“Michael Realm,” he says, introducing himself. Wes doesn’t hesitate with any macho crap. He shakes Realm’s hand and tells him it’s nice to finally meet him.
Realm sits back and begins to stir too much sugar into his coffee. “I’m glad you’re here together,” he says. “For the record.”
“Noted,” Wes replies, narrowing his eyes, trying to figure Realm out. Good luck with that. Realm’s secrets have secrets.
Realm takes a sip of his coffee and hums out that it’s good. He takes another gulp and then pushes his cup aside and folds his hands in front of him.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Derek,” Realm says, making me wilt with the mention of his name. A cold chill down my spine. “He wasn’t always terrible. He used to be one of the good guys.”
“Yeah, I’m going to call bullshit on that,” I say bitterly. “I remember him from The Program—he was always a creep. But what about you, Michael Realm?” I ask. “I need to know if you’re one of the good guys.”
The question must hit Realm hard, because he furrows his brow deeply. “I try to be,” he says earnestly. “I really do.” He waits a beat. “What else do you remember, Tatum?”
“Not much,” I admit. “Meeting you, I guess. Knowing that you were all pretending to be patients. That’s what was going on, right?”
Realm nods that it was, but I see the instant of disappointment in his expression. He thought I had remembered more.
“Well,” he says in a heavy breath. “Let’s start with this.” He sets the manila folder on the table, staring down at the closed cover, measuring his breaths. Finally, he looks up, miserable.
“I was your handler,” he whispers. “In The Program—I was your handler. Both of you.”
Wes sits back against the seat, retracting from the words, and groans when he hits his shoulder. He hadn’t thought to research his own time in The Program; he’d been too worried about me.
And although I already knew Realm was my handler, I still feel betrayed. Hurt. He dealt out my info in small doses, deciding what I got to learn. He could have fixed this months ago. He could have prevented all of it if he had stood up to The Program sooner.
“You erased me,” I say, my voice low and monotone. “You stole our lives.”
Realm has shadows under his eyes, his chin tilted up like he’s ready to take the abuse. “I know you’re upset,” he says in the understatement of the year. “But I’m here to help, believe it or not.”
“Not,” Wes says immediately. Realm nods that he has a right to that opinion. He slides the folder in Wes’s direction, but Wes doesn’t touch it. He stares at it tentatively.
“What is this?” Wes asks.
“It’s yours,” Realm says. “It’s your file.” He looks at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, Tatum,” he adds, “but I don’t have yours. I think it was lost.”
“Of course,” I murmur. I look at Wes, scared of what’s in his file. What it will say about him, about us.
“It’s pretty thorough,” Realm says, motioning to the file. “I mean, it’s not everything—you lie as well as your girlfriend—but there’s still a lot there. Your sister’s in there.”
Wes pulls the folder into his lap and quickly opens it. He sifts through the papers, the pictures. He finds one of Cheyenne and immediately turns to me.
“This is her,” he says breathlessly. He touches her face, and his eyes well up. “This is my sister.”
Wes was close with his sister; she was his only real connection to his family. They were a team. And even though he doesn’t remember that, I can see that his heart still feels it. I blink away my own tears, happy he’ll get this piece of himself back.
When I look across the table, I find Realm watching me. He presses his lips together sadly. “Your file is kind of useless anyway,” he says like it’s a good thing. “You lied to me.”
“When?” I ask. “Because you seem to be the master of incomplete truths here.”
“In The Program,” Realm clarifies. “You agreed to tell me everything, but instead you lied to me. You lied to yourself. You have a pretty strong will, Tatum. I’m glad they never broke it.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Realm looks down at his hands again. “The other day,” he says, “you asked why I care what happens to you when we don’t even know each other. But the truth is, we were close. We kept each other close.”
And I’m not sure if it’s because he gave Wes back his sister, or if I still feel that closeness, but I find some affection toward Michael Realm. Some sense of connection.
