Dean looked at the floor.
“You’re right.”
The apology that followed was awkward and incomplete. Evan accepted the fact that Dean had apologized without offering immediate friendship.
“Don’t do it to somebody else,” he said.
“I won’t.”
Evan hoped that was true.
The barracks atmosphere changed slowly. People still joked. Evan still got embarrassed by his sister’s stickers. What changed was his ability to separate embarrassment from violation.
When someone teased him about the hearts on a later envelope, he laughed.
When another recruit reached toward the letter as a joke, Evan moved it away and said, “Don’t.”
The recruit stopped.
No crisis. No explanation.
That small success surprised him more than the report.
At home, Lily’s evaluation confirmed dyslexia.
She cried when their mother told her.
Then she asked whether Evan really had something like it too.
Their mother put him on speakerphone.
“Pretty much,” Evan said.
“So I got it from you?”
“That’s not how sisters work.”
“Maybe you’re contagious.”
“Then you’re doomed.”
She laughed.
Their mother did not.
“Evan,” she said, “I owe you an apology.”
He went still.
“Mom, you didn’t know.”
“I knew you were struggling. I didn’t know why. Those are different things. I still said things I wish I hadn’t.”
He remembered every one.
For a moment he wanted to protect her by saying he had forgotten.
He was tired of protective lies.
