Skinned -1 (16 page)

“Sorry,” he said yet again, rol ing off me. I pul ed my shirt back on. It was one thing for him to touch the body, but I didn’t want him to have to look at it while we were lying there.
I
didn’t want to look at it. If I didn’t have to see it, I could pretend. That was easier in the dark. “I can do this, I just need a minute.”

“It’s okay,” I said. Like a parrot who only knew one phrase.

“I know it’s okay,” he snapped. “I just need…” He snatched a pil out of his pocket, popped it into his mouth. “It’l be fine.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Just a chil er. Help me relax.”

“
Another
one?” I knew he’d been popping them al night, and probably most of the afternoon.

“Don’t worry about it.” He rol ed over on his side. “Okay. Ready?”

I pressed my hand against his chest, holding him in place. “You say that like you’re gearing up for battle.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It would just be nice if you didn’t need to be total y zoned out before you could touch me.”

“I don’t
need
anything.”

“Every time you come near me, you look like you’re being punished.”

“And what about you?” he asked. “I touch you, and you freeze up. It’s like hooking up with—Forget it.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Just say it,” I insisted, and, maybe out of habit, he fol owed orders.

“With a corpse.”

I sat up. “What a coincidence. Me being dead and al .”

He sat up too, and hunched over his knees, cracking his knuckles. “You have to admit…it’s kind of weird.”

“Oh, real y? I hadn’t noticed. Life has been oh-so-normal for me these last couple months. Not that you would know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means my life is shit,” I spat out. “And where are you?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Walker drove a fist into the grass. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be like you used to be.”

“And I want you to be like
you
used to be,” he shouted, “so I guess it’s tough shit for both of us!” Silence.

“You hate this,” I said quietly. “Me. Like this.”

“Lia, I didn’t—”

“No.” I sat very straight and very stil . “Just admit it. The truth wil set you free and al that.”

He sighed. “Fine. I hate it. Not
you
. This. This whole thing. It’s weird, it’s gross, it freaks me out, but I’m doing my fucking best. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Because you feel sorry for me,” I said.

“No.”

Yes.

“Because you think you owe me something,” I said.

“Don’t I?”

Yes.

“Whatever it is, this isn’t it.” I stood up.

“Don’t do this,” he said.

“I don’t need this,” I said. “I don’t need your
trying
. I don’t need you
forcing
yourself to be with me, like I’m your personal charity case.”

“I’m not tel ing you to go.”

Which wasn’t quite the same as tel ing me to stay.

“This is
you
, Lia. Giving up. If you walk away, just remember, that’s on you.”

“And if I don’t walk away, I get stuck with someone who has to dope up before he can even look at me. I think I can do better than that.”

“Yeah? Who?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it?

Cass’s mouth breather didn’t count. He wanted to screw a mech-head, some kind of fetish fantasy, nothing real. It wouldn’t count even if he weren’t scum, which he was.

No one
normal
—and especial y no one beyond normal, no one like Walker—would choose me, not the way I was now. But Walker was stuck with me, and I knew he would stay, mostly out of obligation, with a little nostalgia thrown in for flavor, because I knew Walker. I could keep him. I could sit down beside him and let him kiss me, ignoring the fact that it made him cringe. Ignoring the fact that when he touched me, it felt like nothing. Not because I couldn’t feel his body on mine, but because the feeling was meaningless. It was like trying to tickle your own feet. Graze your fingers across your skin in the same places, with the same pressure, at the same speed, the mechanics al the same, but somehow the effect entirely different, the sensation lifeless. Not that I was ticklish at al , not anymore.

The old Lia Kahn wouldn’t have hesitated. The old Lia Kahn knew she deserved better. But of course, the old Lia Kahn was hot. Her boyfriend couldn’t keep his hands off her.

There was also the fact that I was probably in love with him.

“What am I supposed to do?” he said, stil on the ground.

Not
The turtle is hungry.
Not
I’m sorry.
Not
I love you.

Maybe I wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

Maybe I would.

“I’m stil Lia,” I said final y.

“So? What’s that mean? Staying or going?”

“It means you should already know.”

