Glitch

trembled. My face sud-
    denly felt hot.
    “Because . . .” He pulled back and cleared his throat. “Be-
    cause I care about you.”
    “You do?”
    “I didn’t come to the Academy because I care about the
    future of the Rez. I mean, yes, it’s incredibly important. And
    that’s what I told the local cell leaders, so they’d arrange it for
    me. I came because I’d seen you, even gotten to know you
    through the visions. I couldn’t not know you.”
    My heart started beating faster at his words. He wanted
    me ? Just me, not my Gift?
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    G L I TC H
    “Experiencing the world through your eyes, feeling your
    fi rst emotions with you.” He shook his head in wonder. You
    were the fi rst beautiful thing I’d seen after a couple of really
    dark years. “You made me realize I’d taken for granted how
    beautiful life can be. I’d just been working so hard, killing
    myself with discipline to be a good soldier, deadening any-
    thing that made me feel emotion because I thought it made
    me weak. But then I started having the visions of you and . . .”
    He gulped hard before looking back up at me. “It changed
    me— you changed me— and it showed me just how much
    we’re fi ghting for. Not just because I was angry at what
    they’d done to us. Not just because I wanted revenge for my
    dad. But because there’s goodness and beauty in the world,
    and that alone is worth fi ghting for. Maybe even worth dy-
    ing for. The way you make me feel, even before I ever met
    you, it’s—”
    He ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head.
    “God, here I go again. Giving too much information. Look,
    I know you just met me and that this is the worst possible
    timing, and I don’t expect you to feel the same way—”
    “Wait,” I said.
    He glanced up at me, his face wide open and full of tenta-
    tive hope. I grabbed his hand again, so many emotions ris-
    ing up and tumbling over themselves inside of me, I couldn’t
    begin to sort them out.
    “I want to feel that way,” I said, my voice oddly high. “I
    want to feel those things. For you. And—”
    I thought about everything that had happened since I’d
    met him, how I’d instinctually trusted him from the start,
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    Heather Anastasiu
    how his touch calmed me and made me feel safe, even in the
    most tense situations. How his face had lit up earlier when
    he was talking about beauty. How intensely connected I felt
    with him, and how he made everything inside of me twist
    and turn.
    “—and maybe I already do,” I fi nished slowly.
    He stood frozen for a second, stunned. Then, those green
    eyes trapping mine, he put his hand on the side of my face.
    He pulled me closer until his lips breathed me in, until we
    were sharing one breath.
    My whole body sank forward into his arms. His lips
    moved against mine, exploring my mouth so gently. I tried
    to mimic his movements— slowly, uncertainly, until I didn’t
    have to think about it at all. It just felt right. He let out a soft
    moan at my reaction and cupped his hands behind my head,
    pulling me closer until I
    couldn’t tell where my mouth
    ended and his began. A liquid sensation swooped through-
    out my stomach. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt
    and it kept growing, the vibrating heat expanding outward.
    I was surprised I was still able to stand.
    Until Adrien’s hand brushed against the memory dis-
    rupter in my neck.
    I froze. My heart sank back down from its fl oating
    heights, and I pulled away. All the happiness I’d just been
    feeling was suddenly sliced through by a horrible, sour ache.
    I looked sadly into his face. Circumstance was betraying us,
    and there was nothing we could do to fi ght it.
    “I won’t remember any of this. I won’t remember you.”
    The cutting loss of the thought felt almost like a physical
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    G L I TC H
    pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I’d only just found
    it— found him— but being with him felt like the single most
    signifi cant thing that had ever happened to me. It wouldn’t
    be imprinted on my memory chip, but it seemed too impor-
    tant a thing to be removed so simply, so permanently. How
    could that be? Adrian said that our humanity was a precious
    and unbreakable thing, but how could that be if it could be
    stolen away with a single piece of hardware? It wasn’t fair!
    I tried to bury my thoughts so I wouldn’t lose this mo-
    ment here with him. I couldn’t think about the future or the
    past. All I could do was be fully