I sit beside him on the bed and he buries his head in my shoulder. Aiden walks out of the room and I hear something glass break. Someone calls up to ask if everything’s all right, but I block out Aiden’s reply to focus on the twins.

I feel like crying, but I hold it together so they don’t see me scared. “It’s okay, Jason. You’re okay.”

These poor kids have already been through so much: Greg, Andrew. It’s a wonder that they’re not terrified to leave their house. Aiden comes back in the room seemingly calmer, but then I realize it’s not just anger in his eyes, in his rigid posture, in the set of his jaw. It’s fear. Fear that he could’ve lost his brothers. And fear that they’re going to be taken away now.

“Tell her what happened next,” he prods them.

“I was trying to get him to let go of Jason, but he wouldn’t,” Jackson continues since Jason is still sniffling. “So I ran behind him to try to stop him from taking him, when Jason slipped out of his grip. We looked at each other and we . . . I mean, we do this all the time on friends and stuff and no one’s ever died!”

“What did you do?” I ask him gently, imagining a bunch of different scenarios where the outcome is Greg’s death.

“When Jason slipped out, I was already behind Greg. So I just . . . dropped down to my hands and knees behind him—”

Jason continues, sitting up from where he was leaning on me and dragging his sleeve over his nose. “And I shoved him while he was trying to grab me.”

The scene unfolds in my head; I can picture it. Greg grabbing Jason, Jackson running around behind him. The two boys locking eyes, already coming up with an unspoken plan. Jackson dropping to all fours behind Greg, and Jason pushing him backward over his brother. Greg falling . . .

Jason hugs himself and looks down, the memory of that day filling his mind. “He fell and . . . we hadn’t put the brick back in the walkway from when we got the key. It was out, and when he fell . . . his head . . .”

“It exploded on the brick,” Jackson states bluntly.

My mouth drops open. Jason and Jackson literally killed Greg by accident? They start speaking practically at once.

“We didn’t know what to do! We put the brick back and ran to Tyler’s house.”

“Jason wanted to tell you but we didn’t want to get in trouble. We were sure he was fine. I made him promise not to tell anyone.”

“But we can’t take it anymore. We keep arguing over if we should tell you or not,” Jason says. “I promised Jackson we would tell you after the beach house because it was Christmas and we didn’t want you to worry.”

They’re looking back and forth between me and Aiden, waiting for us to say something. Aiden’s face is still a hardened mix of anger and careful calculation, and I’m too shocked to process.