I have finished the stone wall for the herb garden, fixed Jenna's sagging porch, and dug more trenches. I work from morning until the last light of day is gone. I work alongside Bone and the others getting the field ready to plant. They don't talk. Neither do I. When I run out of trenches to dig, I wish there were more.

The blisters. The sweat. It is all good. But sometimes it is not enough, and my mind wanders anyway. Miesha might not have been hurt if I hadn't left her alone, but if I hadn't left her, Kayla might be dead. If I had snapped Gatsbro's neck when I had the chance. If I had loved Kara more ...

There are a million different directions life can take. When my mind tries to wander in one of those directions, I dig twice as fast, pound twice as hard, and haul twice the rocks.

Even then, when sweat is stinging the scratches on my face and hands, when my back aches from lifting rocks, when every part of me feels so human I want to scream, I see Kara's eyes, whatever was left of her, letting go, whatever was left of her wanting a last bit of control over her destiny, I see her floating away because something inside of her had already died. The nights are different. Even with all the work, I still can't sleep, so after Kayla has gone to bed, Jenna and I walk, and we talk.

"I loved her, Jenna. But never in the way she needed. Never with everything inside of me. It was never enough to bring her back."

"She was gone, Locke. I saw that the minute I looked into her eyes, but I didn't want to believe it, either. There was nothing you could have done. I don't know when it happened or how it happened, but she was gone."

"She told me we were dead. That we were just memories housed in look-alike bodies."

"That may have been true of her, Locke, but not you."

"How can you know? Maybe the real Locke is gone too. I've had thoughts as dark as anything we ever saw in her."

"We all have a dark place in us. It's what we do with it and the choices we make." She reaches over and turns my face to hers. "The mercy you showed Gatsbro. The risk you took for Kayla. Your kindness to Dot. Your eyes. Your face. That's how I know. The real you is still here. My Bio Gel may not be BioPerfect, but it has years of experience at reading a face."

I need to hold on to that. Maybe we all have a dark place inside of us, a place where dark thoughts and darker dreams live, but it doesn't have to become who we are.

We walk around the pond, across the bridge, through the forest, down trails that lead nowhere and then back again. We walk in the dark, and we walk by starlight. We talk about our lives, our families, and the unexpected turns they all can take. But mostly we talk about Kara. We talk about all the befores. The stupid things we did. The funny things. The times she made us laugh. Sometimes we stop and hold each other, and we both cry. And then I imagine Kara there with us. Rolling her eyes. Hooking her arms in ours. Holding us too.

We tell some stories twice, three times, or more, so those memories are fresh. We tell stories so those memories will rise above our last days with her, so that is what we will remember when we think of Kara. Sometimes we sit at the edge of the pond and just listen to the silence. The moon plays tricks on the surface, and I see all of us from a distance. I watch three friends pointing at stars, three friends sitting in the dean's office, three friends dangling feet from a bridge and spouting poetry. We held hands. We crossed a line. We made one another braver. Three friends forever frozen in time.

Chapter 75

Today when I limp up the porch steps and collapse in the rocker, Jenna comes out on the porch and frowns.

"Do I smell that bad?"

"You can't keep doing this, Locke. Why are you working like a maniac? To prove to the world that you're human?"

I sit up straighter in the rocker. I hadn't thought of that, but it's probably true. Kara's words still haunt me. I can't just be a memory housed in a look-alike body. Technology gave me my life back, and each aching muscle, cut, and scratch seems like proof that I'm still human. "I suppose that's part of it," I answer.

She hops up on the railing across from me. "And the other part?"

The other part is easy for me to figure out. With Gatsbro no longer after me, and with Kara no longer dipping into my thoughts, I've breathed in freedom--the most I've ever felt--but almost in the next breath, as I work alongside Bone, I see how limited my freedom really is. "Anger is the other part, Jenna. I figure it's better to swing a pick into the ground than throw another chair through a wall."

"Well, thank you for that, I guess." She lifts her shoulders in a shrug, waiting for more of an explanation. "And the anger?"

"When I think about what Kara and I went through, even Dot, Bone, and the others, I suppose I thought the future would be different. I thought that--"

"That everyone would be treated fairly?"

"Something like that."

"The world's changed, Locke. It's always changing. Lots of things have gotten better, but just when we have one problem solved, a new one is created. Remember, I was illegal for ninety years, and then even after ten percent became legal, I still wasn't accepted. I was shunned and stared at, but change still came. It took years of work and persistence. Change doesn't happen overnight--it's molded by people who don't give up."

Unless they're cut short while they're trying to make change happen.

"Did you know Karden Sanders?"

Her eyes dart up. "What? How do you know about him?"