Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You) by Rachel Carter Page A

died or abandoned him so long ago. When he first gave it to me, I knew that he loved me. But then he took it back in 1989, and I was no longer sure of anything.
    I turn, knowing Wes is watching, but then Twenty-two whispers something and he whispers back. Tim and I are already too far away to hear.
    The tack room is on the left side of the barn, spared from the fallen roof. We push open the door to see a small workbench, a cot, a set of drawers. The walls are lined with old tools—a rusted scythe, a saw with rotting wooden handles. Propped against the wall is an old shotgun.
    Tim picks up a box of shells on the desk. “At least we’ll have a weapon we can use.”
    I find clothes in the drawers: old workpants, T-shirts, moth-eaten sweaters. This room must have housed a field hand at some point. Judging by the size of his clothes he was around the same build as Wes. There are also two pairs of scuffed boots tucked up underneath the cot, and a boxy TV sits on a milk crate in the corner. It is not a plasma, not a hologram, not even solar powered, and I wonder if maybe this place was abandoned long before the flooding.
    I find a bottle of rubbing alcohol in a chipped enamel cabinet on the wall. It will have to be enough; there are none of the modern 2049 bandages that automatically clean the wound and knit the skin back together, eliminating any risk of infection. Tim stands next to the high bench, finally letting go of his elbow and laying his left arm flat on the rough wood. The gash there is deep, running the length of his forearm. The bleeding has stopped, but it has not scabbed over yet, and the wound is still a deep red, the color of ripe cherries. I rip up an old T-shirt and soak a strip in the alcohol. It stings the small cuts that line my wrist. When I start to clean his arm, Tim grits his teeth, his hand clenching into a fist then opening over and over.
    There is dirt caked in the open wound and I carefully pick out the larger chunks with my fingers. “Was this from the crash?”
    “I think from when the door was pushed in, but I don’t really remember. It was hazy.”
    “You didn’t black out?”
    I glance up to see him shake his head, his thick neck barely moving. “You were the only one who did. The impact was right on your side.”
    “It felt like I was being crushed.”
    “You were.” He is silent for a beat. “Eleven was worried.”
    “Was he?” My voice is carefully even.
    “He was out of the car before we’d even stopped moving. I don’t know how he was strong enough to rip that door away from you.”
    “I’m a member of the team. Of course he’d try to help me.” I keep my head bent, my eyes on his cut. It starts to bleed again, a slow, steady trickle, and I press the cloth into it.
    “I don’t think that’s all it is.”
    I stay quiet.
    “You two have a history?”
    He says it like a statement instead of a question, and again, I do not answer. His wound is clean now, and I wrap a new piece of cloth around it, tying the ends together tightly.
    “How is it possible? We were in the same training group. When could you have met him?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I gather the bloody, alcohol-soaked rags and move to turn away, but Tim reaches out, his hand circling my wrist.
    “You can trust me, you know.” His eyes look almost as green as mine, soft in the morning light that creeps in through the cracks in the walls. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
    “I’m not hiding.”
    “Then answer one question.”
    The dust from the barn dances in the air between us. I don’t respond, but I don’t pull away from him either.
    “Were you brainwashed?”
    I shake my head, so slightly I barely move, but I know he sees it when his eyes crinkle at the corners.
    “You remember your family, don’t you? I’m not the only one?”
    “I . . . was close to my grandfather. He helped raise me.” Now I do pull away, holding the dirty rags close to my chest.
    “Where is