4. Shame

June feels warm, her ears red and incandescent, her palms on the verge of blistering with an impatient innate desire to touch and be touched, to trace the vivid, blue veins popping under the pale contrast of his right chin, to have her fingers pursue the rough edges of his palm, to know why they are roughened, to know every little secret he has to offer and to whisper her own back to him. She wants his head to rest against hers, while she runs her fingers through his brown hair, silently envisaging them sitting under a twilight moon in an open grassy field many seasons from now, their thumbs idly caressing the ball of their intertwined fingers.

Strange. There is no logic here. She does not know him. He does not know her.

So, in this brief moment of limerence, when June sees a tapestry of possibilities stretch before her with the sudden surprise of an oasis in a desert, she feels an immense assault of shame for the way she feels. It feels indecent and immoral that she has no control over this feeling that takes hold of her like a tornado snatching a rag doll in the middle of a wild storm. She reproaches herself for this curiosity, drawing her to this man she barely recognizes.

Orion Fields, her first client, appears older and more frail under the mask of a faint stubble that patchily covers his face, his posture burdened by a hunch. He’s wearing an orange long-sleeved T-shirt and camouflage pants in the middle of summer, an oddity June finds herself wishing to understand. She wants to understand the way his brain works, to know why she shivers with giddy joy whenever his eyes dart around the room furtively. She wants his eyes to be on her.

To allow herself to be undressed by the eyes of another – how can it not bring shame? Oh, such beautiful shame.

A thick, beige folder sits on her desk with the words ‘Approved’ scribbled in green ink. Seizing her monocle, June draws the stem of her desk lamp directly over the folder. Though redirecting her thoughts to the task at hand seems as difficult as trying to steer a wobbly boat with a titanic hole back to the shore against the brutal blitz of a high tide, she clicks her tongue disapprovingly upon realizing what Orion wants. People pour out of the Department of Memories all the time, with a receipt for their forgotten memories, exchangeable for cookies at specific Department-sponsored outlets. It is, however, incredibly unusual for someone to pour back into the Department of Memories, with an approval notice to have their memories Re-instated. It is as rare as the way June finds herself feeling at the sight of Orionsitting inches away from her, separated by a tiny desk adorned in a bobble-head replica of her favorite cartoon character, a massive keyboard, and an even more massive monitor screen covered in dust specks.

“The paperwork is real,” Orion says, his voice deeper than it should be for someone of his height. The sound of it glitters with notes ready to tear June apart.

“The file says that you want your memories back,” she says, her fingers squeezing her lips and her eyebrows furrowing into a frown. “Why?” June asks.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. This paperwork has been approved, and I have the necessary authorizations. Is there a problem?” Orion asks defensively.

“No, the paperwork is correct. But why would you want your memories back? Do you know how the Re-instatement works? We have no control over the memories you will remember. They could be of you and this woman having dinner. Or being at a board game night. Or at a karaoke.”

“Or us dancing together,” Orion shrugs, traces of a smile around the corner of his red lips.

His voice is drooling with brio, so bubbly and ticklish in her ears, its patterns dancing atop her brain. She wants to give him a book right this second and hear him read it. She wants his voice inside her head all the time, desperately, never having to part with the way it relaxes her body into a lump full of life; only his voice can make such quirks exist.

Oh, shame. Such beautiful shame.

“So, you do understand that the memories we will Re-instate won’t make you actually remember anything about this woman?” June asks.

“I understand,” Orion says, corking his head.

“Then why would you want them back?”

“Because they are mine,” Orion shrugs.

June is in disbelief, studying Orion like a crossword clue. June loves puzzles, patterns and order; it is likely that the ambiguity of not knowing Orion is what has been brewed this rambunctious limerance in June. He has the air of a person who can romanticize anything from a scoop of ice cream to dirty mud in a swamp full of beetles. He’ll find something beautiful in cracked sidewalks, boiling water, the ruffle of leaves – the world must exhaust him. June is convinced that Orion is dangerous because his eyes scream of the kind of tired brightness that has had a glimpse of something unimaginably beautiful, watched it ebb away without a proper goodbye, and decided that there is a kind of hope that survives the disappointment of losing it. A kind of hope that is stubborn enough to become reckless. He’s exactly the kind of fool for whom these laws were put in place, because it is men like him who dangerously idealize affection and insist that grief is a prize and not a punishment.

