“Says the person who’s now his best friend forever.”
“Not true.” Tingles races up my arm at James’s touch, warming my body. “What I am is grateful,” he says. “He got me out of The Program; he helped me get to you. He was grilled by those investigators and he didn’t once mention our names. We owe him. Not to mention that, without him, you would have ended up lobotomized—”
I pull my hand from his and cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah, I got it,” I say, still uncomfortable talking about my last hours in The Program. Even when I was questioned by authorities, I told them I was too drugged to remember the final details, the escape. I told them to defer to Program records, which I knew had probably been destroyed by then.
James is quiet for a moment, letting my anger pass as it always does. Then he starts in on my new favorite pastime since escaping the control of The Program: recall.
“There was this one night,” he says in that far-off voice he reserves for memories, “where you and Brady were about ready to throw down. I told you both that you were being stubborn, but I was, of course, ignored.” He rolls his eyes, but I’m smiling, the thought of my brother settling over me like a blanket.
“What were we fighting about?” I ask.
“What else? Me. You didn’t want me to stay the night because Lacey was coming over, and you said I was too obnoxious to play nice with others. Brady said Lacey was a lawsuit waiting to happen and that I was the safer bet. It got kind of ugly.”
“Who won?”
James laughs. “Me, of course.”
I lower my arms, grinning at the way the memory plays across my head. I don’t remember any of it, but I love when James tells me the stories. I love that he has them. “And how did you pull that off?” I ask.
He licks his lips, leaning a little closer. “I promised to be sweet. I may have had a little twinkle in my eye when I said it.”
“Hmm,” I say, reaching to take the fabric of his T-shirt in my hand to pull him closer. “I know that look. So, what? I just gave in? That doesn’t sound like me.”
“It wasn’t at all like you,” he whispers, pausing just as his lips brush against mine. “That’s how I knew you loved me. And that’s why I started leaving you notes. I told myself I wanted you to talk me out of it, but really, I just wanted you to talk to me.”
I kiss him; it’s playful and easy—we have time now. There’s no one after us. We’re free.
My phone rings from my back pocket, and James groans, trying to grab it from my hand when I take it out. He’s still kissing me as we both fumble for the phone, and when I finally pull away to check it, I see it’s my mom. “She has impeccable timing,” James says, and then drops back into the driver’s seat with one last mischievous glance in my direction.
I laugh and answer. “Hi, Mom.” James shifts the car into gear, leaving the pasture behind as we continue down the peaceful, winding road toward our destination. “What’s up?”
“Hi, honey,” my mother says, her voice distracted. “I can’t remember what you told me—was it mac ’n’ cheese you wanted me to pick up? That stuff is horrible for you.”
“I know, but I’ve been craving it. I haven’t had it in forever.” Not since I was on the run with the rebels, I think. I’m trying to convince myself I can handle memories of that time, even though my subconscious quickly tries to wipe it away.
“Your dad still wants pork chops, so I’ll make that junk as a side dish. Oh, here it is.” The phone rustles, and I tap my nails on the door.
“Anything else?” I ask, wanting to get back to James.
“No, that’s it,” my mother says happily. “Tell James I said hello. Make sure you’re both home by six.” I agree, and as soon as we hang up, I look sideways at James.
“I wish she’d stop trying so hard,” I say, although not unkindly. When I first returned home after the scandal broke, my parents were overwhelmed with the attention from the press and then the horror of the stories broadcast on the news. It’s taken months of therapy—normal therapy with normal doctors—for me to stop blaming my parents. Then they had to stop blaming themselves. We’re finally in a good place, I guess.
“At least she’s trying,” James says, continuing to stare straight ahead. My parents helped him buy a small stone at the cemetery to keep his father’s remains. Although it alleviated some of his guilt, James is still haunted by the fact that his father died alone. But we all have our crosses. Now James is at my house, staying in Brady’s old room. Soon it’ll be just us, because despite how much my parents kind of annoy me, I told them I’d stay a year. I realize I’ve missed them. I missed who they could be.
The sun glitters in the sky, but James stays quiet, maybe thinking about his dad. I don’t like when he falls silent, bothered by things I can’t remember. Sometimes he cries out in his sleep—an aftereffect of The Treatment—as a tragic memory floods back in. He’ll be quiet for a few days, but eventually we talk it out. It’s not always easy to remember—I can see that now.
“Tell me another story about us,” I whisper.
The corner of James’s mouth twitches and he flicks a glance at me. “Clean or dirty?”
I laugh. “Let’s try a clean one.”
James seems to think for a moment, and then the smile fades to something softer, sadder. “There was this one weekend where we went camping with Lacey and Miller.”
At hearing the names, I feel a sharp twist of grief. But I need to hear their stories. James checks to see if I’m okay with him going on, and I nod to let him know that I am.
“So Miller, he was crazy about Lacey—I mean, the kid thought she walked on water. So you, being the insistent little matchmaker you are, thought camping would be a perfect double date. Which could have been the case if Lacey wasn’t completely allergic to nature. She was miserable, and Miller was like, ‘Oh, you don’t like mosquitos? Me either! Oh, you think beans are gross? Me too!’ It was painful to watch! So finally I pulled the kid aside and gave him some advice.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I told him he needed to play a little harder to get. Only he didn’t quite understand the concept. He spent the rest of the night ignoring her. The next morning Lacey cornered you, crying, asking what she did wrong.”
“How did it all work out?” I ask. I can’t remember Miller, not the way James does. I never really will. But hearing about him, it makes me feel connected to myself. Miller’s like a favorite character in a childhood story.
“Well, you little charmer,” James says, “you went to Miller and told him to stop being an asshole. You had no idea I’d talked to him at the campsite. He went back to Lacey and apologized, she gave him a hard time, and then eventually they met up without us and became blissfully happy.” James smiles. “Miller never ratted me out, either. He let you think he was an idiot. But really it was me.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t guess that. I must have been blinded by your good looks.”
“Who isn’t?”
James pulls up to the empty spot near the grass and parks the car. We sit a minute, both of us feeling so much after the memory. “I wish I could remember,” I say, and look over at James. “But I’m glad you do.”
“I won’t stop until you know every second of our lives,” he says simply. “I won’t leave anything out. Not even the bad stuff.”
I nod. James has made that promise every day since we left Evelyn’s house. Sometimes he repeats stories, but I don’t mind. When we visit Lacey, we tell her some of them, and although she smiles, I’m not sure she really gets it. But she was well enough to finish school, take some college classes. Her therapist even thinks she’ll get feelings back one day. So we don’t give up. We never give up.