The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [73]
Her eyes crinkle around the edges as she stares at me, her lips pressing a little tight. I’ve stared at myself enough times that I know every expression on my sister’s face. She feels sorry for me.
She shrugs and looks away as if she’s afraid telling me will only highlight what I grew up missing.
“Please,” I whisper because I know my voice would crack if I spoke with any force.
She rubs her fingers along her lips. My own nervous gesture, except usually I trace the scars on my jaw.
“I miss her,” she finally says. “Elias told me she wanted to come up to the Dark City with him to look for me, but they needed her in Vista. He said she was the one to lead the revolt overthrowing the Recruiters and forcing them from town. She’s in charge of it all now—in charge of making sure everyone in Vista survives.”
She looks down at her feet tracing invisible patterns over the floor. “Her name is Mary and she rescued me from the Forest. But she never told me that. I grew up thinking I was hers. I didn’t remember anything from before—nothing. When I found out …” She shrugs. “I’m sorry.” My sister’s voice is quiet as she talks down toward her tea.
I narrow my eyes. “What do you have to be sorry for?” I ask, genuinely confused.
She takes a deep breath, her fingers tightening around the mug until her knuckles glow white. She finally looks at me. “I’m sorry I had a mother when you didn’t. I’m sorry I had such an easy life growing up when you didn’t.” I’m about to interrupt her but she shakes her head as she takes a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I forgot about you. I’m sorry I didn’t even know to go looking for you. I didn’t even know to try to rescue you.” She pauses, her shoulders hitching a little. “I’m sorry Elias fell in love with me and not you.”
I wince at those last words but she’s not finished. She comes around to sit next to me, setting down my mug and pulling my hands into hers. I can feel the heat from the tea radiating off her skin.
“I see the way you look at me now, Annah. I see the resentment in your eyes.”
“Abigail—” I protest.
“It’s Gabry,” she says, her voice hardening. “And you know well enough that I can read every expression on your face the same way you can read mine.”
I pull away from her and move into the corner of the bed, tugging the covers up around me. She faces me, hands balled into fists at her sides. “I’m not perfect, Annah. I’ve never been perfect. I’ve been a horrible person many times and—”
I can’t help it; I start laughing. “You?”
“It’s not funny!” she shouts, and I’m surprised by her outburst. She paces across the room. “You don’t know what it’s like to have forgotten everything. Everything. To find out that the life you thought you knew was a lie.”
Her lips tremble and I can tell she’s close to tears. I never realized how much this affected her. “You really don’t remember?” I ask. “Any of it? Me? Our father? Elias and everyone else?”
She looks away from me but not before I see the way her eyes glisten. I lean back against the wall. What would it be like to lose your past like that? I try to decide if I’d be grateful to never know what it feels like to have had a place where I felt like I belonged.
If I didn’t have anything to compare my current life with, would I be content?
“I’m not an angel,” my sister says, her voice cracking. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“We all have,” I respond automatically. “That’s the nature of the world we live in.”
But she shakes her head. She opens her mouth as if to say something and then closes it, staring out toward the City for a long while. I listen to the rhythm of our breathing, the wind off the river buffeting against the building.
“Catcher told me about what happened between you two on the roof,” she finally says.
“What?” I groan and bury my head in the quilts piled up around me. My entire body burns with a mortified heat. “Why?”
The bed shifts as my sister sits next to me again,