“If this is about him, I’ve hardly even seen him, Chase. I mean, I saw him today, but only by accident when—”

“This isn’t about Sully,” he says, “but thanks for the extra kick to the gut.” Then he passes me a creased photograph, bordered in white. It’s faded, and as I squint to make it out, the whole room starts to bend.

“No,” I say, my voice rough. “Where did you find this?” In my hand is an old photo of my family on the farm, a Horizon summer seventeen years ago, Mom holding a bucket, us kids barefoot, sitting on the gate, smiling. I can almost hear the sound in it, the birds singing, the laughter. I haven’t seen this photo in so long.

“There are three kids in this picture, Alex,” Chase says. “There’s you. And there’s Ruth. And who is that tanned little boy?”

I can’t look at him, can’t stay standing for much longer.

“Who’s the third kid, Alex?”

I have my arm around him in the photo, making sure he’s safe and doesn’t topple backward off the gate. Both of us have skinned knees from all our fun and adventures.

“You have a little brother?” Chase spits out the word. “Were you ever going to tell me about him?”

No, Chase. No, I wasn’t.

PART TWO
THE RUNNER

ALEX

There’s a reason I can’t talk about the past even though I’m tied to it with a hundred feet of rope. Over the years, I’ve learned to swallow the long coil. What happened in Horizon sits piled in the deepest pit of me: I push it down; I keep it there. But my sister found the end of the rope, yanked it with all her might. And now here comes everything, rancid and foul as it’s ripped upward, pulling all of my insides out.

Chase’s voice sounds distorted as if he’s speaking underwater. He’s saying something about my little brother. He knows his name. Pim. It’s a name I haven’t uttered out loud for years.

I can’t stay any longer. I can’t be here. I turn and make for the door, the photograph still in my hand.

“Alex!” Chase calls after me. “You can’t just—”

But the door swings shut, and I clatter down the stairs, through the lobby, and out into the heavyweight afternoon sky.