Robin Wasserman - Frozen

Auden had thought that maybe some live music—or at least, as live as it gets these days—would penetrate in a way the recorded stuff couldn’t. That maybe it would get my heart pounding, even though I didn’t have a heart; my breath caught in my throat, even though I didn’t have any lungs; my eyes tearing up, even though I didn’t have any ducts… You get the idea.

We both knew it was a long shot.

But I’d been willing to give it a try. And even though it hadn’t worked—even though the music made me feel cold and dead inside, just like always—it was better, having Auden there. This time it didn’t feel like a disappointment, or like I’d lost yet another piece of myself. It just felt like an experimental result—not even a failure, because when you’re experimenting, every new piece of information is a success.

That’s what Auden said, at least.

And that’s what he called them: experiments. At least going to a virtual concert was more fun than sticking my head in a bucket of ice water to see how long I could stand the cold. (Result: longer than Auden could stand waiting for me to give up.) We’d spent the week “experimenting,” trying to see what I couldn’t do—and what I could. It wasn’t like before, on my own, when I’d pushed the body until it broke. This wasn’t about testing limits, Auden said. This was about getting to know myself again. Because maybe that would lead to liking myself. Just a little.

I laughed at him for saying that—it was a little too Sascha-like for my taste. But I went along with the experiments. Partly because I didn’t have anything else to do—or anyone else to talk to. Partly because I wasn’t sure he was wrong.

“What’s it like?” he asked now. “Linking in with your mind?”

“I don’t know.” He was always asking me that: “What’s it like?” And I never had a good answer. What’s it like to breathe? I could have asked, and stumped him just as easily. What’s it feel like to dream, to swallow, to age?

“I mean, how do you do it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think about linking in, and the network pops up on my eye screen.”

“But how ?”

“Same way I do anything, I guess. How do I shut down at night? How do I stand up when I want to?” I asked, wishing we could change the subject. “How do you ?”

Auden looked thoughtful. “I just do it, I guess. I want to, and it happens.”

“Well, same thing,” I said, even though we both knew it wasn’t.

“So how come you can’t do more?”

“More like what?”

“Like, you still need a keyboard,” he said. “Why can’t you just think commands at the network and make stuff happen? Like you did with the language hookup.”

I’d told him all about the computer that had spoken for me, how horrible it had been. Except he didn’t get the horrible part; he thought it sounded cool.

“I just can’t,” I said. “It’s not the same thing.”

“It should be,” he argued. “If they have the tech to do it in the hospital, that means they have it, period. They could have wired your brain right into the network. It’d be like telepathy or something.”

“It’d be weird, is what it would be,” I said. “And they were trying to make us normal.”

It had been call-me-Ben’s favorite word, Sascha’s too. You are normal. Or at least, as normal as we can make you.

“You’ve got to get over that,” Auden said.

“What?”

“The normal thing.”

Because I wasn’t. “Thanks for rubbing it in.”

“But you’ve got something so much better,” Auden said, and I knew where he was going. He had the same dreamy look in his eyes that adults always got when they talked about how I would never age.

“I wasn’t afraid of getting old,” I said.

“What about not getting old?” Auden asked. “What about dying? You always act like it’s nothing, Lia, but it’s everything. You can’t die . What about that is not amazing?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it much. Before, I mean.” I’d never known anyone who had died. At least not anyone who mattered. Everyone dies, I got that. But I’d never quite believed it would happen to me. And now it wouldn’t. That didn’t seem amazing. Weirdly enough, it just seemed like the natural order of things. “I guess I’ve never really been too afraid of it. Death.”

He paused and looked away. “Maybe you should be.”

Somewhere below us, a door slammed.

Auden flinched. “Shit. What time is it?”

“Almost six. Why?”

“Nothing. Forget it. You should go.”

I’d come to his house every day after school for a week, but I’d always left by sunset—until today.

Footsteps tramped up the stairs.

I put my hand on the door, but before I could open it, Auden grabbed my arm. “Wait,” he whispered.

I shrugged him off. “What? I thought you wanted me to go.”

“Yeah, but not…” He shot a panicked glance at the window, like he was trying to decide whether to push me through it. Anything to get me out of the house before whoever was out in the hallway came into the room. Before they saw me.

“Are you hiding me?” I asked loudly. “Embarrassed or something?”

He put his finger to his lips, silently begging. I couldn’t believe it. At school he acted like he didn’t care what anyone thought. He kept telling me that I was better off being different, if my only other option was being the same. I didn’t believe him, but I’d believed that he believed it. At least, until now.

“Auden, you actually got a girl in there with you?” a man’s voice called from the hallway. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“Just me,” Auden called back weakly.

Screw him.

I twisted the knob. Opened the door.

The man in the hallway didn’t look anything like Auden. He was blond and handsome, his features perfectly symmetrical, green eyes, rosy cheeks, square chin. He could have starred in a pop-up for a gen-tech lab. And the two little girls clutching his hands were just as picture-perfect. Their blond hair was tied back into pigtails; green eyes sparkled; identical dimples dotted their identical cheeks.

Auden had never mentioned having sisters.

He’d never mentioned much of anything about his family, and I’d never thought to ask.

The man shook his head, looking disgusted. “I should have known.”

“Don’t,” Auden said quietly.

“Girls, go to your room,” the man said. But the girls didn’t move. They were staring at me. “Now.”

Their giggles drifted down the hallway, then disappeared behind a door.

“Get it out of here,” he said, glaring at me.

I bared my teeth. “Nice to meet you, too, M. Heller.”

“This is disgusting,” he said to Auden. “Even for you.”

“We weren’t—”

“You bring this on yourself, you know,” the man said. I couldn’t think of him as Auden’s father. Not with the ice in his eyes. “If you would just try a little harder, you wouldn’t have to resort to… that. ”

“We’re leaving.” Auden grabbed my wrist and tugged me into the hall, past his father.

“Didn’t you learn anything from what happened to your mother?”

Auden froze. “Don’t.” His voice had gotten dangerous.

“You’re just like her, you know.”

Auden stood up straighter. “Thank you.”

His father snorted. “Take that out of here,” he said, and even though he was no longer glaring at me, I knew what—who—he meant. “And you can take your time coming back. Tara’s cooking a special dinner for me and the girls.”

“Family bonding,” Auden said bitterly. “How sweet. And I’m not invited?”