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“Mimi—”
“Don’t fucking Mimi me. Explain yourself. You’ve been sending him these—”
She flaps the sheets in the air violently; they’re scrunched in her hand, and Avryl has to stop herself from heaving forward to save them.
“Please, put those down. And get off my bed.” Her voice is way too calm for how she feels, but she needs Nayomi to get away from her forbidden letters first, before she can focus.
Avryl’s calmness and poise will just piss her sister off even more, and she knows it. Yet, she watches as Nayomi does what she asked. Avryl moves toward the bed, Nayomi’s eyes burning into her. The papers are strewn about like fallen leaves. Every crease and crumple registers to Avryl.
What did she read? What did she read?
Avryl tries to quickly scan the pages and find the guilty words in black or blue ink, but her eyes can’t focus on anything.
Nayomi didn’t know why Ax had killed her husband.
She didn’t know why Avryl wrote to him.
She didn’t know that all of it was because of Avryl.
Before today.
No words are coming to Avryl that will make sense of this and explain it in a way that will do the least amount of damage, so she—
“Glenn tried to rape me.”
There’s a cold pause for a moment. The loft is dead quiet, but there’s someone else home. Listening.
“What did you say?” Nayomi hisses and steps forward.
“Glenn. He tried to… He attacked me that day and… That’s why he was… That’s why Ax… He—”
“Ax?”
“Axton Manson. That’s why he did what he did. He’s not a murderer.”
Nayomi starts to protest, and Avryl cannot bring herself to say the words ‘felon’ or ‘murderer’ like her sister can because they don’t ring true, but she tries again. “Yes, Axton… Did what he did to Glenn, but he’s not—”
“Murdered.” Nayomi is calm in a way that turns the room into an icebox and makes Avryl very uncomfortable. “Your pen pal murdered my husband.” Her words are slow and deliberate and puncture the air so sharply Avryl almost flinches. She speaks to Nayomi very slowly with an unsettling smile like she’s explaining something to a small, silly child.
Avryl wants to grab the collar of her shirt and push her out, but she digs her nails into her palm further.
“Did you hear what I said?” Avryl asks. Her rage at being treated like an idiot thaws her a bit, and she meets her sister’s eyes directly now.
“Glenn didn’t try to rape you; you’re lying.” Nayomi points a finger in Avryl’s face, and that weird smile disappears.
“Think about it.” Avryl slaps the hand away. “Where was his body found? In the truck, I was using to move my stuff here. What else makes sense?”
“No.”
“His belt was un—”
“No.”
“One of my nails was on the—”
“No!”
Nayomi turns away. Her head bends down so far the curve of her spine show through the fabric of her shirt.
