The rage wraps itself around me like vines, like moss swallowing a rock. It’s a natural state. It’s good. It’s symbiotic.

He hurt my sister. I hurt him.

I could kill him.

I would like that. It would be so much fun.

“Back up,” he says, trying to get away from me by stepping to the side. He holds his limp arm. “You fucked up my shoulder.”

“Lucky that’s all I’ve done.” Think how easily I could remove his genitalia. A single tug.

“Jesus,” he says. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Why am I mad at you?” I think my head might explode.

“You’re making a scene,” he says. He nods his head and turns the corner into a side hallway. I follow him. “Why do you always need to make a scene?”

“Why are you still talking? Stop talking.”

“Hey, she broke up with me, okay?” he says. “She threw me out, so I don’t know what your problem is. This wasn’t my call.”

The hospital comes back, the scene around me materializing as the rage wanes, giving way to confusion.

“What?”

“Convenient,” he says, rolling his eyes. “She told me she didn’t want me around. She didn’t want me at the house. She asked me to move out. What should I have done? She asked me to leave, so I left.”

I’m stunned into silence.

“I don’t know what she told you,” he says. “But I’m just doing what she asked. She said she needed space, so I gave her space. Your mom called me tonight and I came. Ow, Jesus, my shoulder.”

“You must have done something,” I say.

Scarlett isn’t the type to be unhappy in a relationship. She’s like my mother. She’ll do whatever it takes to make it work. She had her first boyfriend in the second grade and hasn’t been single since. She was with Rich from seventh grade through when they left for college, and even then, even with him at school hours away, they still tried to make it work. The slow dissolve of their relationship was aided only by Jake, her interim boyfriend, whom she dated for a year before meeting Matty. If she’d never met Matty, I would undoubtedly be standing next to Jake right now or some other handsome yawn.

I love my sister, but she doesn’t exactly have standards. She doesn’t like being single. She doesn’t like the chase, doesn’t like flirting. She likes intimacy. She likes to love someone, to give her energy to them, to know someone and be known by them. She likes to share her life. To hold hands and cook and plan picnic dates and go apple picking. She followed our mother’s model, and I rejected it wholeheartedly. That’s how it’s always been.

I would think getting pregnant would make her more inclined to fight for her relationship, not less. And I sort of assumed her lack of excitement about the baby was a direct result of Matty having fucked off, but if that’s not it, I’m not sure I understand what’s going on with my sister.