“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“Don’t I? I’m you, after all.”
“A washed-out version.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Mike asks.
“No.”
“I have.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I can feel it. You believe it.”
“It’s real.”
“You think it is.”
“I know it is,” Mike snaps. “I don’t care what they tell you this is. Where we are. What they did. I know it was real.”
“You’re fading.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been quiet.”
“Thinking.”
“About?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
A chill runs through Greg at that.
“COME ON, Mr. Hughes! You have to push. You’re better than this. You’re stronger than this! Come on, just seven more steps and you’re there!”
“DO YOU think I killed her?”
Dr. King looks up from her tablet. “Does it matter what I think?”
Greg shrugs. “You have an opinion. Everyone does. Some of the nurses. They’re scared of me.”
“I don’t know that that’s true.”
“Sure it is,” Greg says easily. “They see me how I look now, scarred and pale. Did I tell you I saw my reflection yesterday?”
Dr. King looks startled at that. “Did someone—”
Greg shakes his head. “No. There was a tray. A metal tray. I waited until the nurse left and I picked it up. Wanted to see the
damage.” He reaches up and traces a long scar that starts on the back of his head and wraps around the side of his shaved skull until it thins out above his right eye. There are other scars, of course, but this is the most prominent. “I’m disfigured.”
Dr. King hesitates. Then, “Does that bother you?”
“I looked different. In Amorea. Like I did before.”