PEYOTE

CAL LANDED ON THE float, but I came to in the water, which was more of a shock than I expected it to be. Atmosphere doesn’t affect me anymore, what with breathing no longer being a requirement, and temperature matters less and less as the millennia wear on, temperatures in Hell testing the limits of the imagination. It wasn’t any of that. Honestly, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, it was the darkness. On the darkest night, the sky offers light simply because the earth is not alone. But even the floodlights of your planet’s neighbors couldn’t reach down there in the murk and the silt. Down there, there were only me and Mickey.

Her hair hovered above me on the surface of the lake like the wide, smooth body of a stingray, each strand alive and seemingly primed for touch. Until I went to touch it and nothing happened.

“Mickey! Wake up!” I yelled when I broke the surface. She was underwater except for one arm over the float. I reached under her shoulders and tried to push her back up, but I couldn’t. I am not built for that kind of interference.

After I’d spent so much time watching her, it was the first moment I actually felt her skin. We aren’t supposed to make unnecessary physical contact with the marks. But humans are thigmophilic creatures, aren’t you? You try to say you’ve evolved beyond it, but you’ll always be hungry for touch. It used to gross me out, if I’m being honest. Do you know how many people die by that particular want? Or kill, for that matter? If you didn’t want to be close to one another above all else, you’d all be a lot healthier. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that. Nor was I thinking about Cal, silently staring. Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking at all.

I pushed back the hair around Mickey’s face and took her cheeks in my hands. She was cold, colder than the water, and her eyes were closed. I could feel her heartbeat, but it was weak.

“Come on, kid,” I whispered. “This isn’t how it ends.”

I turned her face to the side and pressed my lips against her temple. It had been eons since my lips had touched anything but flatware or the plastic handle of my toothbrush. I had forgotten what they felt like against something organic. Something that gave back.

The truth was Mickey was the closest I ever came to love without my soul. I felt the wisps of the feeling, the way perfume stays on pillows. But it was the strongest I had, and therefore it was everything.

“Just one more try,” I said, my teeth catching on her skin. “Please. Just give it one more try.”