Then again, maybe, June and Orion have that in common – they are both fools who feel too much for people who feel too little. While June’s shame drives her to help others cure themselves of this malady, Orion is still chasing his grand, ideal, bubbly world. A world where love can be weaponized into daggers.

“Sorry, what’s your name again?” Orion asks.

“June,” she says. A small part of her wants to hear him say it.

“Like the month?” Orion asks instead.

June nods.

“What if I call this woman May, then? Like the month. Like your name.”

“Excuse me?” June blinks.

Orion simply nods.

“How will that help?” June asks.

“She’d stop feeling like a stranger while I was talking about her.” Orion smiles. Oh, the way he smiles smugly, like it’s an invitation. To shove away this brown table separating them, to drag the lamps free from where they are held in the ceiling so all their light can shine upon the way he moves.

“Why do you suppose we do it?” Orion asks after a while.

“Because love must not be free.”

“No, not that.” Orion cuts her off. “You and the Department believe that it is necessary to erase memories. As you can probably guess, I've my own ethical qualms about it. No, why do we keep falling in love with each other if we know the Department might delete us? Why do we take the risk?”

“This feels like one of those things where you already know the answer.”

“I think we love because it feels warm,” he says, rubbing the underside of his chin.

“So does a stove,” June grumbles.

“I want to feel warm again.”

“Yes, the stove’s in the kitchen. I can show you the way.”

“You’re good at this.”

“At what?”

“At being careful. I, on the other hand, do not have to check the Department’s handbook every time before deciding what I want for myself,” he says, looking around the room. “I think people need room for new memories, even the ones that hurt.”

“Or maybe people crave room for more emptiness, and the Department stops that from happening.”

“Do you think it is better to be nice or kind?” Orion asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“I could be nice and tell you that you are right. But it would be kinder to tell you the truth – that you are wrong,” Orion says. He’s trying to be cheeky and failing marvelously. June adores him for it.

“By your own logic, wouldn’t it be kinder to forget emotions that we know will never work out? What the Department does is an act of mercy,” June argues.

He nods, though she can tell that he does not agree. “Mercy? For whom?”

“For everybody who has to wake up tomorrow.”

“And what if tomorrow deserves yesterday?”

“Then, tomorrow can file an appeal.” June folds her arms.

Orion knocks the table in front of him, shaking his head. “A bureaucrat to the end.”

“This is a government office.”

“You are the government.” Orion smirks. “Can I ask you something?”

“Well, it's not going to stop you if I say no."

“Do you remember anything from your own Erasures? Do you remember thinking it’s kind to you?” Orion asks.

“I’ve had them done six times,” June says, almost whispering, and then even though she knows she shouldn’t, she tries to remember them all for a moment. Nothing comes back to her.

“And you really do remember nothing?” Orion asks.

“Nothing. There’s only one relationship that I do remember.”

“Ah,” Orion says. “You weren’t an adult yet.”

“I was seventeen,” June says, wondering why she is telling him this. “He was twenty. We met at a coffee shop, and it was nice at first. I was excited. It felt real.” She lets the memory settle before continuing, “And then, as it happens with all things, it changed. He began shouting at me in all the different languages he boasted of having learned. Belittled me all the time. Left me crying to myself. I don’t think he wanted to be around me, honestly…I think he was embarrassed to love me…or maybe embarrassed that he did not? It kept getting worse until I couldn’t meet him without a strong burning sensation of fear deep in my chest. He…there was a point where he stopped taking care of himself, and he blamed it all on me.”

“I am sorry,” Orion says.

“That’s what I would say too,” June jokes. “Despite everything, I tried my best to be there for him. I was scared of him, yet so in love with him that I, too, blamed myself for failing him. Took me a long time to figure out I was the one being failed. ‘Why do we take the risk?’…that’s what you asked, isn’t it? We take that risk because we’re fools. Dangerous fools,” June says, breathing in deeply, her teeth grinding. She closes her eyes. “I wish I could forget him.”

Orion is quiet for a while.

“There are ways to forget someone without erasing the stronger person you have become after carrying all that pain.”

June looks at him. All she sees is sincerity. And a fool.

“I don’t feel stronger because of him,” June whispers.

“Strength isn’t what he gave you. It is what remained after he tried to take away everything from you.” Orion stays firm.

Shame. Such beautiful shame.