Page 119 of Made for You
“Um...you will?” says Eden, clearly not tracking.
Oh, right. My mind is moving faster than I can speak.
“Because after we set this all up, you’re going to help me forget.”
Bob stops his work to look at me. Eden is shaking her head, but I need her to hear me out.
“I can’t be the person who did this.” I let my voice sound as desperate and fierce as I’m feeling. If I was drowning before, now I’m kicking with all my strength, fighting to make it back to the surface. “It will eat me up inside. It will destroy me. Please.”
I can have a lifetime knowing I killed Josh, the man I love and the father of my daughter, or a lifetime believing Andy killed Josh. A lifetime of guilt, or a lifetime of sadness. The choice is simple.
Eden’s eyebrows knit together. “Julia—it’s extremely complicated, modifying memories. And—I don’t have all the right tools. Everything is hardwired. We’re talking hours of work, if I can even do it. And to get to your access point? We’d have to—to punch through your skin.” She gestures to the back of her neck. “It would hurt, it would—”
“You owe me,” I interrupt. “You put me in this situation. Now get me out.”
I glance at Josh’s body, now fully wrapped in blue tarp with two bungee cords securing him. Ready to be moved. I realize I’ll never see his face again. I should have taken more time. Said goodbye. The room is blurring from tears, but I can’t lose control now.
There are things I have to do: plant a finger; set up a tent; crash a car; plant an arm. Disagreeable things, like all my daily task lists: vacuum living room; clean hair out of shower trap. Necessary things. No need to process. Just act. And if it all goes well, by tomorrow morning, I won’t remember any of it.
Of course, I’ll still have to deal with Josh’s death when I find out in a couple days, or a week, or however long it takes them to find the arm and come tell his widow that he won’t be coming back from his hiking trip. But at least in that story, I’ll be the victim and not the killer.
That is the true story.
And I can’t wait to believe it.
NOW
I feel the screwdriver punch into my temple.
There’s some pain, but like water rings from a skipping stone, it quickly fades. There’s some blood, too, trickling down the side of my face, but my skin is already doing what it was made to do, the wound tightening, closing around the screwdriver. I reach up and yank it out. It makes a slick sound, spraying blood as I fling it away. There’s an itchy, crawly feeling in my wound that’s also intensely satisfying, and I don’t have to touch the side of my head to know that my synthetic skin is just as intact as before the damage.
“You asshole,” I say, but with more sorrow than anger.
“Let me reboot you,” Andy begs. “Let me fix this. I’ll purge Josh from your memories. I’ll erase your pain—all of this. We can have a fresh start together.”
A fresh start without the memories of Josh holds no appeal. Because it means a fresh start without Annaleigh. And who’s to say Andy would even let me wake up again? He could consign me to a box like Lars, and I’d never know the difference.
“I don’t think so, Andy.”
“You’re fucking broken, Julia!” he cries—a reproach, a raging lament—and reaches for my neck, but I easily pin his arms down.
“Maybe you wanted to be caught,” I muse as I tighten my fingers around his arms, feeling the soft give of his flesh. “Maybe this was programmed in, too. Where’s the line, Andy? You’ve crossed it too many times to tell what’s you and what’s me. Maybe you wanted to die. Maybe the vengeance you truly want is vengeance on you.”
I think of Annaleigh and squeeze harder as Andy whimpers. I think of how Andy’s idea of fixing this is to erase me, to leave Annaleigh motherless. Defenseless.
The only way my daughter and I can ever be safe is if Andy Wekstein is dead.
I didn’t want it to be this way, but I grab him by the hair.
Three strikes unlocked me, and now anyone who threatens me is threatening my daughter. There’s some poetic justice, that my motherhood is my power to kill. My most vulnerable self, my weapon. My love, a knife.
I think about saying some final words to my creator, but I find that I have none.
We’ve said it all.
Andy’s head crashes onto the floor. His skull cracks. He goes limp.
Releasing his hair, I stand, avoiding the pool of blood rapidly spreading from beneath him, feeling the strange contrast of the ache in my heart and the pleasurable stretch in my muscles, the terrible feeling of ending a life and the tingling power in my limbs. The sorrow of Andy’s lie, and the bittersweet freedom on the other side. I watch the circle of blood spread and I think, You were weaker, after all.