“Will do. I do have one more thing… are you busy next week?”
“What are you doing?”
I jumped and turned from my spot on my bedroom floor to see Bella standing in the doorway, moonlight highlighting her silhouette.
It was the middle of the night, and as usual, I couldn’t sleep. Instead of dwelling on what caused my nightmares and newfound insomnia, I decided to focus my energy elsewhere. At least… focus my mind elsewhere.
“I’m working,” I answered, turning my focus back to the letters in front of me. I was trying to translate the gibberish on each one, or find patterns, but I was starting to believe this was above my pay grade. “What are you doing?”
Bella sighed and wandered into the room, closing the door behind her, and plopping down on the floor next to me. She was in her pajamas with her hair piled on top of her head. “I’m trying to figure out why my brother is poring over random letters in the middle of the night.”
“It’s a long story,” I mumbled, trying to focus on my current stack. It was in these moments that I wished my reading literacy was better. My mom was convinced I had ADHD since I couldn’t focus for shit, and trying to rifle through these letters was proving her right.
“Hmph,” Bella exclaimed and started rifling through the letters herself, “If you told me this long story, I could maybe help.”
I sighed and leaned back, resting against the side of my bed, and rubbed my strained eyes, “I’m trying to organize these and see if there are any patterns or similarities. I’m trying to make sense of the shit…” I trailed off, “Maybe I just need to sleep and restart tomorrow. I think this is the most I’ve read in one sitting… well, ever.”
Bella looked at me for a moment, nodded slightly, and began rifling through the letters with more purpose.
“You get too stuck in your head sometimes,” she mumbled, almost to herself.
I watched her methodically pull each letter out of the envelope, scan it quickly, before placing it back. She then began putting them in various stacks around her.
“What does that mean?” I asked as I watched her work.
She sighed softly, “You were probably going line by line, seeing if any letters were repeated across the documents. That’s too much work. First, we check by length and then contents.” She picked up two notes and handed them to me, “See these two?”
“Yes…” I trailed off, scanning them quickly. “They have the same number of lines.”
She nodded, “Exactly. While it may be coincidental, it’s a starting point that’s easier to digest.”
I watched her for a moment as she continued to rifle through the letters. “What does that have to do with getting too stuck in my head?”
She smiled softly as she worked, casting a brief glance my way. “Mom used to say it about you when we were growing up.‘That brother of yours is too stuck in his head, can’t do anything not his way’”. She had copied our mom’s Italian accent well, and she laughed at the memory. “It’s one of the sayings she messed up when learning English.”
I nodded, catching on, “So she was trying to say that I get stuck in my ways?”
Bella nodded, “You get in your head a certain way that you’re going to do something, and can’t deviate.”
“Am I really that bad?”
Bella shrugged, handing me more letters with the same number of lines. “It’s not bad, it just sometimes makes things harder for you. I missed it, though, seeing how stubborn you get. How locked into tasks you are. It’s fun to watch, and I like seeingit again. You’re the same way with Livia’s car or helping me prep for the restaurant. You hyperfixate on the tasks.”
I smiled, the dim light from the lamp on my nightstand bathing my room in a warm glow. “I missedyou. All of you.”
I loved my time in the Army, and the years afterward working with my friends in Oregon. But when it crashed and burned, I just wanted to be home with my family. With the people who loved me the most.
The people I had yet to let down.
“Think you’re going to stay this time? Make the city your home again?” Bella asked, trying to keep the hope out of her voice, but it bled through nonetheless.
“You guys were here, so this was always home, but yeah. I’ll stick around now,” I explained.
She nodded with a soft smile. “Good. It’s about time I get some help reigning in these sisters of ours,” she expressed. “Why are we going through these anyway?”
I sighed, “I think they’re threats to Bec.”
Bella paused for a moment and turned towards me, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief. “There are hundreds!”
