I meet them honestly, my heart in mine. “You know our laws, Jenna. We can’t take the risk that he’ll expose us.”
“Oh.”
She doesn’t say anything more but stares at the undulating surface of the pool, lost in thought. She loves Lo as a friend, but if the time comes and we decide to leave without him, she’ll have no say in what happens to him. She knows that as well as I do. After a while, she turns to me again.
“Won’t that...hurt you, too?”
“Yes.”
Her face drains of color. Jenna doesn’t know the intricate ins and outs of bonding, but I told her what Soren once told me. If Lo dies, a part of me will die, too. And I’ll never be able to bond with anyone again. Those are the rules of what we are—we bond for life.
“Well, you’re just going to have to make him fall in love with you again,” Jenna says with a forced, overbright smile.
“We’ve bonded, Jenna. There’s nothing beyond that.”
“For Aquarathi,” she points out. “Not humans. And Lo’s part human, right? Look, you said it yourself. He already loves you because you’re bonded. There’s a part of him that recognizes itself in you and probably always will. You just have to make him see that. As much as the human brain can incapacitate itself, so it can rebuild itself. It’s a two-way street.” She pauses, her expression intense. “And maybe if you can do that, then you can get him to remember everything else. Damaged neurons self-repair.”
“You know this how?”
“Told you. I did research,” she says, taking a peach from the fruit basket on the table and biting into it. As always, I’m amazed at Jenna’s base of knowledge. She’s more than smart—she’s practically a human encyclopedia. And what she doesn’t know, she makes it her business to learn. Like, obviously, rare neurological conditions. “According to some studies, once you get the cells refiring, the rest is inevitable. The human brain is an amazing thing. It can actually rewire itself.”
I snort and attempt a lame joke. “So you’re saying I have to hot-wire him?”
“Baby steps, Riss.” Jenna laughs. “Remember last year? I mean, you couldn’t even flirt without popping a blood vessel and freaking out. Every time Lo made a move, you, like, ran the other way like a frightened bunny.”
“Did not,” I retort, flushing.
“Total bunny.” Jenna grins, enjoying my discomfort. “Your scary sea-monster side was completely bunnified.”
“My scary sea-monster side is going to make an appearance if you don’t quit it,” I threaten, baring perfectly human white teeth in her direction.
“Oooh, I’m so scurred!”
“You should be,” I say, and remove the human eye film from my eyes, revealing the shimmery multicolored iris and pale gold sclera beneath.
“You think some gorgeous eyeballs are going to freak me out?” she says, sticking her tongue out and rolling her eyes. “Been there, done that.”
I shake my head at her comical expression and we both start laughing. Six months ago when Jenna found out the truth about me, she could barely look at any of us without her blood rushing around inside her in terror, and now she’s totally at ease with the whole alien-best-friend thing. Things could have turned out worse if she hadn’t been okay with it. Way worse...as in goodbye-best-friend worse.
“So, what does Speio say about all this? Coming back to Dover? Pretending to be human?” Jenna asks.
She and Speio weren’t exactly on the best of terms during the last year. He was averse to me revealing anything to Jenna, and even though she ended up saving our collective hides on more than one occasion, things between them never went back to the way they used to be. I do give him props, though, because before we left he apologized to Jenna.
“He’s fine with it, actually,” I tell her. “Volunteered to come this time around.”
“I thought he wanted to be back there.”
I snort out loud. “He did, and then he realized that females are the same, no matter the territory. They don’t come running just because a male decides he’s ready for a mate. Let’s just say that Speio had a rude awakening.”
Jenna’s eyes widen with that little bit of gossip. “So no bonding?”
“Nope.”
“Wow, payback’s a bitch,” Jenna says. “Although I still feel sorry for him. All we’re looking for is love at the end of the day. Aliens need love, too. Maybe that’s all he really wants.”
“And alien booty.”
“TMI!” Jenna screeches, covering her ears. “Oh no! Icky mental image! Thanks for that,” she says, and tosses her towel at me. I can’t help laughing at her grossed-out expression.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s not that bad. We coil around and—”
“Stop! My bleeding ears!”
We are laughing so hard by then that Jenna starts snorting through her nose, a snort that she futilely tries to stifle when Speio walks out of the living room toward us.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she spurts through her teeth, clamping her lips together and turning a splotchy shade of red. “Girl stuff.”
Speio rolls his eyes skyward and shoots me a withering glance. I keep my thoughts carefully guarded and my face blank, knowing that he’d flip out if he knew we were making fun at his expense. He’s still a little sensitive about the whole not-bonding thing.
“Whatever,” he says. “So, are you guys going to the meet? Sawyer just texted me to see if you were on your way.”
“Crap,” Jenna squeals, jumping up to grab her phone out of her bag. “Yikes. He’s texted me, like, thirty-eight times.” She shrugs into a pair of cutoff jean shorts and glares at me. “Move your ass, queen of the sea! We have to go.”
I sink backward into the lounger. “Do I have to? I’m not sure I’m ready to mix and mingle.”
“It’ll be good for you,” Jenna says, her head disappearing into a neon-colored tank. “Plus, Lo’s going to be there.” She throws a meaningful look in my direction. “He asked you to come today, remember?”
I offer a noncommittal shrug. I don’t know why I’m so cagey about going. Maybe it’s because I don’t want anyone—particularly any of our old friends from school—seeing that Lo’s amnesia is so bad that he can’t remember his own girlfriend. I don’t want to feel their pity, or worse.
Jenna reads me easily. “Better to get it over with now than on Monday when you have nowhere to go but a four-walled classroom. It’ll be fine, Riss. I’ll be there, and Sawyer, and Speio,” she says with a glance at him.
“Are you going?” I ask Speio.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Speio reddens as if he’s hiding something. “You have to go. You’re signed up to surf,” he blurts out. “Sawyer did it!”
“What?” I splutter. “I haven’t surfed in months. I’m not up for a surf meet!”
“Maybe it’s what you need,” he says.
Jenna agrees with Speio, nodding emphatically. “Totally what you need. It was my idea, by the way, so don’t be mad at Sawyer or Speio.”
“What are you guys? Best friends now?” I say with a halfhearted glare. I’m not a fan of being tricked and pushed into things, but Jenna’s probably right. If I’m out surfing, I’m hardly going to be thinking about what people