I duck out from under his arm, but he follows me around the table. “Tell me the truth, Stasi. I’m here, ready to listen.”
I huff out a small laugh, picking up the cutlery and placing it into the bowls. “Nowyou’re listening? How very kind of you, Kit.”
“Stop that.” I grip the silverware as he takes the other side. His eyes bore into mine, and I can’t look at them as my hands are freed. He grabs them, stopping me from pulling away.
“In your statement,” he says slowly, gripping my fingers. “You told the authorities thatEllawas the one who made you do the work. That they had it the wrong way around.”
I jerk my head up to look at him. “How did you get that? Those records weren’t made public.”
Undoubtedly at Ella’s request.
His lips part, as if in confirmation. His eyes slowly widen as he stares at me. “It’s true, isn’t it? It wasn’t you. It washer.”
I can’t do this.
I can’t listen to the words I was so desperate to hear, for so long. From anyone.
But especially not from him. The backs of my eyes begin to burn.
“Does it matter?” I whisper. “Leave it alone, Kit.”
His head jerks back as if I’ve hit him, his voice incredulous. “Does it matter? Of course it fucking matters. She’slying.”
My throat aches. He’s still holding onto my hands, refusing to let them go even as my eyes dampen.
“Do you know how long I waited,” I murmur, “for someone to say that?”
He doesn’t respond. But his hands tighten around mine as he waits. As if he’ll wait forever.
“So many weeks,” I say softly. “I sat in that cell, and I waited for them to realize. I spoke to everyone I could. I told themeverything. And nobody listened to me. They stopped asking, then.”
Jealousy, they called it. Trying to save my own skin, by throwing my sweet, abused sister under the bus. And how awful a person I must be, not to admit to it even after I’d been caught.
“Every word I spoke was twisted.” The words feel sharp on my tongue. “Everything I said, they poked at and ripped apart.”
Until I stopped talking altogether.
Because what was the point, when they were so convinced? The whole fuckingworldwas convinced.
I was the villain, and she was a hero.
“Stasi,” Kit breathes my name. He sounds… agonized. “We didn’t know.”
And how the words fucking hurt. They pierce the shield around my heart, jagged spikes driving in with force.They didn’t know.
“They couldn’t find a single character witness,” I whisper. I can’t look at him. “Did you know that? We moved around so much. I never got to know anyone well enough for them to risk speaking up for me.”
The only people who might have spoken up for me, who knew me well enough to know that I would never have done that – was them.
They didn’t know. But they fuckingshould have.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is low. Pained. “If we had known – we would have—,”
Except he stops. Realizing.
“No, you wouldn’t.” And it hurts, still. “You had your chance to speak up, Kit. But youdidn’t.”
They bought into the story just as much, if notmore, than anybody else.
