That vacant lot had made Joel giddy in a way that he doubted was entirely healthy. Back in his day, the church’s brilliant white cross had loomed over every soul in Bentley like the eye of fucking Sauron. He wondered if it had been arson that had brought it down. He wondered why it had never occurred to him to burn it down himself.

Joel jogged harder.

When they’d been boys, it had always been Joel’s responsibility to escort Dylan to school, to ferry his younger brother around on errands in the back of his old Civic like some rare (but uninteresting) breed of dog. For his part, Dylan had always seemed self-sufficient, enclosed, preternaturally competent—the thorough opposite of Joel in every way—and in the decade since his departure, Joel had never once experienced a moment’s guilt for leaving his brother in their mother’s care. Rearing the boy could hardly have taken much effort.

But last night, driving over these cracked streets, Joel realized you didn’t have to be gay to feel trapped in this town. How could a kid Dylan’s age look at a place with half its businesses chained shut, at a community where your every mistake was a topic of conversation, and not yearn to escape? In a way, Joel couldn’t blame Dylan for taking a little trip to the coast to get away from it all. Joel only wondered how he could bear to return.

it’s like i hear this town talking when i sleep.

Last night, not long after Joel had driven past the old site of the church, a massive chunk of nothing, a deeper night, had loomed up at him to the east, like he’d driven right to the edge of the earth. He’d run up against the Flats, of course, the endless miles of uninhabited countryside that brooded on the other side of the narrow highway. Shadows had formed and melted out there in the storm. Empty, hopelessly empty.

Joel had spent the past week being coy with Dylan about his exact motives for coming home, but for good reason. In Joel’s experience, the sort of money he planned to put on the table this weekend was best discussed in person. And it would be quite a sum: full tuition, an apartment, a car—whatever it took to finally be a brother to this boy that Joel, for all his intuition, had never once imagined might need him.

But at the sight of the Flats last night, at the sight of this chancre sore of a town, Joel had pulled out his phone, his palms sweating so badly he struggled to hold it. Don’t worry, he’d written to Dylan, idling on the empty street. I’m getting you out of this shit hole.

He’d hit Send.

The road beneath the car had trembled, though Joel had heard no thunder.

A stoplight spilled blood over his windshield in the rain. He’d watched as his message was marked as Read by Dylan’s phone.

A moment later Joel saw three little dots fill and empty on his screen, fill and empty, as Dylan typed a response.