Page 51 of Unnatural
He liked the feel of her attention focused his way. It was the very best thing that had ever happened to him.
“Sam.”
“Autumn.”
“Do you have my pen?”
“Can you describe it?”
She paused. “It’s, oh, yea high,” she said, bringing her hands up and approximating its size. “And yea wide. It’smade of plastic, and it containsink.”
“What color ink?”
She let out a small laugh that melted into a clearing of her throat. She put her hand out, tapped her foot, and Sam pulled the pen out from under his thigh and handed it over.
“Sneaky,” she said, rapping the pen against her wrist. “Huh.”
A smile tugged at Sam’s mouth. “You had it coming. Youtrippedme once.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She grinned suddenly. “You fell right on your face.”
“I didn’t fall on my face. I fell on top of you.”
She blinked, her smile melting into memory. “Yes,” she said, and her voice sounded breathy. “Yes, I remember.”
Their eyes met and held, and there was something there, but Sam didn’t know what to call it. Hefeltit though. It had weight. Whatever it was felt crushing in a way nothing ever had. It felt both heavy and like it might float from his grasp if he tried to hold on too tight.
“It was the last time I felt human,” he said, pressing his lips together after he said it. He didn’t know why he’d admitted such a thing except that it was true, and he’d be leaving soon anyway. He had nothing to give her. He’d only taken—stolen—but it felt like something to tell her she’d made him feel human once. She’d given him hope for the first and the last time in his miserable life.
“You asked me that when you were mostly unconscious,” she said. “You asked me to tell you that you’re human. Why don’t you feel human, Sam? Is it because of the surgeries?”
He shrugged. Maybe it was mostly to do with the metal under his skin or the fact that he’d been built by doctors, but he felt it more deeply than that sometimes too, and he wasn’tsure why. “What do you think makes a person human?” he asked her.
She chewed on the tip of the pen, and the sight of her pink tongue made a spark of arousal light inside him. He let himself enjoy it, just for a moment, before he breathed it away. She was quiet for quite a long time as though she was thinking very hard about how to answer his question. It made him feel important in a way he’d never felt before. Especially because it washer,and he knew he would love the words she said even before she said them.
“I think a better question is, what feels true?”
He hadn’t expected that answer. He wrinkled his brow, confused. “True?”
“Yes. Because only things that are true satisfy the human soul.”
“Truth hurts sometimes,” he said.More often than not from my experience.
“Yes. But it’s better to know, because then you can base your decisions on truth instead of lies. And then you have a chance at peace, because what is untrue feels jarring and abrasive. It doesn’t ever quite settle, no matter how hard you try to swallow it down. It keeps you in a constant state of agitation. So you have to search for that which istrue,because those are the things that make your soul sing. And when your soul sings, you know without a doubt that you’re human.”
“My soul doesn’t sing,” he said dejectedly. The only sound he’d ever heard rising inside him had been the howl of a beast.
But she smiled, and it was soft. “Sure it does. Maybe you haven’t been listening.”
He paused, considering her for a moment.Shewas his truth. His North Star. The only thing he’d ever countedon to lead him to places that felt good and right. And she was even more beautiful—her skin and her soul—than he’d realized. How was that even possible? “Is that why you keep searching? For the truth about your past?”Even though it hurts? Even though it’d be easier to let it go?
She looked over at him and paused as though he’d surprised her with the question. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s exactly why.”
“Hello?”
The sound of a man’s deep voice startled Sam, and he stood quickly, moving his body in front of Autumn’s.
“It’s Bill,” she said, moving around Sam and heading for the back door that led inside the house. “Come on.”
