“But it makes you run,” she says quietly.
Running. I don’t know how to explain to her that I always, always feel like I’m running. Running toward something, running away. I’m a moving target, I’m in pieces, I’m never whole. Sometimes velocity and trajectory are better than the mass itself. So yeah, it feels natural to run.
“Will you ever stop?”
“I don’t know. I can learn to. I have to unlearn some habits, I guess,” I say quietly.
“I should unlearn some habits, too.” She hesitates, then adds, “I’ve only ever valued one half of myself over the other.”
I look at Anda. “Can you do it? Can you stop the whole ship thing?”
“I am right now.” Her face looks calm, but her hands are tight fists, as if the reminder itself is work.
“Can you do it forever?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She looks worried. “I can’t stop death. You know that.”
“But there was already a natural cycle.”
“I took myself out of the cycle.”
“Why?”
“It upset Father.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about what other people think,” I say. “It gets tiring, doesn’t it?”
I sit down, and Anda promptly sits in my lap, wraps my arms around her damp waist. I like the way she doesn’t ask. People tiptoe around me all the time, all except the ones who should. I love how she thinks of my body as an extension of hers. No one’s ever done that before.
“I’ll weigh you down so you can’t run,” she says. But my body is still tense, and she feels that.
I shake my head.
So she gets up, turns around, and sits on my lap so we are face-to-face, her legs wrapped around my waist. My heart immediately starts to gallop as she entwines her arms around my neck. Our noses are an inch apart now, and all I can think about is whether or not it’s possible to kiss someone for twelve hours without breathing. Speaking of which, I’m breathing really damn fast now.
“Feel like running?” she whispers.
“Maybe,” I lie.
She takes her hands and pushes my shoulders so I fall backward on the broad stone beneath us. She pulls my arms above my head, holds my wrists down, and straddles my waist. Her eyes bore into mine.
“How about now?”
I don’t answer her. I just let her kiss me.
Chapter Forty-Six
ANDA
I could do this forever. Trap this boy and make him mine. I would let his marrow bones crumble beneath me and I would still sing and kiss the splinters of him until he was nothing but dust. But I do not say such things aloud. I am learning that my sentiments aren’t always…well received.
We kiss for a long time. The air is cool, and I’m too preoccupied to keep the temperature at bay. So our hands search out pockets of warmth—under his shirt, the nape of my neck, the narrow of my waist and his.
After what seems like an hour, he surfaces to breathe. I pout, still sprawled over him.
“C’mon,” he says, sitting us both up. “This rock can’t be comfortable. Let’s take a walk.” He leans back and pulls me to my feet.
“You want to walk?”
He nods.
“We’ve walked a lot already. Over forty miles,” I remind him. I’m still staring at his lips.
“Fine. Then I’ll walk.” He crouches down and pats his shoulder. “Get on. I’ll take you on a tour of the grand Menagerie Island.”
I climb onto his back. He shows me how to wrap my legs around his waist and drape my arms over his shoulders. Oh, this is worth relinquishing my position of pleasantly crushing him against a rock. This is very good.
He treads carefully, his boots looking for each secure step with thoughtfulness. There are a dozen ways to trip and fall, even on this tiny rise of land, but he never falters. I squeeze his broad, angled shoulders tighter and kiss the back of his neck. I could do this all day.
“I could do this all day,” I tell him, realizing that there isn’t a point to keeping anything to myself anymore. Especially when it doesn’t involve crumbled bones.
“Good.”
“Are you tired?”
“No. Are you?”
I shake my head. He pauses, before asking, “So…do you need sleep?”
“Sometimes.” I think for a while, and then explain. “My body needs sleep sometimes. I don’t always know what I’m feeling, when I need it. Father recognizes it better than I do. I get…angry. And irrational.”
Hector laughs as he carries me around a cluster of lacy cedar bushes, fragrant with their oil. “You are always irrational, Anda.”
I nod. It’s true, after all.
Hector stops walking and turns his head so he can see me. “You know, I haven’t had many bad dreams since we’ve met. Most of the time, I dream of rain, and the lake, instead.”
“Tell me about your bad dreams, Hector.”
He gently lowers me to the ground. Menagerie Island is so miniscule that we’re already on the east end. I slither my hand into his, but he won’t look at me. His eyes are on the distant horizon where the sky is clearer. The clouds behind us are pushing closer. Already, a slight mist moistens the air. I can taste the heaviness of rain coming.
Hector shakes his head. “You don’t really want to know what my bad dreams are about.”
“I do.”
“No. Because then they’ll become your bad dreams, too. And I don’t want you to think of me like that.”
“Hector.” I pull him closer and bury my face in his neck. He smells of sweat and shame, and I’d make it into a perfume to wear every day, if I could be so lucky. “Take me with you.”
He encircles my wrists in his hands, the same way he did when he found me in the lake, trying to pull me above water. Instead of forcing him away with a riptide, I pull him down, down to the ground. I sit in his lap and wrap his arms around me, as if they were the harnesses of a rocket ship. I offer him the nape of my neck to hide his face against.
“Tell me everything,” I whisper.
And he does. Slowly, carefully, unfolding like an ancient letter. He’d never told anyone, because he’s never been sure of the truth. It started when he was eleven. His uncle often left a half-drunk beer in the kitchen, forgetting which bottle he’d finished and hadn’t. With his uncle snoring in his recliner by the TV, Hector would chug it down, wincing at the bitterness. Knowing and hoping that it would make him feel unlike himself, because being Hector wasn’t pleasant.