I thought about my brother, being unapologetically himself at that school. It was in a small town in Missouri, where being gay was dangerous in and of itself. But Ansel didn’t hide himself, who he was. Not for a moment.

“The last time he overdosed, I felt it,” I said back in the present. “I felt cold. I felt lost. And I knew, I just knew that something had happened to him.”

That day was branded into my brain. The way I’d known that something had happened to my brother. I’d dropped everything and driven an hour back to the house he was living in at the time.

“I had Narcan because even though I didn’t want to believe my sweet, strong, unyielding brother had demons inside of him that I couldn’t wrench out, I knew that forcing myself to be ignorant could be the reason he died. So, he didn’t die. Not that day, at least.”

I didn’t sleep for a month after that, every time I closed my eyes, I saw my brother, lifeless, covered in vomit, a needle still sticking out of his arm.

“He went to rehab then,” I forced out the words, the memories making my skin itch. “Because he felt my pain when he woke up in the hospital. He felt my panic. That was the first time he was sober, stayed that way for almost six months. He relapsed but got sober again right away, staying clean up until… yesterday, I guess.”

His sobriety was the permission I gave myself to leave. To study in Paris and eventually settle in Jupiter. Ansel was the one who had urged me to follow my dreams.

“You’ll waste away here, honey,” he said gently. “And you’re only here because of me. But I promise you here and now that I’m okay. And the only way I won’t be is if I see my sister sacrificing her dreams for me.”

I’d called the hospital where he’d been pronounced dead and was lucky enough to get in contact with the doctor who had treated him. The doctor had been kind. Patient.

“Although I can’t be sure, I would hazard a guess that this was the first time he’d used in a long time,” he informed me, his voice calm and even on the phone. “The toxicology from his previous overdose shows a much higher concentration.” I heard the rustle of papers on the other side of the phone. “What often happens with addicts who have been in recovery a while is something triggers them to relapse suddenly, and they think they can handle the same amount of drugs they did at the height of their addiction. Yet their body cannot metabolize that much.”

I racked my brain, for probably the millionth time since my mother stepped foot in the bakery, wondering what could’ve triggered my brother to relapse. I searched my memory for our last phone call, cursing myself for being so wrapped up in Rowan and not hearing it.