“I don’t have issues, I have a
life.”

T
hat was pretty much al it took to RIP my social life. Not that I did much resting in peace. More like resting in isolation and humiliation and doubt and regret. Just because you can’t take something back, doesn’t mean you don’t want to.

Just because you want to, doesn’t mean you try.

By the time I got home and linked in that night, I’d lost priv-access to Cass’s and Terra’s zones; I’d been blocked from Walker’s altogether. Everyone else fol owed their lead. I was untouchable, on and off the network. People stil stared; they stil whispered as I passed in the hal , with one big difference: They no longer bothered to shut up when I got close.

Instead they got louder, so I could hear the words interspersed with the giggles. Freak. Robo-nympho. Skinner slut. Cass spread the word that I was a mechanical sex junkie, and her mouth breather threw in some spicy details about my tendency to go psycho when my lust was denied.

Walker didn’t say anything, I was sure of it. But it was obvious we were over. And rumors spread: I’d attacked him, torn his clothes off, tried to force him. I’d cheated on him with a toaster. I’d malfunctioned
in medias res
, blowing sparks in a
deus ex machina coitus interruptus
that saved him from a nasty mistake. I didn’t deny any of it.

Neither did he.

Here’s the part where I say that my friends were shal ow bitches and I’m better off without them. That Walker wasn’t good enough for me—that if he’d real y loved me, he wouldn’t have let me leave, not without giving at least a modicum of chase. That I learned a valuable lesson about true-blue friendship, or maybe that surviving on my own was more fulfil ing than depending on people who, deep down, didn’t real y care.

Wouldn’t it be nice to think so.

They were, in fact, shal ow bitches. News flash: So was I. It didn’t make me miss them any less. As for Walker…Life with a boyfriend? Far superior to life without. I probably shouldn’t admit that, but what am I supposed to do? Lie? So my friends hated me. So my boyfriend hated touching me. So my life was one big game of let’s pretend. Was that any worse than being alone?

Maybe it was, and maybe that’s why I walked away. But I’m al owed to regret it.

“I don’t get why I have to go in person,” I complained. “Can’t I just link in? What’s the difference?”

My mother shook her head. “This is about growing comfortable with your new physicality, dealing with issues of disembodiment and bodily alienation. You can’t do that virtual y.”

“Physicality? Bodily alienation?” That did
not
sound like my mother.

“That’s what the counselor said.” My mother twisted the edge of her shirt, which she did when she was nervous, at least until my father noticed and forced her to stop. “She thinks this is crucial to a successful readjustment.”

“Readjustment?”
That was Sascha’s term too, and I hated it. As if I’d emerged from a factory needing just a few minor alterations before I could rejoin my life. As if anything about this was
minor
. “I take it you’re stil quoting?”

My mother reddened.

My father, who’d been monitoring some board meeting as if we weren’t even there, looked up from his screen. “You’re going.” I went.

The group met in one of those buildings where they used to store paper books until no one wanted them anymore. You could tel because the shelves were stil there, sitting empty, waiting for the world to change its mind and start printing with ink again—like that was going to happen. There were a lot of places like this, empty buildings that survived long after their purpose had died. Why go out for art, for drama, for literature, for fashion, when you could stay on the couch, safe from germs, weather, overexertion, crowds, annoying smal talk, and get it al up close, personal, and on demand? I knew the corps had snatched up most of the useless land, keeping it around just in case. But I didn’t know that
I
would be the just in case, me and al the mech-heads in a hundred-mile radius, forced to drag our not-quite-dead bodies to a not-quite-dead library and spil our souls. If we had any. Which, depending on who you asked, was seriously in question.

I was late. The other six were already there, their chairs aligned in a circle with an empty one waiting for me, right next to Quinn. Not my favorite person, but at least she didn’t completely suck, which was more than I could say for the familiar face on the other side of the circle. Sascha offered up her best patronizing smile as I slipped into the seat. “Now that everyone’s here, why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves, so that our new members wil feel more at home?” Quinn slid a hand across her mouth, camouflaging her whisper: “If this is home, does that make her our new mommy?” I smirked. “Kil me now.”

