Page 94 of Made for You

“Don’t what?” I say, feeling a little hurt.

“I’m too raw to talk logistics, okay?”

Part of me wants to snap, I’m trying my best here, okay? But it’s better to be the bigger person. “I’m sorry. I understand.”

“No, you fucking don’t!” Josh shoots up from the couch so fast, he seems spring-loaded. Like his entire body was preparing to do this even when he was in a resting position. I press my back into the chair and grip the narrow armrests.

“You haven’t even been alive for a year!” Josh shouts, and it feels too sudden, too disproportionate, too wrong. “Don’t pretend, Julia. Your little empathy game isn’t working tonight. It’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross right now.” His chest is heaving, his face red as he stands above me.

“Empathy game?” I whisper with a breathy laugh. What is happening? We had the photo shoot—the interviews—a light dinner—we’re about to get a sitter for the first time—go to Starbucks—

“Yeah.” There’s an ugly expression on his face. “Yeah, that thing you do where you pretend to identify with me. Be real, for once. Why do you always have to pretend to be so fucking perfect?”

My immediate impulse is to say something soothing. But, whether it’s exhaustion or the emotional whiplash of life and death we’ve been through over the past week, something snags inside me. Unfair.

This isn’t a new feeling. Everything about my time in Eauverte has felt unfair, from the hate mail to Rita’s cold rejection to the sheriff’s utter disregard for the laws that are supposed to protect us. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a Synth in a human world, it’s that I don’t get to make the rules. My best defense? To smile and look pretty and try to be what everyone expects normal to be. To play by the rules the hardest, even the ones I hate, the unspoken ones, the arbitrary ones. The cruel ones.

And most days, I can make that leap for the world.

But right now, I can’t make it for Josh.

He is the one person who’s supposed to be one hundred percent on my side. He’s supposed to be part of my us, not part of my them.

“That hurts,” I say. “Do you think that just because I haven’t had more than a year awake, I’m somehow less than you? Or...can’t feel as much as you? I just got out of sixteen hours of labor and delivery. Trust me, I can feel pain, Josh.”

“Fuck,” he says with a wild-edged laugh. “Do you hear yourself? I’m sorry, Julia, but you have no idea what I’m going through. Sorry about your sixteen hours of discomfort, but I’ve been ‘awake’ for three fucking decades. I went through my parents’ divorce, my mom’s cancer, and then her fucking death. By the way, in case you forgot, she died disapproving of one of my biggest life choices. Do you get how much that fucks with a guy? The answer is no! You don’t. You don’t have parents, you haven’t been through real pain, and you sure as hell don’t understand death. Stop pretending you’re a human. Stop pretending you understand me. You’re a Synth! At least be honest about it! That’s all I ask! Okay?”

“A Synth you love,” I say, gripping the arms of the chair even harder. What is happening to him? What is happening to us? “A Synth you chose to marry.”

“In a moment of fucking lunacy,” he spits. “We will never truly understand each other, okay? It’s just not possible. What the fuck was I thinking?”

My heart is pounding with pain.

He’s lashing out because he’s hurt, a desperate voice cries inside me. He’s lashing out because his mom is dead and he got fired and we have neighbors spying on us and we wake up to a hateful billboard every damn morning. He’s a cornered animal. Of course his claws are out.

It’ll be fine.

I’ll be fine.

“I’m sorry—” I begin.

“Stop!” he booms, gripping at his hair like he’s trying to tear it out. “Stop saying you’re sorry!”

“I just mean—”

He’s on me in a second, grabbing my neck. The blunt force cutting into my windpipe is so surprising, I don’t react at all. His weight crashes into the top of the chair, and, in slow motion, I feel the armchair fall backward, with me in it. I hit the floor. Pain rockets up my spine. My legs are in the air, like a dead bug’s, and now Josh is at my side, on his knees, gasping.

“Julia! I didn’t mean to—” His hands paw at me.

“Ow,” I moan, closing my eyes. My tailbone hurts. My throat hurts. But more than that, it’s my heart that hurts, with a pain I didn’t even know was possible.

I’m suddenly aware that we’re surrounded by windows, and who knows who might be looking in right now. This may be my reality, but I don’t want it to be anyone else’s show.

“Close the curtains,” I gasp.

Josh moves to the window, yanks the curtains closed. He’s back at my side.

“Julia, I had no idea how strong I was, I just—” His hands brush my shoulders, touch my hair, stroke my arm, like I’m a pile of scattered dust he’s desperately trying to sweep back together.

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