Page 95 of Made for You
I’m crying now, eyes still squeezed shut, tears oozing out. I can’t even look at Josh. I don’t want this to have happened. I want to go back to a life in which this hasn’t happened.
“It was an accident.” His voice is pleading. “Julia, it was an accident. I’m sorry. Please just look at me. Please be okay. I didn’t mean to—it was an accident, I swear.”
Opening my eyes is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. Harder than giving birth.
Josh’s face is pale, his eyes devastated.
I remember Cam’s words. Power in no. Do I have a choice, though? If I leave Josh, I could lose not just the only purpose I’ve ever had, but my new baby, who’s sleeping upstairs, helpless and trusting.
The next words I say will make or break us.
“I know,” I lie, reaching forward, grasping Josh’s forearm even as the tears course down my cheeks and I pray my spine hasn’t somehow snapped. It feels like it has. “I know it was an accident, Josh.”
I say this not because I’m afraid of him right now.
I’m not.
I say it because it has to be the truth. I need to pour this honey in the gaping cut he’s opened, so it doesn’t infect and kill me. Doesn’t kill our family, the only thing I have in this world.
Fuck fantasy, reality, choice, and all my vague philosophical musings. I had no idea. No idea at all. There’s a raw need inside me, opening like a hungry wound, strong and furious. Right now, I need this lie, and it will only hold us together if I choose to believe it.
Just like the moment during the proposal, there’s a millisecond. Where I’ve been and where I could go, spooling between the ticks of Josh’s watch. Two paths diverging, my feet poised at the crux. And then—
Yes, I say, with all the ragged desire in my heart. I believe.
NOW
The feeling of pulling up to Deborah Reeves’s house is a sick déjà vu. Just like last time, she’s on the porch before I’ve even killed the engine, in what looks like the same housedress, cradling the same shotgun, the baby doll heads bobbling like drunk birds above her. The only difference is that the day is clear this time, the sunshine bright, making Deborah and her house seem even more like a blight scratched into the perfect countryside.
Whether from reckless bravado or some instinct that it will be okay, I step right out of the car. Deborah raises her gun.
“Wait,” I call out. Forcing myself to move slowly, I pull the wig off, then the cap, shaking out my red hair. A sign to her, I hope, that I’m giving her honesty and I want honesty back.
She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t shoot either.
“We need to talk, Deborah,” I say.
The gun is still trained on me, but I know I can get her on my side.
“I came back because I love Josh, and you do, too, and we may be the only two people left in the world who feel that way. You can hate me for being a Synth. But Josh deserves justice, and I think I can find his killer, but I need your help.”
At first, she doesn’t react. Then, slowly, she lowers the gun. Jerks her head, disappears into the house. The screen door bangs. I toss my wig back into the car and limp up behind her.
Inside, foggy darkness takes over as I pick my way down the junk-strewn pathway between boxes that she’s made some effort to restack. It smells just as bad as before. Cat pee, mothballs, sewage, rot.
“What happened to your foot?” Deborah says as I finally make it to the kitchen, where she’s stirring something in a small pot on the stove. Her gun rests on the counter. A foot-high Santa figurine smiles at me serenely from the top of the TV, where a Jeep ad plays on mute across the warped screen. A small jungle of nativity figures surrounds the TV, all facing the benevolent Santa.
“I twisted my ankle,” I say.
“Sit down, then.” She gestures to the chair.
I sigh as the weight comes off my foot.
“So you don’t think I killed Josh anymore?” Deborah says from the stove. The smell from the pot wafts toward me. Acidic. Tomatoey.
“No. Do you still think I did?”
“I’m still deciding. That’s some balls, coming back here. What’s your game?”