Equals

Chapter 29

Explanation

As soon as I wake up in the morning, I run back to the room, but it’s locked. I try smashing it open, but it’s sealed tight.

“Michael! Let me in!” No answer. All I can hear through the steel door is the faint sound of metal clanging. I count the minutes I wait, by the time I get to seventy-nine I give up. I start walking away, until I hear a small click,

 

and the door slowly opens. I rush in, almost breaking the door in the process. “Michael, what are you doing…Why the hell was the door locked?!”

“Just come in.”

“O-Okay…” I stop when I see what he’s been doing. Covering the floor is dozens of video cameras and microphones, all unplugged and deactivated. “What…where’d you get these?”

“How they’ve been monitoring…I finally found the last one and got rid of them today. They don’t visit me much anymore.”

“I still don’t understand…what was with that…incident yesterday?” He ignores my question and keeps going.

“So, they’ve been monitoring me every second of the day, so they don’t have to sit here themselves I guess…So, I found all of them, and I’ve been writing them down, see?” He holds out his arms. I feel my body freezing, and I catch my breath. Now I see why he needed my pin. He didn’t have pencils, pens, paper, so he did the only thing he could do. He made his own paper—himself. Covering his arms are words, carved in his skin, bleeding and red with the pin I had left.

“Dear god…how long have you been doing this?” I gently hold his arm, and he winces. “Sorry…”

“The day after I saw you here…”

“Do they know you’ve been doing it?”

“Ha…I hope not…” He smiles at me.

“Stop joking, how much blood have you lost?!”

“About four pints…well that’s how much I counted last week…so probably a lot more by now.”

“How often do you do this…?”

“Every time I find a new camera hiding, I write it down with your pin, so…about twice every other day…I got lucky, I almost made the mistake of starting by my wrists, see?” He holds out his left wrist, where a long thin scar traces the words, ‘

Camera 1, left corner

.’ I look away. “But luckily I missed my vein by about eight centimeters.” I pull up the rest of his sleeve, but it only gets worse. He’s completely covered the underside of his arms, to his shoulders in writing.

“This is…what were you thinking!? Why are you doing this anyway…?”

“If they found out I was even speaking with you, they would’ve killed you. I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I’ve been waiting for the right time to take down the cameras.”

“Wait…why would you care if they killed me, you said you started t-this…the day after I first found you, and you hated me. Why would you care? You didn’t know who I was…”

“Yes I did…”

“W-what…?” He smiles sadly and takes my hands.

“I knew exactly who you were, I remembered everything, and I still loved you.”

“B-but then…but why would you…?”

“Listen, listen… because of the cameras, I couldn’t be with you, it was too dangerous…they would’ve killed you. So I faked being in love with Maddy to make Maria think she really did change me, I faked hating you for the same reason. But they didn’t change anything, Azurite. I know exactly what I think about you.”

“But…what about when you said I was a…”

“I didn’t mean any of it…hey; I had to be believable right?” I smile a little.

“Wait…what about that video? Maddy pulled the plug!”

“Yeah, she did.”

“How are you even alive?”

“Azurite, you know how the doctors work. They do anything they want. They told me I was dead when they found me. So, they fixed me up, and I’m all new now.” I don’t understand what he means by ‘all new.’ He lifts up his shirt. I can’t stop myself from covering my mouth to hold back from crying. His entire chest is covered with scars, from just below his collar bone to his waist. “Brand new heart, lungs, organs, everything, I’ll be good for a long time.”

I laugh for a second. But my eyes keep luring back to his arms. “Promise me something…” He doesn’t respond, just looks at me curiously. “You are never going to do this again, and if you do…I’ll kill you myself.” He laughs. “Promise me.”

“I promise, and besides, I don’t need to anymore.” He pulls me closer and kisses me again.