Jackson glances sideways at me, reading it in my expression. He smiles to himself and turns away, watching the street again.
“You can kiss me,” he says. “If you want to, that is. You have a standing invitation.”
“That so?”
“It is so,” he agrees.
I wait a moment, studying his expression. That shy, yet confident way he has about himself. I’m in love with him, and he’s in love with me. It doesn’t matter what the world would think about that—it’s none of their business. So I lean in and kiss his cheek, and then I take his face in my hands and I kiss his lips.
His lips part and then we’re kissing. We’ve been through so much to get here.
And when Jackson pulls back, humming out that it was nice, he rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed.
“Promise me you’ll visit me next time I’m in the hospital, Mena,” he says, smiling softly.
“I promise,” I reply. And then I kiss him again.
27
Ilie in bed long after Jackson has left, my skin still warm from a hot shower. I stare up at the ceiling. I didn’t lock the bedroom door for the first time in a long while; I didn’t feel like I had to. The corporation is dead, Innovations Academy burned to the ground. I no longer have the fear of Anton or Rosemarie, the professors or the doctor. I’ll no longer dream about the Guardian coming into my room.
For the first time in my short life, I am safe. I am free.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and I turn to look that way. “Come in,” I call. The door opens, and Sydney pokes her head inside. She smiles at me.
“You asleep?” she asks. I tell her that I’m not and shift to sit up, patting a spot next to me.
Sydney walks in, dressed in an oversized T-shirt with knee socks pulled all the way up. Her hair is wrapped, her face makeupfree. She climbs onto the bed next to me, and we both rest back against the pillows.
“So…,” she says, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “How’d things go with Jackson?”
I fight back my own smile. “Good,” I say.
“Yeah? Just good? He was in here awhile.”
“We had a lot to talk about,” I say, my cheeks blushing.
“I’msure,” she says. I push her shoulder and tell her to be quiet.
“That’s fine,” she says. “Keep your secrets. But for real,” she adds, “you look happy, Mena. And that boy…” She shakes her head. “He is so stupidly in love with you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think we’re both pretty stupid.”
She sighs, and eventually we get under the covers, wrapped up in each other as the night wears on. It’s somewhere around midnight, both of us still awake, when she speaks again.
“We did it,” she says, sounding more in disbelief than triumph. “We beat them.”
“It cost us a lot,” I say. Essentially, we ended our species. There will never be another girl, not ones like us. And despite everything, that’s tragic. Somehow it all feels tragic.
“There’s still one thing left,” Sydney says hesitantly.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Your parents,” she replies quietly. “I’m calling them that—it sounds better than ‘investors.’ We can still find them. Confront them, or maybe…” She trails off.
Or maybe love them, she wants to say. Despite the fact that noneof those people were ever really our parents, we believed it. We were built with those thoughts, those memories. But I’ve come to understand that sometimes the past can’t be fixed. Sometimes it’s healthier to let something go rather than try to recapture it.
“I don’t think so,” I tell her. “But I’m glad you found yours.”
