He takes her hand and kisses it. “It’s a promise.”
“But isn’t that work?” she asks.
“It’s never been work for me,” he says. “I just think of your face. The wanting of you is like breathing, living.”
So this is why.
“What are you thinking?” he asks and straightens.
He regards her with a long side look. “You seem . . . bewildered.”
“I’m just feeling this . . . It’s this . . .” She searches for words to describe it.
She touches the area between her chest and stomach. “You know here, where you feel like you’re falling and at the same time filled to the brim.”
“I know that feeling well,” he says and leans closer. His nose touches hers, and she smells the sweet scent of bergamot, sweat, and him.
She feels his hand behind her neck, his fingers winding around her hair at the nape. Then the softness of the pillow.
“It’s the reason we Dreamers spend our lives searching, trying to bring it back within our grasp, even if just in dreams. And for the lucky few who find it, we will never let go,” he says.
She understands.
Chapter Twenty
“It’s lavender oil,” Metis says as he pours the liquid into the hot bath. He sits behind her, one arm around her waist. He leans back and pulls her against him. The scent rises with the white steam, and Aris breathes it in.
“You like this scent,” she says, “I smell it on your sheets too.”
“Only because it reminds me of you.”
“I don’t know if I can ever get used to the idea of this,” she says. “It’s strange to hear you speak of me like we’ve known each other for a long time.”
He picks a piece of damp hair off her face and moves it behind her ear. “It’s only in your mind that we’ve known each other just a few months. Or that you’ve been in this house with me for only three days. In reality—the ultimate reality, or whatever we can call it—we’ve had years. Your mind just hasn’t realized it.”
“Has it been three days already?” she asks. Time is a blur when she’s with him. They have barely left the bed except for necessities. “How do you reconcile that? When your mind and your memories can’t agree on what’s real and what isn’t?”
“It’s best to just follow your heart,” he says.
Follow my heart.
Aris is not even sure what that means. She has always been rooted in logic and the scientific method. First you ask the question, then you carefully gather and examine the evidence, and finally you combine all the information to arrive at a logical answer. But what do you do with ethereal evidence that disappears with the sunrise?
“I can almost hear the gears in your head turning,” Metis says. Aris feels warm water trickling down one shoulder.
“‘Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were,’” she says, quoting Marcel Proust. “Memories aren’t simply retrieved from a box whenever people try to remember something. They’re reconstructed. Different parts of the brain draw information from various corners, then build the memory we’re trying to recall.”
“You’re questioning whether your memories are even real?” Metis asks.
“It’s just not logical,” she says, “Not in the traditional sense.”
“Well, if you think about it, Tabula Rasa is not a natural process even though it feels like it is. Every four years, we lose our memories and we rebuild our lives. We all accept it as the way life works.”
Aris ponders a life without Tabula Rasa. A life with continuous memories of people and places. Of relationships forged over the span of one’s lifetime, not one’s cycle. Enough time to build foundations and layer them over and over again.
Then she remembers the images of the Last War. Of a world where people could harbor decades, if not centuries, of prejudices and hatred. Of a life unappreciated, because having almost a century can trick you into thinking that you have forever. A lifetime to accumulate and grow one’s ambitions and power. Enough time to develop the fear that you will lose what you have and a desire to protect it. A life of attachment.
“What do you think happens when we reset?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve never read anything in any books about how it’s triggered,” he says, “You go to sleep one person and wake up as another.”
She wishes Benja were still here. It would be nice to talk to him about her situation. At the least, he would have some interesting things to say. Maybe even an “I told you so.” If he had been able to show her his dreams and make her a believer, he would not have been alone in his desperation. If only she had figured out the copper helmet sooner; she could have given him the ability to prove her wrong.
If only . . .
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Benja.”
Silence follows. She looks over her shoulder at him.
“Does that bother you?”
“A little. You love him. And I love you.”
“It’s not the same thing. He was my friend. You’re my—”
“Husband,” he says.
She shifts and feels Metis’s grip tighten around her waist. She is uncomfortable with the thought of being tied to a man she just met. A marriage is a decision two people make together, but she has no memory of making it. The strong feelings she has for him are undeniable. But why must they have any relevancy to their state of attachment?
“You don’t like being married,” he says.
“It’s just—I’m not sure. I don’t remember being married. Yesterday I wasn’t. And now I am. My brain is still trying to catch up.”
“I understand,” he says.
“Do you? Really?”
He chuckles. “I’m trying. At least I get credit for that, I hope.”
A veil of silence covers the room with thick, awkward air.
Metis breaks it. “I know I’m coming on really strong.” He sighs. “I will try to be good. I promise.”
“Define good,” she says.
He gently kisses the top of her head. “I’ll try to be understanding, patient, and respectful of your boundaries. It’s
