“He seemed completely normal,” she added. “In fact, it was the best I’ve ever seen Nicholas. It was the most talkative he’s ever been. With me, at least.” As the new wife, Marcy had a good relationship with Dustin because he lived with them part time, but she barely knew Nicholas.

The spare car key had been hanging on a hook by the door, and it seemed Nicholas had used one of the many free pharmaceutical notepads lying around the kitchen to forge a note for the garage to make it look legit. Dustin went to go check through his room. It was hard to tell what was missing since Dustin’s clothes were scattered between his parents’ apartments, one of the downsides of being a child of divorce. The only things Nicholas had taken were the clothes Dustin had worn to the hip-hop party and maybe a backpack. Though, when Dustin opened the Band-Aid box in his sock drawer his heart sank. He’d had over three grand in cash stuffed in there, but it was now empty except for a folded-up piece of paper. This note was written on paper advertising a new heart medication and had the faded illustration of an anatomical heart at its center. Nicholas had written his words inside the heart: “D, I had to go see about a girl. N.”

Dustin smiled, but it was bittersweet. The note his brother left him was a movie reference from Good Will Hunting. It was Nicholas who had shown him that movie three years ago on the first night of Chanukah at their grandparents’ house in Boston. It had been the last Chanukah Nicholas and Dustin had spent together, and it had been a great time. Nicholas had never been very vocal when it came to their relationship, but that night he did say that Dustin was the Matt Damon character and that he was the Ben Affleck character. He didn’t elaborate, but Dustin knew that Nicholas was saying he admired Dustin for his smarts and knew he’d go out into the world and do amazing things. Wanting to play it cool, Dustin didn’t say anything back except, “Yeah.” But because of this moment Dustin loved the film and had seen it probably fifty times by now. Whenever he pulled all-nighters for school he’d put the movie on in his room for comfort while he studied.