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Justin was fighting a smile, but his eyes looked sad.I do not want your pity, Jo thought at him with sudden viciousness. She instantly regretted it. Her anger was coming to her rescue, but she hated the darkness that was rising up within her. After fighting it for so long, she was back here, sinking into it. Deeper and deeper, with every passing moment.
“I shall not,” Justin said calmly, and he sat next to her on the couch. “Nor should you. You told me he loved you,” he added, after a minute. “Was it true?”
“He said he did,” Jo said.
I will not let my voice tremble. I will not.
“It occurs to me,” Justin went on, as if he had given this a lot of thought, “that I never asked you the most important question of all. So, even though I have delayed irreparably, I ask it now: Are you in love, Jo?”
She sniffled. Justin’s expression did not turn to pity. He just regarded her calmly, waiting for her response.
I will never forgive myself if I cry now.
But she was crying.
“Of course I am in love,” the words burst out of her with the suppressed force of years. Eons. Decades of hiding the truth from herself. “Of course I am in love with him. Have been this whole time. What an absolute idiot he is. Why can he not see it?” Justin pressed his lips together as if to stop whatever words rose in his throat from coming out. “Then again, I am the bigger fool,” Jo went on, still crying. “The truth has been here all this time, staring me in the face, and I’ve only now been able to confront it.”
Justin waited for her to get it all out.
She told him everything that was in her heart. He listened; she did too.
He was better than a piece of paper, she found out. Somewhat more alive.
By the time she was done, she was crying fully, and did not even care to hide it. All she cared about was surviving this positivestormof feelings that was dragging her under like a current. It was a struggle merely to keep breathing.
But finally, she was spent. She had told her brother everything.
She sat back, fighting for breath.
“Well,” Justin said, and his voice held that strange, sickening kindness. He regarded her with his soldier’s eyes. “Now you know.”
Dear Beth,
Of all the things Laurie taught me, this was the best: he taught me how to fall. Well, he did not necessarily teach me that—gravity took care of it.
But Laurie was the one who allowed me to fall. In fact, he made it safe for me to fall. To climb, as well. We grew up in a world that did not allow ladies to climb trees, that did not allowed ladies to fall, not in the literal sense or the metaphorical.
But how else can one grow up and learn to breathe the highest air and taste the best fruit, unless one risks a fall?
Laurie did that for me. He let me fall when no one else would. We climbed trees together, we fell together, we patched each other up.
So, now, it just stands to reason that of all the people I could fall in love with, it should be him.
I think it might be time to fall.
If only I knew how to. Or that someone would be there to catch me.
When I was climbing trees it was not allowed—or deemed safe—for girls to do so. It was not allowed for girls to bruise and break, to bleed and fail. But I was able to do it because he was standing at the bottom of the tree, his arms open. Waiting, in case I fell.
But he’s not at the bottom of the tree anymore.
Who will catch me now if I fall?
Eternally,
Your sister.
twenty-two
