“Can you two please stop interrupting? Anyway, Jack, who in this scenario is actually Brougham’s secret half brother—way to keep us in the dark about that one, Brougham”—Brougham’s eyebrows raised almost imperceptibly as he blinked—“is maddened with jealousy that Brougham and Winona are getting back together. He finds Winona at prom and tries to kiss her, and she’s like, ‘No, I cannot, my heart belongs to another’”—here Finn threw an arm over his head for dramatic effect—“and Jack’s like, ‘But you’ll never love him like you loved me,’ and Winona runs off and hides in the bathroom for a chunk of the night, so Brougham hangs out with me. I’m there, by the way. Picture me as the bard of this story.”

“As long as you don’t start singing,” Brougham said.

“You’re no fun at all. Then Winona comes back like nothing happened, and she and Brougham dance, and Jack plots his revenge. Then at the after-party, Jack confronts Brougham and challenges him to a duel for Winona’s heart—”

“Because relationships are transactional,” Brougham said as Finn ignored him.

“—and Brougham wins the duel! And Winona’s all torn and distressed so she runs home and won’t answer her phone. So, Brougham gets shitfaced to numb the pain.”

Finn finished and waited for our reactions. Well. To put it lightly, it was the worst story I’d ever heard. Brougham fighting over Winona like some damsel in distress. Gag me.

Brougham and I locked eyes, and he shrugged. “I mean, honestly, I don’t know why you wanted my side of the story at all. You got every detail exactly right.”

My stomach plummeted.

“Really?” Finn asked.

“No, not even close. But I’m curious as to the relevance of making Jack my half brother?”

“Dramatic tension,” Finn replied without missing a beat.

“… Okay, sure.”

I snuck another glance at Jack, and waited for him to look up. The eye farthest from me, the one that had been hidden from my sight the first time I’d looked at him, was indeed an interesting purple-magenta color, the lid so swollen it hung down over his eyeball. Oof. What, exactly, could have caused Brougham, who didn’t drink, who had all the reasons in the world to avoid alcohol, to get drunk? To have caused Brougham, who loved ribbing but hated true confrontation, to hit someone?

If Brougham wouldn’t even tell Finn, there was no way I’d be privy to what had happened to him that night. Still, after the bell rang and everyone started dissipating to class, I hung by his side. “I don’t want to poke my nose in where it isn’t wanted,” I said softly. “So you don’t need to tell me what happened at prom. But I wanted to check if everything’s okay. If you want to vent, or if you need advice, or anything…”