The envelope was covered in even more stickers than before.
Dean, passing nearby, saw it and kept walking.
Evan noticed.
He opened the letter at a quiet table.
Lily’s handwriting was large and uneven. She had left extra space between lines because a teacher had shown her that it helped. Bright star stickers marked the left edge of each paragraph.
At the bottom she had written: THE STARS HELP ME FIND WHERE TO START AGAIN.
Evan stared at the stickers.
All those bright decorations he had once treated as evidence that his little sister was trying to make mail cheerful had another function now. Color gave her a place to return when words moved around.
He smiled.
He wrote back using wide spacing and short paragraphs. In the margin he drew a terrible star.
A week later she called to complain about his drawing.
“It looks like a smashed spider.”
“That’s artistic style.”
“No.”
He laughed.
The more serious change came when a younger recruit joined their training group and struggled with a written instruction sheet. Evan recognized the behavior instantly: reading the first line repeatedly, glancing around to see who was watching, pretending to search for a missing pencil.
Evan did not announce what he saw.
He sat beside him and said, “Want to go through the first step together?”
The recruit stiffened.
“I got it.”
“Okay.”
Evan stood to leave.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
The recruit looked down at the page. “Maybe just the first part.”
Evan sat again.
He did not ask for a diagnosis. He did not tell his own story unless it became useful. He simply helped the way Avery had helped him: by making assistance ordinary enough to accept.
Later, Avery saw them and said nothing.
That was its own kind of approval.
Near the end of training, Dean approached Evan once more.
