The Winter Sister(72)

He pulled a shoebox out of the drawer, and as he straightened back up, he held it as if its contents were fragile. “I don’t know why I felt the need to tell you that,” he said, looking at me. “I think I’m just nervous.”

“Why?” I asked, crossing my arms as I watched him sit down on the edge of the bed. He removed the lid from the box, and I could see that there were folded pieces of paper inside.

“Because . . .” he started, his voice sounding farther away than just the few feet of space between us. “It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at any of her letters. We, um, we couldn’t call each other back then, because your mom didn’t—well, you know.”

He dug through the contents of the box until he found what he was looking for, a crisply folded sheet of paper that seemed a brighter white than the rest.

“We wrote each other these letters so we could have them when we were apart,” he continued. “And this one in particular . . .” He held it up to show me, waving it in the air before unfolding it. “This is the one I gave to the police. It’s not even the original—they still have that, I think—but they let me keep a copy after they confirmed it was real.”

The paper was splayed open in his hands now. I could see Persephone’s handwriting, and it took everything I had to blink away the sudden stinging in my eyes. Ben stared at the letter, his eyes flicking back and forth across the page.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Sorry, I’m just reading it.” He turned the paper over, and after a few more seconds, he straightened his back and looked at me. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“Why?” I snapped, taking a step forward. “Doesn’t paint you as innocently as you remembered?” I reached for the letter, but he leaned back and held it flat against his chest.

“No,” he said. “That’s not it.”

Again, I tried to grab it, but he stopped me, curling his fingers around my wrist—not tightly, not aggressively, but the insistence in his touch froze me just the same.

“Sylvie, stop. Just wait.”

I jerked my hand out of his grasp and crossed my arms again. He turned the paper over. I waited for what felt like a minute, but just as I leaned forward, ready to try once more to pluck it from his hands, Ben straightened his arm and held out the letter.

“Here,” he said. “Just—remember how young she was when she wrote this, okay? She was only a teenager, and I’m sure you remember how teenagers can be.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, snatching the letter.

The second I saw her words and her writing up close, I was transfixed, a white noise humming in my ears.

Ben, Persephone wrote, and I could hear his name almost as clearly as nights when she whispered it into the darkness of our room.

Ben,

I’m writing this in fifth period because Mrs. Keller is clueless and I’m never gonna get stoichiometry. I wish I were with you right now. I know I’m seeing you tonight, but that feels like years away.

I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night, and I want you to know that I love you for worrying about me, but you don’t have to. I love our routine. I wouldn’t ask you to keep going or to hold me harder if I didn’t. I love that I can still see your fingers on my skin when I get home, and I love how much it helps me. Because it does. It really does. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to explode with all the anger and pain that’s thrashing around inside me, but then I have your hands.

Some girls cut, you know. I’ve seen the scars on their thighs when we change for gym, and I’ve been to enough health classes to get the reasons why they do it. I know it’s kind of the same as what we do, but at least the bruises are temporary. Those ugly scars will be on those girls for life.

Anyway, it’s like this: in the moment, I can concentrate on the physical pain of you holding me, and somehow, that allows me to forget the real pain, the deeper one. Then, later, I have your fingerprints on my skin. Even after I cover them up, I know that they’re there as a reminder of your love. They let me know that I’m actually not unloved, even though I am unloved by the person who’s supposed to love me most.

She was at it again this morning. We were eating breakfast and I tried to tell her about the B+ on my English paper (thanks again for helping!), but she just ran her hands through my sister’s hair and said, “That’s nothing. Sylvie got a perfect score on her science test.” She was looking at my sister like she couldn’t believe her luck that she was the mother of the most perfect human being on earth and I swear I had to stop eating, it was that disgusting.

I know I should just accept that this is how she is, but it really hurt me that she said that. You saw how much work I put into that paper. I actually read the book this time! But she told me “that’s nothing.” I mean, who says that to their daughter?? And my stupid sister just sat there smiling at my mom like that’s a totally normal thing to say. I get that she’s just a kid, but it makes me so mad how she just goes along with every cruel thing my mother says to me and she always defends her. It’s such a betrayal. I bet if I brought it up to her tonight, Sylvie would say, “She didn’t mean it like that.” But how else could she have meant it??

Anyway, I’m rambling. My point is this: all that stuff with my shitty mother and my little sister, it all just . . . dissipates (damn straight that’s an SAT word!) whenever your arms are around me and you’re pressing my skin to the bone. Plus, it helps you too with everything you’re going through, that’s what you’ve said. And I want to help you. I want to be there for you the same way you’re there for me.