Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

Guilt coats my throat like thick slime. I knew I was risking more than myself by breaking into the labs. But his words, and the mild reproach in his tone, make me want to slit a hole in the cosmos and disappear.

In a different future, Callie and I held the key to the invention of future memory. She took herself out of the equation, but I’m still here. My brain is still fertile ground to excavate. And yet, since she and I were a Sender-Receiver pair, the scientists can’t discover anything without her. Right?

“I couldn’t leave the mice to the whim of the scientists,” I say, not looking at Logan. “It’s cruel the way they’re treated.”

“Not as cruel as genocide.”

He doesn’t have to remind me.

We don’t speak as we step off the sidewalk and exit the compound. We walk into the woods—an almost entirely different world. Here, in this small, dwindling-by-the-day patch of forest, there’s no metal or technology. There’s just vegetation and rocks and the smell of rich, damp soil. If there was ever a place for peace and relaxation, this is it.

Problem is, when we reach the gurgling river and push off in the rowboat, Logan still isn’t talking to me. I don’t know if the silent treatment is just the way our friendship is—or if he’s annoyed at me.

We lived in the wilderness for six years, where the sky was our ceiling and the grass was our floor. Those first few months after we left, in those days when I didn’t talk, and not even Ryder and his mud puddles could draw me out, Logan would take me on the water.

He would row until we reached a pool of still water, and we’d sit in silence for hours. I’d look at the fish swimming below the surface and the water rippling in concentric circles, and the knots inside my stomach would slowly unwind. As though I could finally stretch after crouching too long in the restrictive box of grief.

This was how we mourned Callie, in the first months after her death. And even though Logan’s busy with his swimming career and I’m busy with school, this is how we mourn her still.

I drag my oars through the river, and drops of cold water sprinkle on my forearms. Logan’s face is clenched in concentration, the way he looks before one of his swim meets. Yep, definitely mad.

I try to think of something to say—and then a prickly sensation converges on my brain. I drop the oar and clutch my head.

“Are you okay?” Logan grabs my oar before it slides into the water. “What’s wrong?”

Whispers rumble at the edge of my mind, digging their sharp talons into my scalp. It’s not painful, exactly. Just uncomfortable. Like an insect has crawled into my head space and is buzzing around the empty cavity.

“It’s probably nothing,” I say through gritted teeth. “I bumped my head on the counter when Ryder was lowering me, and I have a migraine. That’s all.”

Even as I say the words, I look at my hand, which throbs where the mouse bit me. Where his teeth broke through the glove and pierced skin. The marks are red and swollen, and angry streaks radiate from the bite.

I swallow. Could I be reacting to it? Nah. These are lab mice. It’s not like they have rabies.

“Please don’t be mad.” I take the oar back from Logan, changing the subject. “Even if I were caught, even if the scientists experimented on me, they wouldn’t find what they’re looking for. Not with Callie gone.”

He takes a deep breath and holds it so long he might be doing one of his underwater exercises. “What if she’s not gone?”

I jerk. “What?”

“We never saw anyone take away her body.” He stares at his fingers. “We never watched it burn in the incinerator. She had no pulse, but we escaped down the laundry chute before we saw if an antidote revived her. Someone could’ve entered the room after we left. Someone could’ve saved her. We don’t know.”

My heart knocks against my ears, and I can’t breathe. Because this was my biggest fantasy as a child. This was the dream that took years of “talks” with Angela for me to let go. Callie, still alive.

Angela knew Callie for only a short time, during the couple of weeks that my sister ran to Harmony to escape her future, but she loved her. If Callie had lived, if she had married Logan like I imagined, Angela would’ve been her sister-in-law, since she married the other Russell brother, Mikey.

And I would’ve still had my twin.

Callie and I were conceived from the same egg and sperm, although my embryo was removed and implanted eleven years later. What’s more, we were linked through a psychic bond, making us closer than sisters. Maybe even closer than regular twins. But that bond didn’t survive her death.

Oh, for a long time, I thought it did. For years, I would’ve sworn I still felt her, somewhere on the other end, barely holding on. But as one year flowed into the next, and I received no other sign, Angela convinced me that it was nothing more than wishful thinking.

“She’s gone, Logan,” I say gently. “Think about what you’re saying. According to your scenario, someone would’ve had to inject her with the antidote seconds after we left. Nobody even knew you were there.”

He holds up his hand. I realize he wasn’t staring at his fingers after all, but at a jagged cut running across his palm. “I did this at practice the other day. This cut was in my future memory. The one where I’m warming up for the Gold Star competition and I meet Callie’s eyes in the audience. The one where I feel an overwhelming sense of belonging.”

He traces the cut, almost tenderly. “When she plunged the needle into her heart, Callie sent out ripples that impacted a lot of people. Half the memories people received wavered and then faded like sound waves traveling away from their source. Because those memories no longer belonged in our time. Callie changed our future. She picked up our universe and moved it to a different timeline.”

He looks up. Our boat has drifted to the shoreline, and his face is bisected by shadows cast by the leaves. “My memory didn’t fade. It’s just as vivid now as it was ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons I still get endorsements, even though most of the other swimmers’ revenue streams dried up a long time ago. They’ve had to get other jobs, while I could focus on my swimming.

“And now, with this injury, it seems like my future memory is coming true, at long last. Only, how can that be if Callie’s gone?” He picks up the oar and pushes us off the shore, away from the shade. “Unless she’s not.”

The sun beats down on my skin, but suddenly I’m shaking, shuddering, shivering inside.

Unless she’s not.

That sentence is too big, its implications too familiar. This hope will bury us alive if we let it.

“You have to let her go,” I say around the mass in my throat. “Mikey, Angela—we’re all so worried about you. You can’t stop living just because she has.”

He laughs, a short, sharp sound that could cut glass. “Fates know, I haven’t stopped dating these last ten years. In fact, I’m seeing a girl right now.”

“Yes, but you’re never serious about them. You haven’t had a real girlfriend since Callie died.”

An expression of immeasurable sadness crosses his face. I reach out to touch him—but pain sears across my head, and I fall forward to my knees. The whispers are back, scrabbling at my brain, searching, searching for a crack or chink, slicing me with tiny, quick jabs. I press my hands to my temples, but no matter how hard I push, I. Cannot. Make. It. Stop.

“Owwww,” I whimper. “It hurts, Logan. It hurts so much.”

“Hold on. I’m rowing as fast as I can. I’ll get you back to the compound. I’ll get help.”

I keep squeezing my head as the boat speeds over the water, keep applying pressure as Logan lifts me in his arms and runs back to the compound. My teeth chatter against one another as first my mom’s and then Ryder’s and then Mikey’s faces pass in front of my vision. Fine tremors erupt along my skin as Mikey lifts my hand and squints at the bite marks.