Shrugging a shoulder, Leah gave a half-smile. “Probably not so much cliché as it is people trying to convince me I'm not the dumb Stone twin. I know I'm not an idiot. I'm just nowhere near the level of genius my sister is.” A piece of the puzzle. There were a lot of puzzle pieces that kept Sing Sing a functioning colony. Leah nodded her agreement. “That's true. Just about everyone contributes in some way.”
“Everyone has reasons for the things they do. It's just a question of whether those reasons are good or bad.” Leah had no problem with letting kids be kids, but the girl in question was an adult. A young adult, but still an adult. Old enough to be responsible for her actions. “Anyway, I'm not meaning to bitch about that. What I basically meant by my ranting is that appearances don't affect my judgment. Actions do. You were the only one nice enough to offer to help me.”
Miah's blunt agreement humbled her, and she nodded, glancing down for a moment. Her thoughts trailed back to the internal promise she'd made to Evan and how she planned to appreciate him more. She needed to stop taking her family for granted. “It is,” she said quietly. “Compared to everyone else, we've been lucky.”
Leah was in the habit of holding doors open for people, too, so she took the polite gesture for what it was and walked inside. “Thanks,” she said, then glanced at the stairs. “This is where I wish I could say I can handle it the rest of the way, but I think this would've been the real challenge if I'd been making this trip myself.” She gave an awkward laugh. “Do you mind? I can probably handle it once we make it to the top.”