His sigh was so melodramatic that it would have been comedic had an adult attempted it. He leaned against their small square breakfast table and rattled Cheez-Its into his mouth.

Leah didn’t let him eat in his room because she didn’t want mess. But much more than that, if she let him eat in his room, he’d never come out. She’d have no one to socialize with except Han Solo . . . in her daydreams.

“What’s for dinner?” Dylan asked.

She pulled several items from the freezer. Lasagna. Chicken pot pie. Burritos. “Any of these intriguing choices. Help yourself when you feel so inclined.”

He looked unimpressed.

She returned the items to the freezer. “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Have any plans tonight?”

“Nah.”

“Want to watch Star Wars with me?”

“Which one?”

“Any one. Your choice.” Dylan was the primary love of her life, and Star Wars had been their shared passion since he was little. Sadly, it had been months—maybe a year?—since he’d deigned to watch one with her. When he wasn’t at school or football practice, he spent his time with his friends, creating ink on paper drawings, or staring at YouTube in a concerted effort to avoid homework. “Please, O brother of mine?” she wheedled. “Humor me.”

He gave a bored shrug and shook his head. “I think I’m done with Star Wars.”

She covered her heart with her hands. “That’s blasphemy, you realize.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you going to do with yourself all evening if not watch a movie?”

“I thought I’d look up the recipe for heroin.”

This was their running not-so-funny joke. He knew very well that despite all the parental controls she’d instituted over the electronics in their house and her own careful oversight, she really was afraid that he’d find a way to do things like make heroin.

An amused grunt issued from him; then he set the Cheez-Its on the table and walked away.

“Contrary to what you might think, you will not perish if you spend a few hours outside the force field of your room,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“Dearest boy of my heart!” she called with gusto.

His door shut behind him.

Leah pondered the view of the empty space where he’d been.

If Mom and Dad are not my parents, then Dylan might not be my brother.

As if she’d just pressed on a broken tooth, pain flared, warning her away from that line of thought. Dad had vanished from her life fifteen years ago. Mom had been an infrequent presence since she’d left to serve overseas in the Peace Corps ten years ago. As jarring as it would be to part with her biological connection to her parents, it would be a thousand times worse to part with her biological connection to Dylan—