THE RAIN BARRELS and building hardly shelter me from a wind that whips haphazardly in different directions. I'm cold to the bone. I huddle with my arms around my curled-up legs, and shiver, but try to focus on the discomfort of my body so that I don't have to think about everything else. A sliver of moon hangs above me, the night's rictus grin. I've been out here a while. Inside, movement. They're getting ready to turn out the lights. The door squeaks open. I close my eyes against the urge to flee. There are steps. It's Oscar. But it isn't. Oscar's steps aren't that heavy.
The frame of Jonas emerges around the wall, peers into the darkness. His silhouette is lit by a golden halo of moonlight. "Eden," he says softly.
I don't answer. Maybe he won't see me. Maybe he'll go away.
He steps into the yard, walking slowly in the darkness. "I know you're here."
I sigh. "Then you probably also know I don't want to talk to you."
He focuses in on my location and approaches. He brushes the ground and sits down in front of me.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I open my mouth.
"I'm sorry," he says.
I close my mouth.
He rocks forward, and when he turns his face, half of it illuminates in the moonlight. He looks sincere. Concerned, even. He says, "I was trying to look after you."
I laugh softly. "Nice job," I say. But I feel my anger quickly fading.
I half expect him to take offense. He only shakes his head and looks off thoughtfully. The wind swirls around him, and he pulls his hood up. His face becomes lost in the shadow.
After a long time, he says, "We have to leave."
Is this why he apologized? Because he needs me to be on his side? Isn't that when Nice Jonas comes out? When he wants to convince me of something? I shrug. "Who cares," I mumble. "It's probably all the same."
His eyes dart to me, catching a glint of light. "It's not," he says. "It isn't."
Again, I laugh noiselessly.
"I thought you knew," he says. "That you wanted to... to be somewhere, too."
I squint to make out his expression in the darkness, but there is only the silhouette of his nose and the spark of light in his eyes. "Where do you want to be?" I ask softly.
A pause. He says, "Somewhere...."
I sigh and close my eyes. "I dream of this place," I say. "But maybe it's not even real."
His face turns to me, and though I can't see his expression, I know he's studying me. After a while, he asks, "What if it is?"
My arms tighten around my legs as I shiver. "I don't know," I whisper. "Does it even matter? Why can't we just let go? Be happy to be who we are now?" And I find myself thinking about the name written on my lip. The only clue about my old life— foreign and oppressive. If I walked back into that life, would I ever feel like it had been mine? Would I want any of it, anyway?
"If we could, wouldn't we?" he says. "We're supposed to forget, but... but there are these things that remind us. Your dreams. My...." His voice fades into a howl of the wind. I think of the scar on his forearm, but restrain my eyes from wandering toward it. There's a moment where I think he's going to abandon the subject all together. His head turns away, his body shifting with a stiffness that betrays his discomfort. But then, he says, "Don't you believe in Fate?"
I stop breathing. Just for a second. His words catch me up in an unexpected thrall. I'm staring at him in the dark. Fate is the last thing I expected Jonas to be talking about. But here he is, asking me. And Fate, I'm thinking, has been pulling me along all this time. This weird, nameless sense of something moves slowly through my body, sending my head spinning. I put my hands to my cheeks. I swallow, and climb to my feet.
Jonas stands up next to me, his hand reaching out to steady me. I'm not sure if I'm dizzy, if my legs just fell asleep, or if I simply misstepped. I brush him off.
"I'll argue your side," I say, feeling the unsteadiness of my own voice. "But we all go, or none of us. That's how it should be. We're stronger together. We're a family."
He says nothing as I move past him and head around the wall to go inside.