I’m lying in my bed trembling with the emotions raging through me while I try to find warmth under a dozen quilts. I cringe as I remember the things I said to Catcher. As I remember twirling with him under the snow and how I ruined it all.

I don’t understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

All I’ve ever known is about leaving or being left.

I’m beating my fist against a pillow in frustration when there’s a knock at the door and my sister walks into the room. I can tell just from a glance that she knows something’s going on.

Without a word she hands me a tin mug of steaming tea and sits on the chair by the window. The only light in the room seeps in from the hallway, yet even so I can see that her white-blond hair is braided, wisps escaping around her head like down feathers. I resist the urge to raise my hand to my own dirty hair and let the tea scald my tongue and burn its way to my stomach. Ever since she’s been back, that little string between us has grown tighter—my awareness of when she’s near and what she’s feeling.

“You’ve been crying,” she says.

Seeing her sitting there, I think about the Forest. Over and over again I think about her on the path. I relive walking away from her and leaving her. The bright red blood dripping along her shin and the sound of her voice calling me.

I see her falling and I’m not there to grab her before she hits the ground. If I’d just been standing next to her, if I’d just been there for her I could have caught her. I could have protected her. We could have made it back to the village and grown up safe and loved.

“What was it like to have a mother?” I ask her. Our mother died giving birth to us, so even if we had gone back we’d have never known her. It would have always been just the two of us and our father, Jacob.

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.