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“Can you expand on that?” Dahlia asked.
“I mean...she said she always found me really tragic and... Anyway, it was fine—it was just a really uncomfortable conversation.”
Dahlia felt the strangest echo inside of her. A radiant pain that also felt oddly satisfied. Because she’d felt that. Always. Even at four. That there was a deep sadness to Ruby’s abandonment, and a story. One that no one seemed interested in discovering.
“I agree with her,” Dahlia said.
“You...you agree?”
Dahlia’s breath caught on an indignant sound. “I’m not...trying to be mean, so please stop with the big eyes. But have you honestly never...wondered about why you were left? Or thought it had to be some insane tragedy? I mean, you were abandoned. You could have died.”
“I didn’t, though,” Ruby insisted. “Because you found me.”
“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.