“How did I get out of The Program?” I ask. Even though it’s not the most important question right now, I have to know.
Realm picks up his coffee, stalling with a long sip.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with this,” Wes says, taking a paper out of his file and setting it on the table. I lean over to read it and see it’s a patient intake form.
I don’t get what he means at first, but toward the bottom, I see the checked box. My stomach sinks, and I cast an accusatory glance at Realm.
“Voluntary,” Wes says. “It says I voluntarily turned myself in to The Program. Now, why the fuck would I do something like that?”
We both stare at Realm, and before he can answer, the server comes by and refills our coffees. The three of us sit in active silence, waiting for her to leave. She asks Wes if the ice cream is okay, and for her benefit, he takes a spoonful and tells her it’s delicious. When she’s gone, he sets the spoon down on the table with a loud clank.
“He didn’t turn himself in,” I tell Realm, jabbing my finger at the box. “He was taken from his house. I was there.”
“You were there,” Realm agrees. As he starts talking again, his voice grows serious, steady. It reminds me that he’s not a regular guy, not someone you meet at school. He’s a hardened handler, having spent years manipulating people. I realize he’s someone I should never trust. But that doesn’t mean I think he’s lying.
“I told you there was a deal,” Realm begins, looking at me. “When I met you in The Program, I was on my way out. I had been under contract with them for years, but after getting involved with Sloane and James, seeing the true horror of the system, I was trying to escape. Trying to stop it.
“But I couldn’t just disappear. If they found me, they would’ve had me lobotomized. I tried to stick it out, but my mind wandered. I began to research different organizations that could help. Tried to find Marie Devoroux, who was one of the first doctors I worked with. And then you showed up, Tatum.” He smiles at me. “You showed up, and you refused to cooperate. You were defiant. I loved it.”
Wes doesn’t love his word choice, and he clears his throat before sipping from his coffee. Realm nods to him and continues.
“After we talked,” Realm says to me, “I realized that your memories had already been tampered with. Something about your past had been changed, altered. You processed things differently, saw things for what they were. I thought . . . I thought that could matter down the line. I couldn’t let The Program erase you, not in any significant way. I tracked down Marie and told her about you. At the time, I didn’t believe in her cure, but I did believe she could keep you safe.”
“This is all great,” I say. “But that doesn’t explain how I got out of The Program. What deal was made?”
“I went to Dr. Warren with specific memories you had given me—willingly given me,” he adds. “You and I had made a plan: You would give me your memories to pass on, and once you got out, Marie and McKee would give them back to you. It should have been simple.” He scrunches up his nose. “Fucked up, but simple in implementation.”
He steadies himself, seeming uncomfortable in his skin, a little twitchy. He meets my eyes. “I went to Dr. Warren, and I told her you weren’t a candidate for The Program. I told her the intake form was wrong, that Weston’s mother’s statement was wrong, vindictive even. I believed that because in the memories you gave me, there was
no illness. Just . . . a broken heart. But Dr. Warren wasn’t easily convinced. She didn’t want to make a mistake. She was under the impression, thanks to Dorothy Ambrose, that your and Wes’s relationship was the problem. She said it couldn’t continue.”
Realm’s mouth pulls taut, and he looks regretful when he says, “I agreed. At that point, I did. So Dr. Warren told me to interview Wes and to present an offer. I called him and asked him to meet.” Realm turns to Wes, but Wes won’t look up from his file page. He’s seething, not enjoying this conversation one bit.
“We went over all the options,” Realm says, turning back to me. “And I told Wes the deal Dr. Warren wanted to make.” Realm swallows hard. “She agreed to let you go if Wes turned himself in for erasure. The deal was that both of you would be erased from each other’s pasts. That was all that was supposed to happen. When I told Wes this”—Realm puts his elbow on the table, his fingers rubbing roughly at his forehead like it hurts—“he agreed without even a second thought. He said he would do anything for you. He just asked . . . he said he wouldn’t go until he made sure you were safe.”
