He had either laughed at my uniform without checking the official paperwork or he hadn’t.
He had.
For once, nobody needed to debate my interpretation.
The evidence was the morning itself.
I climbed another step.
The damp air carried diesel and salt around the ship.
Somewhere above, a chain rattled again.
It was the same sound I had heard when I arrived, before Brandon called my uniform a costume and before he decided the easiest way to impress his coworkers was to make his sister smaller.
Except it did not sound the same anymore.
I looked down briefly at my sleeve.
The fabric still held a faint crease where his fingers had twisted it.
I could have smoothed it again.
I didn’t.
I left the wrinkle there and kept walking aboard.
