Keeping an eye on Fielding is a full-time job. He’s been great since our mom died, but I get the nagging suspicion he’s keeping something from me. I don’t know if it’s hard drugs or too much booze, but there’s a familiarity to the way he’s been dodging my questions today.

The fall is inevitable. There’s a beauty and a simplicity to someone falling off the wagon. At least then they’re meeting your expectations. But this is the part I hate—being stuck in limbo, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s a cycle I know well because it’s the cycle we lived in with her. Things will be good, great even, for a while. Then it’ll all come crashing down.

The bar isn’t busy yet—just a few regulars sipping their usual white wine and whiskey sours. I’m looking over the schedules for the next month and making sure we’ll be covered when a few of our guys head back to school in two weeks.

“Done,” my brother announces with a flourish as he hits a key on his keyboard harder than necessary.

“Done?” I question.

“Done.” He smirks and bobbles his head with excitement, like he’s bursting to tell me something and can’t wait to see my reaction. He’s got that mischievous twinkle in his eye.

I sigh, knowing I’m walking straight into one of his games. “What did you do?” I ask, already exasperated.

“I registered to take the MCAT in the spring.”

My brain short-circuits. What he just said does not compute.

“Come again?”

“I’m going to take the MCAT again. I figure I need some time to study since we’ve been out of school for half a decade, but I’ll take a few prep courses online and order the same workbooks I used in college. If I do as well as I did the first time, I’ll have my pick of schools to choose from.”

If he does as well as he did last time, I’m probably going to have to talk him out of getting his score tattooed on himself. Again. Who in their right mind wants “518” on their body forever?

“I’m—I mean—I think that’s a great idea, bro,” I stammer. But I’m reeling from the revelation that he has any plans whatsoever beyond bumming around this town for the next few decades.

Here I am, working at a local watering hole, planning my whole damn life around the fact that my brother needs me.

And yet, he’s reclaiming his dreams and talking like he’s ready to move forward with his life.

I’m flabbergasted. After being stuck in this town for so long, repeating the same cycle, I assumed this was our forever.