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But now, this instant, he didn't want to be a god anymore. He didn't want to take her to Harvard and show her off like some macabre Frankenstein's creature or miracle of modern science.
He wanted to fall to his knees beside her and be a man again. Just that. A man.
He wanted his soul back....
"Ian? Come here...."
Reluctantly he went and sat down beside her. He didn't know what else to do.
Her smile came back, bright as a summer sun. She reached down and picked up the bit of broken glass. It
18J
glowed a brilliant blue in the filtered sunlight. "This one is special," she said quietly.
"Why is it so special?"
She opened her hand and offered it to him. Without the light, it was only a cold, dark spot of glass on her pink palm. "The color of your eyes. Blue."
Ian felt something inside him give way, soften. "You remembered the color of my eyes?"
She dropped the glass in her lap and leaned toward him, tilting her face up. "I remember everything about you, Ian. Johann says I am a manacle."
"A what?"
She laughed suddenly, a low, throaty sound that filled the clearing. "I am always doing that. Please to forgive me. Johann says I am a miracle."
Ian swallowed hard. "And so you are," he said in a thick voice.
She looked away for a second, her face scrunched in thought, then she turned back to him. "I ... I know you want me to. remember my life before. For you, I have tried, but there are no memories inside me. My head is empty, except ..." Her voice trailed off. She bit down on her lower lip and glanced away.
"Except fo
r what?"
"You will think I am stupid."
Ian remembered the times he'd mentioned brain damage in front of her and winced. Such a heartless bastard. He'd spent days studying her as if she were an insect under glass and yet he'd never seen her. Not until this very moment, and what he saw filled him with awe. "No, Selena, I would never think that."
"I have no memories, but I have a ... filling. A feeling. Sometimes, when I am asleep or just waking up, I am so sad, without a reason." She looked up at him, a confusion in her eyes. "I believe my soul has been sad for a very long time. But now it is happy. I am with you and my family."
"You don't belong here, Selena. You're not crazy."
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Strangely, the words caused an aching sense of loss, and not because he wouldn't be a world-renowned physician for saving her life, but because she would leave him. "You will improve daily. One day you'll be almost normal. Your memories may even return, though I doubt it."
She drew back, looked at him quizzically. "I am also crazy. We are all crazy. Except for Johann," she amended. "He is a genius."
Ian burst out laughing. "So says Johann, I presume." She nodded solemnly.
Ian's laughter faded. He looked down at her earnest, innocent face and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore. None of this was funny. She was an accident waiting to happen; an utterly naive, completely gullible woman with no life experience, no memories of pain or hurt or betrayal. She was like a child, expecting the world to be a happy, just, honest place.
The pain she could experience was staggering. "Ah, Selena. You're too trusting. Johann is not a genius simply because he says he is."
"You will teach me to be not so trusting?" He laughed. "Certainly no one is more qualified to destroy your illusions and show you the dark side of life than I."
She looked disappointed. "Oh." "What's the matter?"
