Dear Curtis,

I woke up this morning with a pimple on my cheek, and I can tell; it’s gonna be big. I wish you were here to laugh at me, since Rosalie will only feel pity, since she probably can’t be sympathetic – I doubt she’s ever had a pimple in her two thousand years of life. Trevor just won’t care, and Helena will probably think I’m gross. Or even more gross I guess. No one here will laugh at me.

I sit back, stare at the scrap of paper in my hand for a second, and then tear it to shreds. This is my therapy. I will write to Curtis every morning, just like he wrote to me, and then I’ll tear up the pages, since I would never let him read them. My life is stupid and boring.

I take Curtis’ book with me down to the kitchen. Today I think I will spend my time eating and reading/dozing in my cubbyhole in the library. Before bed I will read the next chapter of ‘Curtis’ Life Story’, and go to sleep dreaming about him as a toddler.

I’m grinding coffee beans when Helena walks into the kitchen. I don’t have much of an audience these days, as everyone’s already left the house, so it’s just the two of us in the room.

“Josie,” she says, “would you like to help me with my little project, supporting our troops?”

I eye her, wondering what it is she wants. I don’t want to agree to anything before I know what it is. “What are we doing, darning old socks to send them?”

Helena scoffs at me. “This isn’t World War Two, and this isn’t Earth.” She then raises an eyebrow and grins at me. “We have new socks to send them.” She says.

I smile back. Maybe I really will like Helena after all. I follow her out of the kitchen, since I wasn’t really hungry anyway, and across the castle to a storage room full of socks.

“You were serious about the socks eh?” I say, staring at the boxes and piles of socks.

Helena nods. “Even here, in this day and age, socks are still essential. Christmas will never be safe.”

I laugh. Helena cocks her head to the side and gives me a strange look. “What an odd laugh.” She says, and then shrugs. “In any case, what we’re doing is sorting them to send to different bases. There should be lists somewhere with names and numbers, how many socks to send.”

“Names and numbers,” I comment gleefully, rubbing my hands together, “that’s my specialty.”

“Yes, I understand you were Curtis’ secretary for some years before becoming his mate.”

“Mate?” I laugh. “That’s too funny.”

Helena smiles. “I guess I really am an old woman. What do you call yourself then? His girlfriend?”

I hesitate. What do I call myself? Most of the names we use for each other are not names I want to tell his mom. “Yeah, I guess so.” I answer.

Helena nods and then claps her hands. “Well, these socks won’t sort themselves.” She taps her chin with one long, slender finger. “Perhaps we should invent that though... Socks that sort themselves.” She shakes herself. “You take that side of the room, and I’ll take this side.” She says, pointing to the left for me. I nod and get to work.

I’m glad Helena came now, if only because she gave me something to do. And she did bring Curtis’ book, for which I’m even more grateful. I think I misjudged her, but that’s no surprise, given my past with judgements.

She’s like Curtis, isn’t she? At first, I thought he was a monster, but now that I know him better I’m actually in love with him. Maybe the same (though not to the same extent) is true of Helena. At the very least, I should give it a chance.