The Winter Sister(39)

I thought of Saturday mornings when I lived at Aunt Jill’s house, where I burrowed beneath the blankets, curled like a baby in a womb. I thought of mornings at RISD, where I’d make last-minute decisions to skip class, choosing instead to sleep until dinner. Even living with Lauren, there were days when she had to bang on my bedroom door to get me up for work. On those days, I wouldn’t even be asleep; I’d just be staring at the ceiling, holding the sheets to my chin, my heart beating so fast I thought she’d be able to hear it from the hallway.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “You still think I did it?” he asked. “Even after I just explained what happened?”

It was true I’d been drawn in by his story, seduced by the ways I recognized my sister in it, by the way his voice chipped like old paint as he told it. But this was Ben—the same guy who somehow convinced the police not to press any charges. It was strange how surprised he seemed that I didn’t believe him, but then again, he was used to getting away with what he’d done.

“I believe you about the fight,” I said. “But I know you didn’t just drop her off on the side of the street. Come on. It escalated, just like you said, and then . . .”

Even now, I couldn’t just say, You strangled her. I still had such a hard time grappling with that image—Persephone’s eyes going frantic, her hands clawing at the fingers on her neck. I couldn’t see the moment when she went limp as a rag doll in the car; I could only see her body thrown onto the snow, her throat already purpling.

“I have to go,” I told him, pushing back my chair. “I need to get back to my mom.”

As I stood up, Ben shook his head. “And so, what?” he said. “The fact that she was being stalked means nothing to you? You blame me, her boyfriend, over—fucking Tommy Dent?”

My hand froze over the strap of my purse. “What?”

I hadn’t heard the name Tommy Dent in a long time. He was a boy who’d lived a few houses down from us, and I knew very little about him, just that he was two years ahead of me in school and he was always getting into trouble for something—shoplifting, smoking weed in the woods, lighting rats on fire. Mom always told us to keep away from him, but she’d done so in a dismissive way—“Tommy Dent is a bad seed; steer clear of him”—which was nothing at all like the intense, fiery way she’d yelled at Persephone when she saw her with Ben.

“Sorry,” Ben said, “I didn’t mean to sound so—aggressive or whatever. I just don’t understand it. I mean, they questioned Tommy, too, you know. And he’s the one who was always stalking Persephone, so I just, I don’t understand why you’re so convinced it was me. I loved her, Sylvie.”

His eyes were wide as he stared up at me. I blinked, my lips parting, but for some reason, I couldn’t form the words I needed to say. Picking up my purse, I backed away, bumping into the chair as I did. “I have to go,” I reminded him.

“But—” He stood up, too, and I hated how I had to look up to meet his gaze. “You knew he was stalking her, right? That he was always watching her, always leaving her all these crazy little notes?”

“I have to go,” I repeated.

As I walked toward the exit, my legs felt weak and wobbly. Because I hadn’t known; she’d never told me. Persephone, who’d pointed out her bruises, who’d shown off the rose that had to be kept a secret from Mom, who’d made me agree to a pact as her one and only sister—Just keep the window open. Just a crack, okay?—had never told me that someone else was a threat to her, that someone else meant to do her harm.





13




That afternoon, I tried to remember everything I could about Tommy Dent.

I pictured his messy blonde hair, and I remembered how he’d sometimes toss rocks at cars as they drove down our street. There’d been a rumor that his mother chased him around their house with a baseball bat whenever he got in trouble, and his father had supposedly overdosed on heroin when Tommy was a baby. But beyond that, I didn’t know much, and the only clear memory I had of Tommy wasn’t even really about him.

“I just saw Tommy Dent hacking at the Townsends’ flowers with an axe,” Mom had said to us, unloading groceries in the kitchen. “He’s a bad kid. I better never see you girls hanging out with him.”

I was twelve years old at the time, still in middle school. Tommy went to Spring Hill High, and we’d never really interacted with each other, not even to wait at the bus stop, since the high school started thirty minutes before the middle school did. Everything I’d ever heard about him seemed to corroborate Mom’s statement, though, so I just nodded in agreement, certain that she knew what was best for us. But Persephone, who rode the bus with Tommy every day, rolled her eyes and stomped off to our room.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, following her in before she had a chance to slam the door, as she so often did in those days.

“Mom, obviously,” she said. “Mom’s the matter.” She pulled a scrunchie out of her hair, her eyes set fiercely on the mirror above her dresser, and reset her ponytail, smoothing back each blonde strand until they were all firmly pushed into place.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you friends with Tommy Dent or something?”

“What?” Persephone looked at me in the mirror, her eyes sharp and narrowed. “Of course not. Tommy Dent is weird.”