My heart is racing, banging painfully. Wes could have been free. I’m devastated by the decision he made. But I’m humbled by it too. He saved my life.
“Dr. Warren agreed to his terms,” Realm says, watching me. “You were sent home immediately. Once there, you were secretly given the Adjustment based on the files I supplied Marie with. Wes didn’t want to stay with his parents, so he hid out, waiting for you to recover. It was another week before I called him and told him he could see you. See you one last time. He went immediately to your house.
“You remembered him,” Realm says, his voice cracking. “Tatum, he was so happy that you remembered him—it was all he could think about, right up until the moment they erased it in The Program.”
There’s a tickle on my cheek, and I swipe at it, realizing I’m crying. Wes’s missing week was spent waiting for me, waiting on a deal that would ruin him. He had given up everything for me. Just like Wes said before The Program took him: “I’ll make it right, Tate.” That’s what he thought he was doing.
“So that was how you got out of The Program,” Realm says. “Wes traded his life for yours. And the deal was you’d stay apart, forever. Dr. Warren was convinced it would send you spiraling otherwise. And after Wes’s Adjustment failed, and Dr. McKee and Marie realized you’d lied about the actual breakup, they agreed with her assessment. They worried rekindling would lead into a full-blown crashback—the kind you couldn’t get over. No one, and I mean literally no one, wanted the two of you together.” He pauses. “But I knew you would be anyway.”
Realm takes a deep breath. “It didn’t help that Wes lied too,” he says, sipping from his coffee. “Seems neither of you wanted to talk about the end of your relationship. Just skipped right over all the Kyle Mahoney bullshit.”
“Who’s Kyle Mahoney?” Wes asks.
“Nobody,” Realm and I say at the same time, and then look at each other. I almost laugh. I would if I wasn’t so completely and utterly heartbroken right now.
“But I’ll admit,” Realm says. “I wasn’t a great handler at the end. I was doing incomplete work. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to get Wes’s true memories about you—who knows. But I left soon after, and The Program erased more than just you.” He looks at Wes. “I’m sorry about that. I brought you in; I should have stayed.”
Realm turns to me. “And even with all that,” he continues, “I know I was right to send you to Marie. She thinks you hold the key to the cure, and I think she’s right. And selfishly . . . I need you. I need the cure.” He swallows hard, and I notice the swelling in his neck, just under his jaw. It occurs to me that he’s unwell.
“But, sweetness,” Realm continues in an earnest voice, “I’m so sorry for whatever part I’ve played in your story. I wish I could go back and make it right, but at this point, what is right? Wrong? Is there even such a thing?”
“We’re right and you’re wrong,” Wes says quietly, his eyes downcast, and he pokes the spoon into his ice cream. What could he possibly be thinking right now? I may not have asked him to give himself up, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about his decision.
A thought occurs to me, and I turn to Realm. “Why did Dr. Warren flag me again?” I ask. “Why now?”
“You broke the deal,” he says. “You demonstrated over and over again that you’d keep going back to him. That he’d keep coming for you. But more than that, you told her about your memories, and she realized what she learned in The Program was false. She figured out that you lied, that I lied. Fuck—we’re all liars. And she knew that the only reason we’d all go so far to protect you was because you’re the cure. She was running out of time.”
“How do we stop her? I ask.
“The only way to stop The Program is to make it obsolete,” Realm says. “Cure it and make it irrelevant. Attack the bottom line.”
“Then Marie needs you,” I say. “She asked me to find you.”
“Everybody’s always trying to find me,” Realm says under his breath, and then coughs, grabbing a napkin to wipe his mouth. I furrow my brow.
“How do you know everything?” I ask. “How are you so connected?”
“Because I’ve been here since the beginning,” he says. “I was one of the first in The Program. I was given the Treatment. I’m sure I still have an experiment or two left in me. I’ve made mistakes, Tatum. Huge ones. But I always try to set things right where I can. I’m trying to be a better person.” He smiles at me, knowing that I’ve been trying to do the same. His words remind me of the first conversation we had, and I narrow my eyes.
