She took a few days off from work and I think she slept while I was at school. Evelyn and I sat in the library during lunch. She read books, but I just thought about Leah at home, lying in that bed with those terrible drawings stuffed into its springs. She was always awake when I came home from school. I rushed in each afternoon like a nurse checking to see if her patient’s fever had broken, and she greeted me at the door, but each day was the same as the last. At night I talked to the fairies, begging their forgiveness for the hurt I had brought to Leah. I took the gray sweater that I loved so much and stuffed it into the garbage bin outside. When I slept I dreamed about the angry black strokes of her hair and sometimes they would reach out to strangle me and I would wake up gagging.

I knew she wasn’t sleeping at night. Each night, I closed my door and climbed into my bed. She waited until she thought I was asleep and then she went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I listened to the water running through the pipes in the walls, the sound of waves rushing around me like liquid wind, but it wasn’t enough to muffle her sobs. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to do something because I wasn’t willing to lose her. I thought about talking to Evelyn, but I didn’t want to share Leah’s secret with anyone. As hard as I could, I wished for Matilda because she always knew exactly what to do.

Days and nights passed and Leah slipped farther away. Finally, one evening I waited until she was in the shower and then I snuck downstairs. I opened the door to her art studio, which was so cold and dark that, for a moment, I wondered if the room missed Leah as much as I did. I found a large pad of paper and ripped out a sheet. There were pieces of charcoal lying on the table so I sat down and started to write. The letters were big and black and each time my arm moved, the darkness rubbed itself onto me but I didn’t care. Even though I didn’t know what to say, my hand moved anyway.