Read Online UnWholly by Neal Shusterman - Free Book Online Page B

remember and what you still need to learn.”
    “Right,” says Cam. “Scantron.” Because her answer is the very definition of a test, isn’t it?
    He looks at the images and does as he’s told, pulling the objects he recognizes closer. The portrait: “Lincoln.” The building: “Eiffel.” The red vehicle: “Truck fire. No. Fire truck.” And on and on. As he pulls an image away, another sprouts to replace it. Some he has no problem identifying, others have no memories associated with them at all, and still others tug at the edge of his mind, but he can’t find a word to attach to them.Finally, when he’s done, he feels even more exhausted than he does after physical therapy.
    “Basket,” he says. “Crumpled paper basket.”
    Roberta smiles. “Wasted. You feel wasted.”
    “Wasted,” Cam repeats, locking the word in his mind.
    “I’m not surprised—none of this is easy, but you’ve done well, haven’t you? And you are to be commended!”
    Cam nods, more than ready for a nap. “Gold star for me.”
    •   •   •
    Each day more and more is asked of him, both physically and mentally, but no explanation is given for any of it. “Your success is its own reward,” Roberta tells him, but how can he relish any success if he has no context with which to measure it?
    “The kitchen sink!” he tells Roberta at dinner one day. It’s just the two of them. It’s always just the two of them. “The kitchen sink! Now!”
    She doesn’t even have to probe to figure out what he means. “In time you’ll know everything there is to know about yourself. Now is not that time.”
    “Yes, it is!”
    “Cam, this conversation is over.”
    Cam feels the anger well in him and doesn’t know what to do with it, and he can’t put enough words together to take it away.
    Instead it goes to his hands, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s hurling a plate across the room, then another, then another. Roberta has to duck, and now the whole world is flying dishes and silverware and glass. In an instant the guards are on him, pulling him back to his room, strapping him to the bed—something they haven’t done for over a week.
    He rages for what feels like forever, but then, exhausted, he calms down. Roberta comes in. She’s bleeding. It’s just a small cut above her left eye, but it doesn’t matter how small it is. He did it. It was his fault.
    Suddenly all his other emotions are overwhelmed by remorse, which he finds is even more powerful than anger.
    “Broke my sister’s piggy bank,” he says in tears. “Crashed my father’s car. Badness. Badness.”
    “I know you’re sorry,” Roberta says, sounding as tired as him. “I’m sorry too.” She gently takes his hand.
    “You’ll be restrained until morning for your outburst,” she tells him. “Your actions have consequences.”
    He nods, understanding. He wants to wipe away his tears, but he can’t, for his hands are secured to the bed. Roberta does it for him. “Well, at least we know you’re every bit as strong as we thought you’d be. They weren’t kidding when they said you were a baseball pitcher.”
    Immediately Cam’s mind scans his memory for the sport. Had he played it? His mind might be disjointed and fragmented, so finding what it contains is always difficult, but it’s easy to know what memories don’t exist at all.
    “Never a pitcher,” he says. “Never.”
    “Of course not,” she says calmly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    •   •   •
    Bit by bit and day by day, as more things fall into place in Cam’s mind, he begins to realize his terrifying uniqueness. It is night now. His physical therapy has left him, for once, feeling more exhilarated than exhausted—but there was something Kenny the therapist had said. . . .
    “You’re strong, but your muscle groups don’t work and play well with others.”
    Cam knew it was just an offhand joke, but there was a truth to it that stuck in Cam’s craw,