“Jessie.” He grabs my hand and I let him. I’m red-hot angry with him, but I don’t want to be cruel. I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“You’re not forgiven. I’m mad as hell, Jack. And I will be for a long time. I love you. But you really screwed up my life.”

I walk out of the house and straight to my bike. I ride away before Jack can come out and say anything else to me. I need the last word on this one. I really need the last word. I’m floating, I’m churning, I’m dizzy from a sudden loss of weight on my back. I said things I didn’t know I needed to say. Half of me immediately wants to take them back. The other half of me wants to engrave them in stone so that I can read them every day. I’m angry and relieved and exhilarated all at once. I’m glad that I have a helmet that covers my face because anyone who saw my face right now would probably think the aliens had officially landed.

I take the long way home, driving through the residential areas instead of down the BQE. By the time I’m parking my bike, the adrenaline from my conversation with Jack has faded and it’s replaced with a strange mixture of triumph and resignation. I’ve done something commendable. I’ve turned over a new leaf. I won’t let my brother’s mistakes run my life anymore. And that’s a disorientingly freeing feeling. But it also doesn’t help my situation with Eliot one bit.

I probably look like that sad Linus meme as I clomp up the stairs to my apartment. I swing open the door and freeze. My fists come up in front of me as I pivot to one side. There’s a man in my apartment and in two quick steps I’ve got him in a headlock.

“Psycho,” he gasps. “It’s me.”

“Oh.” I release my brother from the headlock, kick my apartment door closed, and he falls to all fours, coughing and glaring at me. “How did you beat me here?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Must’ve taken different routes.”

“You still have your key to the apartment?”

“Yeah. I haven’t used it, obviously, in a couple months.” He drags himself up to a stand.

“You mean because you didn’t want to get caught at the scene of the crime?”

Now we’re both giving each other the stink-eye. He breaks first, choosing instead to look around the apartment. “You changed things.”

“It’s my place now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess he’s really not going to come back here, is he?”

“No.”