, really. And if I don’t do something about this now that I . . . can, I think I’m going to go crazy.”

He pulled his finger away, and I opened my mouth. “About what?” I whispered, but I thought I knew.

“This,” Xavier murmured, and he moved in closer to me.

Time went very slowly. I had time to think about all the repercussions if I were to let him kiss me. Nine years of friendship, changed in an instant. Sixteen years, if we went by his time. I’d helped change his diapers when I was seven.

Now here we were, and he was taller than I was, handsome and charming and confident. So confident. This was not the move of a boy who had never before kissed a girl.

That thought alone was enough to drive me to him, to make me loosen my hold on my sketchbook, so that it fell abandoned into the grass. As the heat from his breath touched my lips, my hands went up to his neck, to his newly darkened hair, and I clutched him to me. Xavier was mine! He had always been mine! What right had some other girl to take his first kiss from me? And here I stood, giving my first kiss to him.

The moment our lips met, there was a riot of color that I could feel, not see. An explosion of light, with all the intensity of a stass dream, only it was real and tangible, a solid, impenetrable connection to my Xavier, my constant. My hands were wild, trying to pull different pieces of him into me, his hair, his shoulder, his neck, the back of his head. I laced my fingers into his hair. His arms were steady, firm, and as solid as stone, pulling me as close to him as it was possible to be. His teeth lightly gripped my lower lip, his tongue explored my mouth, and I was angered anew by his confidence, his evident experience.

My jealousy pulled me even closer to him, and the bright colors of my body began to go gray, along with everything else. My leg snuck around him, trying to hold him to me so he couldn’t get away. And even as I kissed him, I was crying.