The Miles Between

“What?” Seth protests. “What kind of dumb question is that?”

“A perfectly good question,” I say, and then, looking at Aidan, I add, “and a very wise one.”

Mira chimes in with Seth. “No fair. I already know. Pink.”

“It is not pink!” I say.

“Is too. I’ve seen all your stationery that you write your letters to your aunt Edie on, and it’s all pink. I heard a long time ago that whatever you choose for your stationery is your true favorite color because it’s where you pour your heart out.”

“That is the most foolish thing I’ve ever heard!” I tell her.

“I’d bet it’s black.”

“Do you pour your heart out?” Seth asks.

Instantly they are all silent and looking at me.

“You can’t ask me another question,” I tell him.

“Aidan’s demoted to the lower decks. His question didn’t count. Besides, Mira answered it.”

“I can’t help that—”

“Destiny, it’s a simple question. Much easier than mine. Do you pour your heart out to your aunt Edie?”

They are looking at me like they are wondering if I have a heart at all. Or perhaps just a baboon one, after all. Maybe that’s exactly what I have. I look down at my lap. “I write things. Things I wish—Things that—” I look up at Seth. “But I’ve never mailed the letters. They’re all in a box in the bottom of my dresser.”

The wind blows over our heads. The boat rocks. They are silent.

“And Mira’s right,” I say. “It is pink.”

“Why write letters if you’re not going to mail them? Isn’t that a huge waste of time?” Aidan asks. Mira glances sideways at him and frowns.

“It’s all right, Mira. It’s a logical question,” I say. “Because the writing of them was enough. The words are there. They’ve been said, if only on paper. That’s enough.”

“Is it?” Seth asks.

I look at him. I thought it was enough. At least all that I could expect. My rants. My accusations. My pleas. My apologies. Eloquently penned on pink stationery and hidden away. But of course it wasn’t enough, which is why there was always another letter. And another. An impotent one-way conversation.

“Maybe not,” I answer. “But there’s not much I can do about that.”

Seth grins, a slow, wicked upward turn of the corners of his mouth. “If you say so,” he answers. He shakes his head and looks back at the others. “Pink. I wouldn’t have guessed. Good question after all, Aidan. You’re allowed back on the upper decks.”

If you say so?

So many people in life think you have choices. Like Mrs. Wicket wondering if I will stay. Sometimes the choices are taken away from you. If I say so? I only say what is.

Seth is already moving along in the game, asking Aidan a question, then Mira, all of them moving forward when I am still three steps behind, out of step as I have always been. I have never told anyone before about the unmailed letters—not counselors, not Mr. Gardian, not even Aunt Edie. It is like Seth says, sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth. Sometimes a fantasy world is easier. Not only easier. Wiser.

I think about the letters I wrote, the pink stationery that Mr. Gardian always kept me well supplied with, the very same kind Mother bought me when I was five and just learning to write. The pages I crafted over and over again, counting each letter, thinking just the right amount might make a difference. There was the year they all had to be a strong solid number, exactly one hundred words long, and the following year, when I was sure that each sentence needed nineteen words, and then again when each letter needed four paragraphs, one for each person in our family, or what should have been a family. I thought that if all the timing of the writing and the reading were just right, it might undo all the timing of the past. And then finally, in the last year, just the same word over and over again filling both sides of the paper. Never mailed. Always neatly tucked away, because if my secret missives were to bring about any change, it wouldn’t happen via postal delivery.

Tucked away because I knew I had no choice or voice, and no words, no matter how carefully arranged, could ever change anything. Tucked away because, really, I wasn’t sure I deserved to be heard.

If I say so?

I look at Seth, still trading in details and technicalities with Aidan. Still listening, spouting, engaged. Moving forward. Moving on without me. Leaving me behind. I clear my throat. “I do say so.”

Seth stops midsentence and looks at me. “What?”