Knit, knit, knit. Purl, purl, purl. Round and round she went, fingers moving of their own accord as Mabel’s thoughts drifted back to things she’d rather be forgetting. Knit, knit, knit. Purl, purl, purl. She stopped, sighed. Her stitches were the wrong size, somehow; the sweater was too small now, and she’d have to frog at least a few inches, go back and redo it all. She took out her needles. They were mismatched; that would do it. She pulled on the yarn, unravelling her work as she wound the tail around and around itself, back onto the ball. It was several hours of work lost, but yarn was reusable, and there was no real harm done. She frowned at her mismatched needles, surprised she hadn’t noticed the issue, but then. They were almost right, just not quite. Kind of like her and Dipper, these days.
Her brother sat down next to her, still wearing that pine tree hat even all these years later. They were silent, for awhile, with only the rustling of the yarn.
Her brother, her twin, her supposed-to-match double, sat a few inches taller than her now, shoulders broad and arms strong from his adventures in Gravity Falls this last summer. He’d gone alone while Mabel had attended an art camp; it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but now she wished she’d never taken it. That first summer alone had stood between them ever since, an invisible wall that she could not climb and could not take down. First it had been the summer. Then for their senior year they had been in all different classes. Then Dipper had applied to a prestigious school on the East Coast that Mabel could never hope to get into, while she had committed to the closest community college near Gravity Falls. And it all sat between them, unspoken.
She finished winding her yarn and reached for her needles, frowning. Before she could grab them, though, Dipper’s longer arms beat her to it. He picked them up and looked at them for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an identical pair of needles. He swapped them around in his hand and held them out to her. She took them back, marveling. He’d found her missing needles, noted the discrepancy, and brought them back to her.
“Dipper, I...” “Mabel, I...” They chuckled awkardly. “You first,” they said simultaneously, and laughed again.
Dipper began. “I’m sorry I’m going to school without you, Mabel.” He looked away, scratching the back of his neck. “I know it hurt you that I was going to leave, when we’ve always-”
“I’m sorry too,” Mabel blurted out, interrupting him. “I’m the one who left first and that really wasn’t fair to you.”
“But it was amazing!” Dipper exclaimed. “You couldn’t have ever done that if you’d stayed behind for me!”
“And you’re going to be amazing at school,” Mabel whispered. “I just wish I was going to be there to see it.”
Wordlessly, they scooted together so they could lean on each other. They sat like that for a few minutes, watching the sun set from their back patio. The wall that had seemed so insurmountable before was starting to fade, like a ghost that only had power when it was ignored. The sun went down, the stars grew bright, and soon they both headed to their separate rooms to sleep. Before she did, though, Mabel pulled out her two sets of needles. She picked one smaller needle and one slightly larger needle, and then set to work.
She could still knit beautiful things with mismatched needles. She just needed to work with it, instead of against it.