"Let the thoughts go," I tell her.
I close my eyes and thrust into her, listening to her pleas and moans escalate as the minutes pass. When I open my eyes and look down at her, I study her parted lips, her long dark lashes fluttering over her cheekbones, pleasure in the form of pink streaks across her cheeks. With elegant movements, she reaches behind her, holding onto slats within the headboard as her head tilts back into the pillow and her body arches into mine. "Take it all from me," she cries out.
I pound into her harder than I did the last few times we were together like this. It’s different now, though. I feel her body pull me in deeper, letting me in as much as possible. "I will take everything bad away from you," I grunt through a breathless groan.
I release inside of her, feeling beads of sweat drip down the back of my neck as I collapse on top of her bare body.
With my face smothered against her messy hair, I wrap my arms around her waist, noticing how soft her breasts feel against my chest and how perfect her legs weave and tangle around mine.
"Thank you," she whispers.
"For what?"
"Saving me."
A soft laugh is an uncontrollable response to her comment. I wanted to save her, but couldn't. "You saved me by never giving in to anyone."
"I didn’t have a choice,” she says. "Some secrets are worth going to the grave for.”
"You know how to access the files, don’t you?” I ask her.
"I do. Plus, the code is on the one unlocked file that’s stored on the SD card,” she says simply, and I’m confused as to why she wouldn’t lock down the passcode to prevent anyone from breaking into the files.
"Why would you make it easy for the person who obtained the SD card?”
"In case I ever forgot the code. However, the unlocked file is made of inaudible decibels, so anyone looking at the file would think it was broken or corrupt. Only an infrasonic device could calculate the silent tones and translate them into numbers. They would also need to know which five-seconds out of the sixty minutes contained the correct set.”
I roll onto my back, still trying to catch my breath. "Who the hell came up with that?"
"Me," she says. "I didn’t tell anyone, though. Not even Mason.”
"Holy shit, Isabelle. That's the craziest way to conceal a code and the most brilliant thing I've ever heard!”
"It doesn't matter. We have to get rid of it."
"Okay," I tell her. "I don't want it. I never did."
"Good," she says.
"I tried not to think about what the mechanics of that music was ultimately capable of, but why was it so wanted?" I ask her. She may not know, since I don't, but if she does, it's been my undying question for years.
She looks at me with confusion, as if I should have known the reason. "Like Everett was saying—it was to hide the secrets the government didn’t want the public to know the truth about. That, and other countries were after it for use in terrorism?"
"No one told me. I didn’t think Everett knew,” I tell her. "I figured he was just running his mouth. Maybe I was just hoping he was running his mouth.”
"The reality is, the public can’t handle the truth. If they did, the U.S. would collapse.”
"Isabelle ... "
"That's all I'm going to say, Axel. It's for your own good, but I have a favor to ask you?” she says with hesitance.
I roll off her and lean onto my side. "What is it?” I ask her.
"Use Perception’s Ensemble on me,” she says, swallowing hard as if she isn’t sure about her request.
"What? Why?”
She twists her head to look at me. "Make me forget about it, then destroy it,” she says. "I’ll give you the code and tell you how to use it. It won’t cause damage if used properly and the right timeframe is played at a certain volume.” She pulls herself up against the headboard, curling her hair behind her ears. She's lost in thought, considering the possibility of this fucked-up type of hypnosis removing the horrid memories she's forced to live with.
"No, if I screw something up, it could cause you brain damage or something worse. That’s what Phillips did to forty people while he was using them as test subjects.”
"Please,” she begs. "It’ll allow me to live without nightmares.”
I huff and stand up. How the hell can I let her do this, or help her for that matter? I feel like we got away with murder and now she wants to tempt fate just a little more. "I—I don’t know about this. Are you absolutely sure you know how to make it work just enough to help you forget?”
"Yes, it was originally developed to help PTSD sufferers, but then—”
"I have a bad feeling about this,” I tell her.
"We can both do it if that would make you feel better,” she says.
"No. Definitely not. I need to live with what I did to you."
"I don’t agree, but all I know is I can’t live like this. So please, do it, Axel. Grab the headphones I bought at the airport."
"Isabelle, let’s just think about this. Okay? Plus, there's nowhere I can plug it in."
"The TV," she says, clambering out of bed. She twists the TV around, looking at the back. "There's a place for the SD card and a headphone jack. Let me have it."
"Isabelle, I can’t bear the thought of something happening to you because of this.”
"I’m sorry, but this is my decision. I helped develop this fucking thing, Axel, so please, let me have it."
Epilogue
Two Years Later
AXEL
With her own vice and psychological development through music theory, she used the devised interrogation weapon against herself, forgetting the short-term surface of her past. It worked perfectly on her.
Except, it made her forget me.
We have coexisted here on this small island where I have spent every day for the past two years, working my way into her life, proving to her that I'm part of a past she can't remember. Her family and friends still exist in her mind, but that’s where it stops. She knows there are missing parts, but the confusion is more prominent than the understanding. Despite what she knows is missing, she doesn’t ask to leave the island, which is good.
I have asked this beautiful stranger out for dinner night after night, begging her to take walks on the beach with me at dusk so we could watch sunsets and talk about our dreams.
I didn't know the person she had become for very long, but just as she did the first time we met, her personality remained true to her soul, and the connection between us stayed intact.
I wasn't aware of how strong Perception's Ensemble was, and I don't think she was requesting to forget several years prior to arriving here, but there doesn't appear to be any sort of lingering regret along with her memory gap.
I still have my memories, and I will bury them to keep her smiling. Learning to experience happiness with a new beginning here is good for us, and now, I feel worthy of being in her life. I have spent every day these last couple of years making her laugh, love, and live. It has given me everything I didn't know I wanted or needed, and I don't feel the need to look back now.
"I think I want to ask you something," I tell her as we scuffle through the sand beneath the moonlight.
"You say that every night,” she says, playfully nudging me with her elbow, likely assuming I'm not serious.
"No, really, I want to ask you something tonight.”
She rolls her eyes and laughs quietly as her auburn hair blows across her forehead. "Okay fine, but I won’t act surprised when you 'shockingly' forget what you were going to say," she mocks me. This sweet, goofy part of her that was buried beneath so many layers of darkness is as new to me as it is to her, it seems, and she's made me nervous in a typical man-falls-for-a-woman fashion. I've fallen for her three times now, and I'm terrified of losing her after coming all this way.
I drop down to my knee and pull her onto my lap. Her hair continues to blow wildly into the wind as she looks at me like I'm crazy. She doesn't even know the half of it.