“So? I’m not that great to look at.”
“Don’t be stupid! This is the first time I’ve seen you since you were a toddler! Your hair is so shiny, and your face. Oh, Fia, you’re beautiful. You’re so, so beautiful. I knew who you were the second I saw you.” Tears trace from the corner of each of my eyes. I’m on Fia’s bed, and it smells like her, sweet vanilla, and now I know what look goes with that smell.
She was there, on the beach ahead of whatever vantage point the vision gave me, and she looked back for a brief second before kicking a ball wildly and chasing after it through a group of adults.
She didn’t look happy. I wonder if she always looks that way and I don’t know. Or maybe I don’t remember what happy looks like. But even with her brows knit together and her mouth pulled tight, she was so beautiful. And when she ran, she was every description of graceful I have ever read.
“You’re beautiful,” she says with a sigh. “And I’m glad you saw something happy. Really. That’s amazing. I hope you keep seeing happy things. It makes everything worth it.”
“Maybe next time they take us on a Broadway trip I can see the show beforehand and ruin the whole thing for you.”
Fia lets out a dry laugh. “You do that. I hate musicals anyway.”
Our door flies open. “Where were you in class today, Fia?” Eden says, and then they both swear loudly and I feel a blanket get ripped out from underneath me.
“KNOCK FIRST!” Fia screams. I’ve never heard her so angry.
I wave a hand lazily in the air. “Relax! Eden doesn’t have to knock. Oh, wait—are you naked? Did she see you naked?” I giggle, still giddy with happiness, still seeing the beach. I know what Eden looks like. I want to touch her hair again; it was so wild in my vision. Now when she comes over, I don’t have to imagine what I think she looks like. I know! “Does Fia have big boobs? She won’t tell me, and apparently it’s not okay to feel them and see for myself.” No one laughs. “Sheesh, joking.”
“What happened to you?” Eden says. She sounds scared.
Fia stomps to the door. “Shut up. Get out of our room.”
“What’s wrong?” I sit up.
“Her body…” Eden says.
“I SAID SHUT UP.”
“No, tell me what’s wrong. Eden, what can’t I see? What’s wrong?”
“She’s covered with bruises and cuts! Her whole stomach, and her arms, too! What have they been—”
“Get out of my room!”
Eden shrieks and I hear footsteps tumbling over each other, then the door slams and Fia’s breathing is heavy.
“What was she talking about?”
“Nothing. Eden’s an idiot. I hate her.”
“She was not talking about nothing!” I stand, reaching out for Fia. She always comes when I reach out for her. But my hands meet only air. She’s staying away from my hands.
She’s never stayed away from my hands before.
“Are you really covered with bruises and cuts?” It comes out a whisper. I shuffle forward, and finally I connect with her. She doesn’t move. I pull the blanket away and tenderly reach for her stomach. It’s smooth. I trace my fingers along and she hisses a sharp breath, and there, under my fingers, on her ribs, the rough ridge of a cut. There, higher, another one. I pull her arm to me, she’s been wearing long sleeves all the time—why hadn’t I noticed that? A long cut down her forearm, another on her shoulder.
“How did this happen?”
“Training,” she says, and her voice has no life.
“What kind of training?”
“Lately it’s been knife fighting.”
“They have you learning knife fighting? I thought you were in a gymnastics and self-defense class!”
“They take it very seriously here, apparently.”
I’m squeezing her arm, maybe I’m hurting her, but I can’t let go, I can’t let go because then I can’t see her at all. She sighs.
“They’re training me to fight. The knives are new. Before it was just hand-to-hand.”
“Like karate?” Karate would be okay. Kids take karate all the time. Not with knives, though.
“Like street fighting. They have real knives. I have a plastic one. I don’t get to stop until I’ve delivered an incapacitating blow. Doesn’t matter how many times I get cut.”
“No.”
“It’s okay, Annie. I don’t get cut much anymore. These are old. They’re almost all healed. And I’m getting very, very good.” Her voice sounds like the knives I can see sliding across her skin, through her skin, her pretty, pale skin, pale like the sand on the beach where I saw her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I back up, pulling her with me, until my legs hit my bed and I can sink down. My fingers trace and trace and trace the lines on her arms.
“It’s not a big deal.”