“Sounds perfect,” she says, already pushing away her chair.
It’s winter down here, and the biodome’s simulation has started to disappear, giving way to the sheet of glittering stars overhead. I lead June across a walkway toward an unfinished skyscraper. It’s far at the east side of Ross City, in a development complex that has never been finished. Now the skyscraper stands alone andunoccupied, a strange dark structure among the others that are lit from top to bottom. Ivy has crawled all over it in the year since it was abandoned.
“Watch that step,” I say over my shoulder to her as I climb up the side of it into an open window. She follows close behind.
We land in a bed of lush vegetation and ivy, flower buds shut for the night against the cracks in the floor. Overhead, past the green trails hanging from the open ceiling, ribbons of southern lights dance across the blanket of stars.
“This might be the only quiet place in Ross City,” I tell June as we sit on the edge of the building and look out at the never-ending sea of lights. “Sometimes I come here to think.”
June has her eyes turned up to the stars. She can’t see them like this in the Republic, and the serene wonder on her face is breathtaking. “About what?” she asks.
I tear my gaze momentarily away from her. Down below, the floors vanish into slants of shadows. “I wonder if coming here to Ross City was the right choice,” I say. “For my brother. For me.”
June turns to me. “It seems like it’s treated you okay,” she replies.
“Maybe. But I can feel Eden’s discomfort with our life. He’s drawn to the streets of his past—he spent less time there than I did, so he’s curious about it in a way that I’m not. Sometimes I can feel him pulling away from me and back toward the Republic.”
At that, June nods stiffly. There’s a look of understanding on her face. “Are you afraid of the Republic?” she asks me.
“Maybe. I don’t know. When I think too long about the past, Iget nightmares. I lose my appetite. That sort of thing.” I shake my head. “I don’t think Eden gets the same. If he does, he doesn’t talk to me about it.” I look at her. “And you?”
June hesitates as she gazes at the sky. Finally, she says, “Do you know the real reason why Anden came here to see your President? It’s because the Republic needs money.”
“Money?”
“We’re deep in debt. Anden’s trying to rebuild everything—fixing the infrastructure in the poor districts, tearing down the Trial stadiums, replacing them with new buildings. It all costs far more than we have. So he’s been trying to make deals with as many countries as he can.” She pauses. “I’m glad. It needs to happen. But protests have been happening too. There are times when I look out at the Republic and feel afraid. Afraid of where we came from. Afraid of what might happen in the future. Nothing ever feels secure, you know? I’m so used to our lives falling apart that it makes me nervous when it hasn’t happened in a while.”
Her words hint at a part of myself that I haven’t revealed to anyone in years. It’s the part of me that still looks across Ross City and expects to see everything crumble. It’s the version of myself that wakes, gasping, from a nightmare of me back on the streets of Lake. I’m not the only one afraid of my past.
I reach out to touch her hand with mine. The warmth of her skin jolts through me, both new and familiar. “I know,” I tell her gently. “I remember enough about that time.”
She smiles sadly at me. “Do your memories still haunt you like they used to?”
“It’s not all back, but I remember most things now. Sometimes there’s a peculiar slant of light or the scent of smoke in the air, some small lingering thing that reminds me of something I can’t quite place.” I shake my head. “It’s like a dream of a different life.”
June turns to me. Her hair is shorter than it used to be, cut straight to her shoulders, and now I find one of those lost memories tugging at the edges of my consciousness. My fingers combing through her hair, my whisper against her ear.
She can tell I’m struggling. Nothing has ever slipped by her. “Near the train station that evening,” she murmurs, “when you said you remembered me and shook my hand, what was it that triggered that first thought?”
This part of us, too, feels stuck between being an old relationship and the beginning of something entirely new. I smile and look away. “The light in your eyes,” I reply. “Not everyone has the ability to draw people in with a single glance, June, but you have a very specific glow about you. Even if I hadn’t known you, I would have stopped and looked back. I would’ve introduced myself.”
June’s silent for a while, her eyes lingering on me, and I feel suddenly shy under that searing gaze. In the month since that fateful moment, we haven’t seen each other again. We haven’t chatted. A part of me doesn’t even dare believe that she’s here right now, in front of me.
There are so many pieces of our story that I still can’t recall. My time in the Republic’s prisons feels like a blur of blood and chains, an overwhelming sun and an all-consuming pain in my leg. I barely remember any of our time in the Colonies that June claims we experienced. There are important people missing, faces wiped clean.
For a long time, that included June.
On impulse, I move nearer to her and touch her arm. I half expect her to stiffen and move away, but she doesn’t. Instead, her breaths turn shallow, and she allows herself to lean closer too, until we’re close enough to feel the warmth emanating from our bodies.
I want to ask her how she feels about me. But that old fear returns, that maybe she’s come all this way to tell me that we’re best as only friends. She’s about to move, I live in a different country, and neither of us is anything except busy.
I remember that I loved you, I want to tell her.I’minlove with you. I love you still. But the words don’t emerge from my lips. They stay buried, trembling in my throat.
For a moment, I think this may be as close as we allow ourselves to get.
Then June moves before I can say more. She leans toward me, stopping a hairsbreadth away from my lips.
I can’t hold back any longer. I close that remaining distance between us—and my lips touch hers.
