Dead Girl Walking ― Aaron Minyard

24. the letter

maybe i don't understand it
tell me is this how you planned it?
did you see us so stranded?
maybe i'm too much to manage
― kehlani

♦

"YOU CAN'T REPEAT ANYTHING I SAY HERE, CAN YOU?"

Betsy Dobson didn't even have to consider the question. "Not unless I believe you are in danger of harming yourself or someone else," she told Mara. "Is everything alright?"

Mara resisted the urge to say that if everything was alright, she wouldn't be sitting in a psychiatrist's office on a Sunday morning when she could be sleeping in. "I just wanted to get something off of my chest." A lot of somethings, actually. 

Betsy nodded. "That's one of the things I'm here for." 

Mara swallowed, picking at her fingernails. It took her a moment to get the words out. 

"I'm not an only child."

Betsy tilted her head just a bit. "You had a sibling?"

"Have," Mara corrected. "I have a brother. A twin."

"A twin," Betsy repeated. "Do you know where he is?"

"I do," Mara said, but didn't elaborate. 

Betsy seemed to realize that was all Mara would say to that question, so she changed tact. "Are you and your brother close?"

"We were," Mara said.  

"'Were'?" Betsy repeated.

"This is where it gets complicated," Mara said. "My parents didn't die in a home invasion. That was a lie the Moriyamas made up, to explain why the master took me in."

"Tetsuji," Betsy clarified. Mara wasn't sure if it was for her own benefit or some therapist tactic of getting Mara to disconnect her abuser from the power he'd had over her. She also wasn't sure it would work. 

"Yeah," Mara said. "The truth is..." She chose her words carefully. "My father was going to sell my brother to Evermore, but my mom took him and ran away. We were ten. I was the consolation prize."

Betsy nodded slowly. Mara was a little impressed by her composure, though there was a chance she'd heard some of the barbaric nature of Evermore from Kevin. "That must have been difficult, losing your mother and your brother."

Mara swallowed. "My father was furious," she said quietly. "He thought I'd had something to do with their escape." She tapped the scar on her throat. "He gave me this."

"When you were ten?" Betsy did a good job of keeping her shock out of her voice, but Mara could still tell she was surprised.

Mara nodded. "I thought I was going to die, but I wasn't that lucky. As soon as the wound was healed, I moved into Evermore." 

"Did you ever hear from your mother or your brother, after that?" Betsy asked. 

"No," Mara said. "Last I heard, she was dead. My father killed her."

Betsy was quiet for a moment. "And your brother?"

"Alive," Mara said. "I'd like to leave it at that."

Betsy took that in stride, nodding. "Did you miss him?"

Mara shrugged uncomfortably. "In the beginning," she said. "Then it... got hard to focus on anything but surviving."

"How do you feel about him now?" Betsy asked.

Mara sighed. "I want to hate him."

"Why is that?"