Page 93 of Every Little Thing

She sucked in a long, shaky breath, and she flipped her hand over underneath mine, holding onto mine and squeezing. She didn’t look at me, just breathing out slowly, weakly, before she spoke in a strained, distant voice. “Ten… years.”

Okay. I could work with this. I caressed my thumb in small, tight patterns on the side of her hand. “Can you… at least tell me her name?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Have you… said her name? To anybody?”

Mutely, she shook her head. I squeezed tighter, dropping my voice to a whisper.

“I promise I won’t tell anybody. You’re safe here.”

She whispered something I couldn’t catch. I shifted closer.

“Say that again?”

“Lindsay.” Her voice was rough, gravelly.

“Lindsay?” She nodded, and I squeezed her hand again. “Oh, great. I love that name.”

She winced at me. “Really?”

“Yeah. Tried to write a book once. Couldn’t finish the first chapter, but the main character’s name was Lindsay.”

She laughed oddly, cocking her head. “When… was that?”

“Oh, pff…” I cast my gaze to the ceiling. “Damn, I don’t know. It was close to when I opened the bookstore, so it’s been ages. Used to be way more into reading then.”

“Guess that explains why you opened a bookstore.”

“Yeah, kinda let the reading habit fall by the wayside, but I like the bookstore. Writing turned out to not be for me, though. Anyway, Lindsay had purple hair and glowing eyes and she could read people’s minds, so, you know, real main-character type.”

She laughed, but it was such a small thing, weak, like she was barely there. This poor girl. “So what you mean is that you wrote it when you were fourteen.”

“Mentally, emotionally, that’s about how old I was, yeah.” I sipped my coffee again, giving the topic some space to breathe, before I said, “So… what was she like?”

She let out a ragged breath. “Quiet… kind of kept to herself. Bit moody. Complained about a lot of things. Picked fights and then ran away from them.”

“Okay, that last part, I empathize with.”

“C’mon,” she laughed, nudging me lightly, but it was a thin veneer over the nerves she was drowning in. “She… well, wenever got on too well, I guess. Mom wasn’t…” She made a face. I sipped my coffee, letting her finish, but she didn’t say anything.

“Lindsay… was she your sister?”

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, balled her fists, and nodded, I put my coffee down and massaged her back gently, slowly up and down. It kind of blew my mind realizing I’d never really… done this with her before. Consoling her. Talking her through painful things. Helping her find peace. Had she even opened up about painful things once?

She had now.

“Older or younger?” I said, my voice low.

“Younger. Three years.”

“What kind of things did she like?”

She laughed, once, breathless, streaked with pent-up tears. “Um… good question. Honestly? Probably those tacky novels you were working on with purple-haired glowing-eyed mind-reading protagonists…”

“Oh, perfect,” I said, squeezing her. “Then I was just channeling her a little. Got a little piece of her right there, in an old document.”

She shook her head, letting out a shaking breath. “Nah… she’s gone.”

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