palm over his forearm, a silent apology, but draw back quickly when he shivers.
Bo presses his lips together as he glares at his imperfect flesh. “Sometimes I wish I were made entirely of steel and wire,” he says. “I often wish that, in fact.”
“I don’t.” I continue to massage the rose hip oil into his arm, over the puckered, mottled pink and white of his scar and the light brown of his unmarked skin. “I like you this way.”
He sighs. “When you are here, I like myself this way too,” he says quietly. He draws himself up, setting his jaw. “But you are not here most of the time. Including when you are sitting right in front of me.”
The silence between us is alive with wishes, his and mine. We want pieces of each other that we will never have. Bo wishes I would stop missing Melik—and I wish Bo wanted to be human. If one of us could move, I believe the other could as well, but because neither of us can move, our hearts are frozen in place. And yet we give each other what we can.
“I am here now,” I say. “And we have time to work on your leg—if you’re willing? You said it was bothering you.”
He frowns. “Give me a minute.” His cheeks have darkened.
I fidget with my oil and cloth as he disappears behind a partition. His arm hums and fabric whispers as he pulls off his pants. We are about to do a delicate dance, one that sways between clinical and intimate. I never know, from moment to moment, if I want it or if I want to pull away, and I think Bo feels the same.
“I’m ready,” he mumbles.
I rise from my chair and move around the partition, my skirt swishing around my ankles. Bo lies on his sleep pallet, his blanket pulled over his hips and his right leg. His left, the one savaged by a metal spider a year ago, is bare and goose-bumped. Bo’s face is turned to the wall. He never looks at me when I do this.
“This scar looks a little better. Faded,” I say as I sink to my knees beside him.
“I don’t care what it looks like. I only care whether my leg is functional.”
If that were truly the case, I don’t think he would be trembling, but I don’t call attention to it. I am careful with him. I always have been. Not because I am afraid he will lash out; he has never hurt me, and I think he would die from the pain of it if he did. No, I am more concerned with hurting him. If I cajole, if I hold back, if I craft my words just so, it makes it easier for Bo to stay with me, to stay himself. “Of course. I only meant that it looked stronger.”
He laughs, just a hiss of breath from his nose. “I see right through you.”
I pour a bit of rose hip oil into my palm and rub my hands together. “How so?”
“Do you really think I am so naive, Wen? You don’t have to always say what I want to hear.”
“I know.”
He turns his head and looks at me. “Do you?” His human hand reaches across his body and touches mine. “How can I be your friend if you are always protecting me?”
I let him take my hand. I let him stroke my fingers. It feels both comforting and dangerous. “You always protect me. Why can’t I do the same?”
His grip tightens. “Because it’s not the same. I would protect you from anything that threatened you. Any man, any creature, any machine. And you, you protect me from . . . you, I suppose.” He lets me go and then clenches his fist so hard his knuckles go pale. His metal fingers click, startling me. “It’s the last thing I want to be protected from.”
“That’s not fair.” I lay my warm palms on his bare thigh, over the thick, ropy scar. Bo’s chest stills and his eyes close. “You know me better than anyone does.”
He shakes his head. “Only the parts you allow me to see.”
I press down a swell of frustration and begin to massage his leg, long downward strokes toward his knee and then upward to midthigh, as my father taught me. It will keep the muscles supple, the blood flowing, the skin from growing taut and angry. I am gentle at first, cautious. I watch my hands moving