I did not want to resist it.
“Thank you,” I exhaled.
For a moment longer he hovered over me with indecisive hands. “Can you stand? I can carry you to the car if you want.”
“No, I’m fine,” I claimed, but my knees wobbled the second I stood from the sofa.
Kai reeled forward, his arms catching me low around the waist. My palms found the ridges of his stomach, my face the crook of his neck.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“It’s alright. I got you,” he said.
So close we stood, I almost felt the bob of his throat with my lips and could even feel the heat rising from his shoulders. I could smell last night on him too. The misted air and the cherry-flavored cigarettes we’d smoked.
With a soft, searching look, Kai took my jaw between his fingers. “Feeling dizzy?”
“A little, yes.”
“Anything else? Nausea or—”
“No, I think I just stood up too quickly.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You think you can put your arm around my waist?”
Slowly, struggling for coordination, I did as he asked, and he hugged me around the shoulders, allowing me to lean on him as we made our way out of the apartment.
“That’s it,” he murmured inches from my temple. I could feel his breath on my skin. Hot. Unsteady. “That’s it. Good girl.”
By the time we were out of the building, I felt sturdy enough to walk on my own and could even breathe normally. But my mind, device of mystery that it was, remained unanchored, drifting past the ongoing moment and lapsing into a sequence of seemingly arbitrary ones, collecting pieces of things that had no meaning unless put together. The book from the Outside. The unprovided sentiment of nostalgia. The memories I was missing. I studied these separate, yet somehow tied, discoveries until they were stripped down to their bones, a mere chant now, a litany of words playing through my head.
Acquiescence. Nostalgia. Void.
Void.
Void.
Chapter Six
The drive home was tense and silent, for how were we to act, and what was there to say? What were you supposed to say the day after you discovered your existence had been wiped clean from the world, and how was anyone supposed to console you about it?
Coming off the main street, Kai made a quick stop to get me a protein bar from the convenience store there, and I spent the rest of the ride numbly munching on it while watching from the passenger window the stray leaves form small, orange-hued tornados by the side of the road.
When we reached my neighborhood, Kai parked the car and followed me into the apartment without me having to ask, his hand on my back, keeping me steady.
“Do you need help getting into bed?” he offered, stealing nervous glances between me and the room.
I kicked off my boots and slumped on the sofa with my trench coat still on, feeling sick, shivery, my eyesight darting like looking through a lens that only occasionally lapsed into clarity.
The truth was I did need help, but there was no way I could ask him to do more than what he’d already done. Most people would have simply gotten me to the Center the second I started acting strangely, and yet Kai had not only respected my wishes but had also stayed and taken care of me all night long.
Uncertain if I should be apologizing or thanking him or both, I lifted my head to meet his gaze and found him examining the built-in bookshelves across the room, which I always kept neat and decorated with quaint little knick-knacks.
When had I bought all these things? When had I moved into this apartment? Where had I found the money for the deposit, the furniture?
I started working at RAM the day after my assessment. I had no idea what I did before that. And yet everything here reflected my taste, or at least what I thought was my taste.
Perhaps this was proof of my existence beyond the beginning of my memories. Perhaps the mystery of who I was hid somewhere within these drawers and shelves and cabinets.
