The Ones We're Meant to Find(21)

If I’m awake, surely he can be too.

My patience drying up, I prod him. Poke him. I check that he’s still breathing, and as I’m holding a finger under his nose, it hits me all over again.

A living. Breathing. Human.

The first in three years.

Will he be funny? Sarcastic? Charming? Or will he wake up still a murderer?

As if I might find the answers written on his face, I scoot closer and study him. He appears to be around my age, whatever that is. As for his looks, he’s pretty, but plain. Nothing about him sticks out. Nothing is striking. His cheekbones, while high, could be more defined, and his jaw, refined, could be more chiseled. His hair is wishy-washy wavy and too short to be long, but long enough to fan out over the pillow, curling around his ears and neck, a dark gray mop over his brow, eyes interrupted only by the slope of his nose—a nice enough nose, but still boyish. Boyish—that’s the word. Missing angles and gentle shadows, like the half-moon dwelling above his lip.

Which brings me to his lips.

Not too full, not too thin. Average, but here, it works. His lips are probably his nicest feature, and I run a finger over the bottom one before I can help myself, surprised by its softness. Do murderers have soft lips? I pick at my chapped ones, suddenly self-conscious. Then I chuckle. Me? Upped by a boy? Impossible.

Hold up.

Where did that thought come from?

I don’t have memories of any boys. In fact, when I try to remember them, I end up with images of ice pops that melt too fast and sky-cities hovering over oceans. And Kay. Black coffee eyes. Bobbed hair. The rare slice of a smile.

But then, like some levee has broken, it all comes flooding back. Boys upon boys upon boys. Boys who talk more than they listen, who aren’t as funny as they think they are but who need me like air, whose smiles are easily earned.

Only one boy is unsmiling. Black hair, swept to one side. Coal-dark eyes. When our gazes meet, it’s like he sees me, not the version of myself I try to be to make others like me, but the parts I’m hiding, the secrets I keep from Kay, out of fear that they’ll hurt her. I never want to hurt her or anyone or him.

A boy whose name I can’t remember.

When I resurface, I’m out of breath. I glance back down at the boy to find my finger still on his lip and his eyes wide open, gray irises pinned on mine.

I withdraw my hand. “Finally,” I say with feigned cool, folding my arms over my ribs. My heart pounds behind them. “You’ve wasted my entire morning.”

Two seconds. That’s all the prep time I get before the torrent.

“Where am I? How did I get here?” His gaze darts—left, right, left again, then finally up, to the bedposts. “What—” He tugs on his arms; the nylon rope holds. “The hell? Why am I tied up?”

So many questions. Do I even remember how to answer questions?

Where am I? “In my bed.” How did I get here? “I carried you.” Why am I tied up? “I like it kinky.”

Maybe not.

“I’m kidding,” I say when the boy’s face pales at least three shades of gray.

First impressions, take two: He doesn’t look like a murderer, nor is he acting like one. But his voice is what sways me the most. Even panicked, it’s … music. The sound of the sea as it sighs across the sand. It almost doesn’t match his face, but as I’m thinking this, I find his face, paired with his voice, growing more beautiful before my eyes.

My takeaway? Voice-deprivation is real and could be the death of me if I’m not careful.

“Untie me,” says the boy. The bed creaks as he tugs on his wrists. I resist the urge to jump to his aid. How I lived before is not how I live now. The shiny things in my dreams—the glass elevators and the boys with their white smiles—don’t exist here. It’s just me and my body’s natural healing abilities. A beating heart trumps a soft one.

One wrong call is all it takes.

“Not until you prove your trustworthiness,” I say, sitting back down in the rocking chair.

“My trustworthiness?” More thrashing and jerking.

“Stop fighting and listen.” I wait for him. For several minutes, his breathing only ratchets up in speed. His distress rubs off on me, and I grip the arms of the rocking chair. The wood is slick under my palms by the time he finally calms down.

“We’ll begin with the question of why you’re tied up.” I start rocking at a grandmotherly pace, in hopes that it’ll put him more at ease. “Last night, you tried to strangle me.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“I did n—”

I yank down the turtleneck of M.M.’s sweater. That shuts the boy up. “You did, even if you don’t remember. It was storming, too. You’re lucky I bothered bringing you into the house.” I tug the turtleneck back over the marks. “You’re welcome.”

I watch as the info sinks in. He’s trying to reconcile it in his brain—what he’s seeing versus what he believes. My truth versus his. I don’t think he’s acting forgetful, and I don’t rule out the possibility that his behavior on the beach was a one-off thing, triggered by whatever he endured at sea. It’s also worth noting that he seems scrawnier in the sunlight, and not nearly strong enough to choke me, and—no, I won’t make excuses for him. He can explain himself.