Page 14 of Rejected

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Growing up, he didn’t have anyone, and then he had us.

We adopted him, and when things got especially tough for him, we saved him. He spent every waking moment in our house, instead of his own empty one—parents dead before he was old enough to know what a parent was, guardians who did not care two straws for him, at least not until he came into his vast fortune. The enormous mansion he would one day inherit was no place for a boy. It was cold and empty, its only residents being governesses, tutors, riding masters, and a veritable army of servants at his beck and call.

Laurie never wanted to be in it. He spent every waking hour at Orchard Hall, escaping out the window the moment his instructors were looking the other way. Running to us. To me.

So, I spent all my time with him and did everything I could to cheer him up. I wrote scenarios for us to act out, I learned how to fight forhim, with him, so that he wouldn’t miss the company of a boy.

That was before our sisters grew up and abandoned pretending in the attic so that they would start pretending in the ballrooms. Pretending that they liked being stuffed into dresses, that they were interested in insipid conversations with insufferable self-aggrandizing oafs, just so that they could find a place in the world.

And Teddy… Teddy is not pretending any more, I don’t think. He genuinely prefers our brother’s friends’ company to ours—as was natural. And he genuinely prefers the attention every girl showers him with, apparently, even though he still retains some of his boyish shyness, which I find irresistible.

But that will be gone soon too. And he will be gone, married, or on a grand adventure, or both, and leave me behind. And it will kill me.

I would rather keep him as he had been when I first met him: A little boy with a title. Nobody knew what to do with him. He’d had no place in the world except in our house. Which will eventually be empty, when Meg and Amy marry, won’t it?

Amy agrees that she doesn’t want to marry either, but she is growing up to be a terrible flirt. I’m afraid she won’t be staying here for long after she is old enough to be in society. So here will I be, no sisters, no Laurie. Just me and Papa.

And the ghosts.

Eternally,

Your sister

six

“I am so angry all the time,” Jo said at length.

She didn’t know why she said it, except that it was true.

I am angry right now.

It wasn’t a reason for rejecting his proposal. It was just a fact. She hadn’t told anyone about it, but Laurie nodded curtly, once, as if he already knew.

I haven’t been hiding it as well as I thought.

Or maybe she had hid it, but he had noticed nevertheless. All this time, I thought him distant; but he has been paying attention.

“Have you been writing again?” Laurie asked.

Jo sighed. Of course she had, but writing was not the source of her anger—it was the only thing that helped.He knows about my writing. Of course he does. He’s probably the one person who knows me so well.

“I have told you before, Teddy, writing does not make me angry. It’s putting my writing aside, finishing it, that does. And if I am to grow up, I shall have to abandon it altogether, don’t you see?”

He took hold of her hands and looked into her eyes.

“You won’t have to with me. You can write as much as you want, I swear it.”

If it wasn’t so absurd, she would have laughed.

“Whatwithyou, Theodore? There is no ‘with you’. There can never be, you are my—”

“Don’t say ‘brother’ again, or I swear—.” He looked murderous.

“My best friend.” Laurie tried to say something, and instead he made a choking sound. “Look, I’m sorry, Teddy. I don’t—I don’t want to lose you.” She was on the verge of tears again, and it made her even angrier. “Let’s just forget this whole thing happened. Let’s pretend it never did.”

“I cannot. I cannot pretend any more, Jo. I am obsessed with thoughts of you, day and night. I am… I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, it’s been going on for years.Yearsof this, Jo!” He was whispering by the end.

She wanted to smack him.