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“Yes, we did. And it was chance. The odds of a sad ending were much higher.”
“I just don’t like to think of it that way.”
“I understand that,” Dahlia said. “But you know, you don’t see things the way I do and you never have.”
“Glass half-full,” Ruby said, then gestured to Dahlia. “Glass half-empty.”
“That’s not true,” Dahlia said. “Not necessarily. I want to know how the glass came to be the way it is. If someone filled it halfway, I guess it’s half-full. But if someone drank from it, it’s half-empty. What happened matters. Why it happened matters.”
Dahlia didn’t know why it bothered her so much. Why she wanted Ruby to care about the answers all of a sudden. Except she’d always been this way. She’d always wanted the answers while it had seemed like the people around her preferredstories.
“I care about the truth,” Ruby said. “It’s not like I’m...living a lie. It’s just...perspective. And I didn’t like Heath saying I was a mascot any more than I like Dana saying I’m a...a tragedy. I’m aperson.”
Dahlia sighed. “I know that, Rubes. I just... Aren’t you curious?”
“I...not usually. Once I realized I definitely wasn’t a secret princess, it all became less interesting. I just... I don’t know, I was going to say I just want to be a normal person, but that’s a lie, isn’t it?”
Yes.
“I can’t answer that for you.”
“I want to be special.”
Dahlia stared at her sister, who from her point of view had been treated as special from the moment she’d been found. “You are the girl who lived,” she said. “You couldn’t be any more special.”
Ruby huffed a breath and looked to the side, scrubbing at the bridge of her nose before looking back over at Dahlia. “I just... Look, I did... I grabbed some police records from the museum today. I don’t even know why. No, I do. It was what Heath said. It got me in a funky headspace and then Dana...”
“What police records?”
“I got a file that should have the police report from the night I was found.”
Interest prickled the back of Dahlia’s neck. “Can I see it?”
“Sure. I haven’t looked at it yet. I...dumped it off and went back out to shop.”
Ruby walked out of the room and into her bedroom, returning with a file, which she shoved in Dahlia’s hand before heading back to the car. She came back in with a giant bag filled with blankets and another with pillows spilling out the top. She grinned sheepishly. “I needed blankets too.”
“Uh-huh,” Dahlia said.
Ruby shoved those into the bedroom and shut the door, then came to stand by Dahlia.
Dahlia looked it over critically. Pear Blossom Police Department. December 23, 2000.
There was an exhaustive description of Ruby and her condition. And witness statements.
She paused when she got to her own. She had been four years old. It said simply: “There was a baby. She was crying. Distress likely caused by a combination of hunger and the cold.”
Dahlia felt an unexpected swell of emotion in her chest, and the memory felt so fresh. The sadness she’d felt then, the confusion. She’d been so young she’d always felt like she was missing pieces of what had happened, especially because her own feelings about it had been so different from the whole town’s.
Except Dana’s, apparently.
“Wow. I... I’ve never seen this,” Dahlia said.
She handed it to Ruby, who looked at it while squinting, as if she didn’t want to see it too clearly. Ruby didn’t frown. Instead she looked... Calm. Her expression glassy and smooth.
“I know this story,” Ruby said. “It’s just strange to read what you all said to the police.”
And for the first time Dahlia really considered that Ruby’s myth sold her sister short a bit. As if her survival had been so unquestionably meant to be, that she’d never truly been in peril. That she’d been magical, and therefore not... A fighter.
