UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

For Cam this is nothing short of heaven. She’s holding him. Relying on him. He convinces himself that this is the moment that all the barriers will fall. He’s convinced she will turn to him and kiss him even before they reach the window.

She grips his neck tightly for support. Her hold on him pinches the seam there, but it’s a good feeling. He imagines her putting pressure on all his seams, making them ache. No pain could ever feel so good.

They reach the window. No kiss, but she hasn’t let go of him either. She can’t or she’ll fall, but Cam wants to believe she’d hold him anyway.

The sea is rough this morning. Spray launches high into the air with the pounding of eight-foot rollers. An island can be seen in the distance.

“No one ever told me where we are.”

“Molokai,” Cam tells her. “In Hawaii. The island used to be a leper colony.”

“And Roberta owns this place?”

Cam detects unveiled bitterness in the way Risa says her name. “It’s owned by Proactive Citizenry. Actually, I think about half the island is. This place was some rich guy’s summer home once, but now it’s their medical research center—and Roberta is the head of medical research.”

“Are you her only project?”

It’s a question Cam has never even considered before. As far as he knows, he is the center of Roberta’s universe. “You don’t like her, do you?”

“Who, me? No, I love her dearly. Evil scheming bitches are my favorite kind of people.”

Cam feels a sudden protectiveness and an unexpected spike of anger. “Red light!” he blurts. “She’s the closest thing I have to a mother.”

“You’d be better off storked.”

“Easy for you to say. A ward like you doesn’t even know what a mother is.”

Risa gasps, then brings her hand back and slaps him hard across the face. The momentum of the slap pushes her off balance, and she falls backward—but the nurse is there to catch her. He gives Cam an accusing glance, then returns his attention to Risa. “Enough for now,” the way-too-muscular male nurse says. “Back into bed.”

He helps Risa back to bed while Cam stands impotently at the window, not sure who to be mad at—himself, her, or the nurse for taking her away from him.

“Did the slap sting evenly, Cam,” she asks with a nasty bite in her voice, “or do the kids in your face all feel it differently?”

“Teflon!” he says, refusing to let her comment stick.

“Muzzle!” He cannot let himself lash out again. He cannot! He takes a deep breath, picturing the tumultuous sea calming to a glassy lake.

“I know I invited that slap,” he tells her calmly, “but watch what you say about Roberta. I do not speak unkindly of the people you love—have the same courtesy for me.”

- - -

Cam gives Risa some space. He knows this change in her life must be as traumatic as it is wonderful for her. He still doesn’t quite understand what made Risa change her mind about allowing the operation, but he knows Roberta can be persuasive. He likes to pretend that some of it had to do with him—that deep down, beneath her initial repulsion, was a curiosity, perhaps even an admiration for the mosaic that had been created from all his disparate parts. Not the one they put together for him, but how he took what he was given and made it all work.

They eat one meal a day together. “It is imperative,” Roberta tells him, “if the two of you are ever going to bond, that you dine together. Meals are when the psyche is most vulnerable to attachment.”

He wishes Roberta didn’t make it all sound so clinical. Growing accustomed to each other’s company shouldn’t be about Risa’s “vulnerability to attachment.”

Risa does not yet know that she is here to be his companion.

“Do not rush this,” Roberta has told Cam. “She must be groomed for the role, and we have other things planned for her first. We’re turning her folk-legend status to our advantage, creating a powerful media presence before we link the two of you together publicly. That will take time. In the meantime, be your wonderful, charming self. She is yours to win.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I have every confidence in you, Cam.”

Risa is in his thoughts through each activity of the day. She becomes a thread weaving through all the seams of his mind, binding them together more tightly. And she’s thinking of him, too. He knows because of the way she watches him secretly. He plays basketball one afternoon with an off-duty guard. He has his shirt off, revealing not only his seams, but his musculature, in tip-top shape. A boxer’s six-pack abs, a swimmer’s powerful pecs—flawless muscle groups reined in by a finely tuned motor cortex to produce the perfect layup. Risa watches him play from a window in the main living room. He knows, but he doesn’t let on—he just delivers spectacular game, allowing his body to speak for itself. Only when he’s done playing does he glance up at her, to let her know that her stolen glimpses of him aren’t stolen at all—they’re given freely. She backs away from the window into shadows, but they both know she was watching. Not because she had to but because she wanted to, and Cam knows that makes all the difference in the world.

46 - Risa