“I have had some help with moving everything. They’re in storage; I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of any of it.” She knew selling the antiques would give her a decent amount of money, but they were so important to what little family she had left.
She was much quieter when she spoke next, not knowing how exactly Julius would react. “I didn’t know where you were. I was worried that you weren’t safe, but I didn’t want to get involved if you weren’t. Julius, I was always worried about you but-but he wouldn’t do anything to try and help you before I left.” Tears formed in her eyes before she hurriedly wiped them away.
Turning to the letters, she glanced at the handwriting before coming to the same conclusion as her brother. She opened the first letter addressed to her and started reading, but noticed that Julius was more hesitant than she was.
“Julius…knowing her, I don’t think she would’ve held any ill will against you. Mother was always striving to understand the people around her.”
She hadn’t sold the furniture. That came as a relief to Julius, but it did not altogether abate the disgust he directed at himself. Why was he relieved? Because the furniture was still there so he could sell it? Monetary greed had plunged deep into his heart, and though he had been sober for a month, the habit of scrounging cash by any means necessary had not yet died. It was like a persistent itch, and he hated himself for it.
But he hated himself even more for what Julia said next and looked up at her with the tears from earlier beginning once more in the corners of his eyes. She, too, was crying again, and despite his trouble with empathy, he had always found her emotions far stronger and easier to read than anyone else’s. He dropped his eyes down, ashamed, and his hands worked nervously along the edge of his envelopes.
“I’m glad that you didn’t get involved…” he admitted quietly. “It would have been… I don’t know what would have happened, but they would have hurt you, too.” They - Manfroy and all of shadowy people who worked for him, the other wayward teenagers ensnared in his trap, other gangs, the police… Julius knew what would have happened had they gotten their hands on Julia - had seen it with his very own eyes in the stagnant dark of a boarded up shack - but he could not speak it out loud.
“There was nothing Father could have done,” he assured her sadly. His eyes traveled back to the letters and contemplated them silently in his hand for several moments.
“Mother was too kind…” It was all but a whisper. How could she possibly not hold any ill will toward him? He had done a number of cruel things to the family - to her - even before that day, but he also knew, just as Julia did, that whatever was inside his letter was full of love and forgiveness. That was simply how she was. And that was why Julius couldn’t bear to read it just yet. He glanced up at Julia.
“So are you. It’s not good, you know,” he said bluntly. “There are people out there who will just take advantage of you for it, and―“ Averting her gaze, his voice trailed off. “And you…”
His eyes snapped up to meet hers again, intense but teary, and his brow furrowed.
“Julia, what are you doing? Why are you treating me like this― like nothing happened?” he demanded, but remained rooted, unthreatening, and turned his palms out at his sides as he pleaded her for an answer. One that he could make sense of.
“I tried to kill you! Why aren’t you angry at me?”
