“Well, I was definitely not raised by droids.” Benja gives her a sideways look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
“What?”
“It’s just—well, you don’t really show your feelings much.”
“So what, I’m dead inside?” Aris feels the heat of anger rising.
“No. I know there’s a lot going on inside you. You just don’t show it. You’re all . . . walled off.”
She gets up. “Well, enjoy your emotional ride then.”
Benja grabs her hand. “No, don’t leave.”
“I don’t feel like being dissected.”
“I’m sorry. Occupational hazard. Please stay.”
The pleading look in his eyes mollifies her. She sits back down. They return to staring across the street.
“Do you remember anything about growing up at the CDL?” he asks without taking his eyes off the man.
She shakes her head. “No. Do you?”
“Sometimes I see a face and get a feeling that I’ve met the person before. Sometimes I develop a strong like or dislike of someone I don’t have a history with. I don’t know if I met them in a past cycle or at the CDL,” he says. “I know that’s not much of an answer.”
“It’s more than what I’ve heard from other people, which is nothing.”
Her childhood at the CDL is a mystery. She does not even know where it is. No one does, except for those who currently live in it. Even though everyone went through it, nobody speaks of their time there. How can you talk of events you do not have a memory of?
No one knows, and no one will ever know. The Center is self-contained and private. Outsiders do not visit it. The Matres do not leave it. The children, like the ones Aris guided through the museum, are occasionally sent on a special train into the cities for field trips. But most of their time is spent in the cocoon of the CDL. It is an incubator of sorts. Before the children become adults. Before Tabula Rasa touches them.
“You, I immediately liked,” Benja says, taking her hands.
“Really? I feel the same.”
“I don’t know why, but I feel so comfortable with you.” He squeezes her hands.
She squeezes back. “Me too.”
His grip becomes tighter. “Shhh! He got up.”
Aris looks across the street. The man exits the door of the coffee shop and turns right.
“Where are you going?” Benja murmurs.
“Probably home,” she says.
“Let’s follow him.”
“I don’t want to be a stalker.”
“You’re not. I am. You’re just my . . . moral support,” he says.
“Then I’m obliged to tell you, just in case you don’t already know, that this is by no means a moral situation,” she says.
“Come on.” He pulls her hand and leads her out the door.
They race across the busy street, dodging surprised pedestrians as they pass. Aris feels air stirring her hair. Exhilaration courses through her. She is a party to something forbidden.
A combination of feelings rise. Apprehension, yes. But behind it is something else she did not expect. Hope. Could there be a part of her that wants to believe in Benja’s quest?
What would she do if Benja is right? What if dreams really are a portal to memories from the past cycles? Would she be converted? Would she be the next in line to accept a drink from the Sandman?
She almost runs into a woman carrying a large bouquet of rainbow chard. The woman clutches the vegetables to her chest. Her eyes widen in surprise.
“Sorry!” Aris yells over her shoulder. It must be farmers’ market day in Europa.
Benja looks at her. “Admit it, this is fun.”
She scoffs.
The man walks fast, as if rushing to a meeting.
“Where are you going?” Benja whispers.
“Do you think he knows he’s being followed?” asks Aris.
“I don’t know.”
Without warning, Benja pushes her against the wall of a townhouse and plants a drawn-out kiss on her.
“Here, that should throw him off,” he says.
Aris wipes her lips. “This is the weirdest situation I’ve ever been in in this cycle. And I dated a poet who insisted on writing on my naked body.”
“Sexy,” says Benja.
She gives him a dirty look. “Not where he told me he wanted to write.”
“Did you let him?” Benja asks.
“Yeah, of course. But I regretted it. The a-hole used permanent ink. It took me a week to get rid of it.”
Benja shakes his head. “Haven’t I taught you anything? Sweetie, the word is ‘asshole.’ And never, ever let anyone use anything permanent on you.”
They continue to follow. The man turns the corner, and they find themselves in an older section of the city where Italianate brownstones stand in perfect rows on tree-lined streets.
Benja yanks her behind a tree. She loses balance and almost falls backward. He holds her close—close enough that she can feel his heart beating. The quick and erratic thumping worries her he might pass out from the rush of blood through his veins.
“He just stopped,” he whispers.
They slowly peek out from either side of the tree, like children playing hide-and-seek. Except they are not children. And it is not a game. If Benja is right, they are committing an act that undermines Tabula Rasa. If he is not, they are stalking a stranger. Neither is what they should be doing.
Benja’s hand grabs hers. She holds it tightly, feeling its dampness.
The man walks up the stairs of the building. The door opens. Another man, younger than him, jumps into his arms, and they kiss.
Benja’s hand goes limp, as if all the bones have dissolved. Aris feels each finger slip out of her hold, hollowing out her hand and heart. She is afraid to look at him.
There is a part of her, the part that wants to believe in fairytales, that hoped Benja would reunite with his lover. She wants to see him happy and not as a delusional man. She wants to believe that love can last a lifetime. A stupid, illogical hope. Disappointment pierces her like cold sheets of rain. Her heart breaks for him.
She stares at the couple. They appear to be the kind who would live their
