“Tell them . . . tell them that your brother is an asshole.”

He glared at me. “Fine,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’ll tell them.” And he stormed out.

Here’s how it happened. Here’s how it worked. Here’s how I made myself believe it was okay.

It started when one of Dad’s supplement suppliers sold me some steroid powder on the side. I figured it was a business opportunity—just like those cheap sunglasses I sold at school last year. Selling that steroid powder opened the door to . . . well . . . other things. Each week, a variety of stuff showed up in a two-gallon protein powder container in the back room of Dad’s local store. I would take whatever was inside and replace it with the cash I made from last week’s stash, keeping 20 percent for myself. Then I would break the new supply down into smaller packets, which I would sell at parties, and in school hallways, and out back of various local hangouts. I did it because it was easy. I did it because I could. I did it because I was pissed at my father for making me work at his store part-time, and paying me no more than any of his other employees.

My classmates who do drugs were gonna get it somewhere, I reasoned. Why not from me? And with more and more stuff being legalized in more and more places, how bad was it, really? I’m a good guy, I had told myself in this world. I charged fair prices, and I never sold to anyone who I suspected had a serious drug problem. Hell, I even supplied coke to Mr. Gilbreath, my English teacher, who was an old hippie. If a teacher was okay with it, how could it be bad? As for the digital lock on my bedroom door? It wasn’t to keep my brother out. In this world, it was to keep my parents from finding my under-the-counter pharmacy. Not that they ever would. Dad was rarely home, since he traveled the country opening new stores, and Mom, after her nightly bottle of merlot, wouldn’t care if a pallet of heroin was airdropped through our living room ceiling. Not that I dealt that stuff. I stayed completely away from heroin and meth. That’s part of what made me a good guy. I wasn’t a drug dealer—I was a recreational entrepreneur.