“The Treatment?” I say. “Are you the ‘friend’ who remembers everything? The cursed one?”
“I’m not the only one who remembers,” he says, rubbing absently at the scar on his neck. “But yes—I’m definitely the cursed one.”
I want to tell him not to talk like that, but when he glances at me again, something is wrong. There’s a splotch of red on the white part of his right eye.
“Your eye is bleeding,” I say, pointing.
“What?” Realm swipes one finger under the lid, checking for blood. Wes looks up curiously.
“No, not like, crying blood,” I say. “Broken blood vessels or something. It wasn’t there a minute ago.” My stomach twists, and dread pours in. “Realm,” I say, truly concerned. “I think we should take you to a doctor.”
He laughs. “God, I hate those words,” he says. His color has paled, and now that I’m really looking, I note the bluish tint to his lips.
He closes his eyes, as if fighting back a pain, and then shakes it off. He pours more sugar into his coffee and stirs it.
“What’s wrong with you?” Wes asks flatly.
Realm smiles sadly and picks up his cup. “I’m dying, Wes,” he says. “I’m fucking dying.”
CHAPTER TEN
REALM SITS IN THE BACKSEAT of the car while I drive. He had Marie’s address, just like she promised he would. Although he admits that she moves often—part of staying off the grid when she can.
“I make it my business to always know where Marie Devoroux is,” Realm says, staring out the window. “My insurance policy in case I need her.”
He shakes once like he’s trying to hold back a cough. That’s probably a good idea considering he coughed up blood before we left the restaurant. He didn’t elaborate on why he’s dying, what exactly is wrong with him. But he refused to go to the hospital, refused to let me call my grandmother. He said she couldn’t help him anyway.
“We have to stop somewhere first,” Realm says, settling back in the seat before leaning the side of his head against the window, eyes closed.
“Not to point out the obvious,” Wes says, glancing back at him, “but it’s probably not the best time to run errands. Take it from someone who’s bled from his ears before: Get to the doctor.”
Realm smiles but doesn’t open his eyes. “Trus
t me,” he says. “This errand is worth it.”
I glance in the rearview mirror at Realm, pained to see him in this condition. I don’t remember being his friend, but I don’t doubt that I was.
“Realm,” I ask. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you stay to help Marie?”
He looks at me, head still resting on the window. His reflection is alarming, the way his right eye is dark with blood—completely black in the low light.
“Look, I love Marie,” Realm says. “I honestly do. Everyone does. But Marie will fuck up your life—she asks too much of people. I wasn’t a fan of placing Jana Simms in Nathan’s life, but despite my objections, they went ahead with it anyway. And she still wanted more. That’s Marie—the never-ending ask.
“So even though I needed this cure,” he continues, “I decided to leave. I went back to finishing up my own personal business, setting up meetings with former patients to give them some of what I helped take out. I was doing just that when the flag went out on you.”
Realm pauses, closing his eyes for a moment as if he’s waiting for a pain to pass. “But I’m getting worse. And although I hate her methods, the only person who has a shot in hell of helping me is Marie Devoroux. She’s in control here—is always in control. Right now, I hope that’s truer than ever. She gets shit done.”
“What did she want from you?” I ask. “You say she always wants too much—what did she ask of you?”
Realm opens his eyes, finding mine in the mirror. The quiet goes on too long, and Wes puts his chin on his shoulder and looks back at him.
“She wanted me to pull a Jana Simms,” Realm says. “After you left school with Wes the day he returned, she wanted me to intervene, embed. She wanted me to break the two of you up. No offense, but I wasn’t interested.”
Wes turns back around, gently touching his shoulder as if checking for range of motion. Checking in case he has to use a little muscle, I guess. When he sees me noticing, he smiles sheepishly.