“Lia, why don’t you begin?” Sascha said loudly. It clearly wasn’t a suggestion.

“Lia Kahn,” I mumbled.

“Could you maybe tel us something more about your history?”

I shrugged. “I was born seventeen and a half years ago, on a dark and stormy—”

“I mean your recent history,” Sascha said, al sweetness and light. “Is there anything you want to share about the circumstances that led you to be here today?”

“Circumstances.” That was almost as good as “readjustment.” Such a nice, neat word to sum up the smel of flesh crackling in a fire, the hours and days in the dark, the slices of frozen brain matter scanned in, tossed aside. Just a col ection of unfortunate circumstances, nothing more. “You told my parents this was mandatory,” I said. “And they bought it.” Sascha cleared her throat. “Okay…Quinn? Is there anything about yourself you’d like to share with the group?”

“Selected members of the group, maybe,” Quinn said, glancing at the girl to her right, whose pale skin looked nearly white against the long strands of indigo hair. “I have plenty to offer.”

Sascha moved on. Quickly.

The blue-haired girl was Ani, and had been a mech-head for almost a year. Judging from the effort she was putting into avoiding Quinn’s gaze, she wasn’t much into sharing.

Aron and Sloane, who obviously knew each other—and, less obviously but stil noticeably, played footsie beneath their folding chairs—were better behaved. Aron had traded in his disease-riddled, six-weeks-to-live body a few months ago; Sloane had tried to kil herself, but only half-succeeded, waking up immortal instead, courtesy of an il -planned leap from a tal building that wasn’t quite tal enough. They’d met in rehab.

And then there was Len. Perfectly proportioned and handsome, in that plastic, artificial way that we al were, but his looks didn’t match the way he slumped in his seat, his limbs tucked into his body, his head dipping compulsively, flipping his hair back over his eyes every time it threatened to expose him. He slumped like an ugly boy nobody liked.

“Nobody likes me,” he concluded at the tail end of a ten-minute pity fest.

“Can’t imagine why,” Quinn murmured. I turned my snort of laughter into a fake cough, which was an embarrassingly feeble attempt at subterfuge when you consider the fact that I didn’t have any lungs.

“I hate this,” Len said. “I just wish I could go back.”

“But you’ve told us how much you hated your life before,” Sascha said. “How you felt confined by the wheelchair, how you always felt that people didn’t see you for who you are, al they saw was your body—”

“And
this
is supposed to be better?” Len exploded. “At least I
had
a body. At least when people stared at me, they were staring at
me
, not at”—he punched his fist into his thigh

—“this.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Quinn murmured.

“At least it was your cal ,” said the wannabe suicide. “You got to make a choice.”

“You feel you weren’t given a choice?” Sascha asked. I wondered how much she got paid for serving as a human echo chamber.

“I made a fucking choice,” Sloane said. “This wasn’t it.”

Aron took her hand. “Please don’t.”

She pul ed away. “What am I supposed to say? Thanks, Mom and Dad?” She scowled. “You know what happens if I try it again? They’l just dump me into a new body. I’m al backed up now, safe in storage. Even if I don’t upload every night—They’d probably like that better, because then they get a clean slate. I wouldn’t even remember trying to off myself again. Fuck, for al I know, it already happened, and everyone’s just lying to me. They’d do it, too. They want me, they got me.”

“You sound angry,” Sascha said, always so insightful. “You blame your parents for not wanting to let their daughter die?” Sloane rol ed her eyes. “Wake up, Sascha. They
let
their daughter die. I’m just some replacement copy. And if I do it again, they’l make another copy. You think that’l be me?

You think I’m her?”

“You
are
her,” Sascha said.

“I know I’m stil me,” Aron said. “The same me I always was. I can feel it. But sometimes…”

Sascha leaned forward, eager. Hungry. “Go on.”

“This is better than before. I get that,” he said. “But…it’s not just the way people look at me. It’s like, I’m different now. My friends…” He shook his head.

Sloane shoved his shoulder. “I told you, they can’t handle it? Whatever. Forget them.”