She lets out a long sigh. “Anyway. Lucy and Jordan both hated it—the way Chim and I would get so fucked-up, do stupid things. Jordan would come with us sometimes, to parties, like he thought we needed him to babysit, which always pissed me off. Even though maybe he was right.” She pauses, looks at the floor. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are glistening. “Anyway. Either he’d drive us home or we’d call Lucy for a ride. She’s sober—her dad used to be this mean drunk before he got into AA—and she’d tell us we were better than all that. I never believed her. I wish I had. Stopped all that shit. Spent that time with her and Jordan, being a decent human, instead of getting mad at the two of them for trying to help. Like an asshole.”

I want to say something, but I can’t seem to string words together in my brain in any sequence that makes sense. I want to say the exact right thing, the thing that will take away all her pain and her grief and her guilt, but I know those words don’t exist. Instead, there in the doorway of her brother’s room, I reach out and take her hand, and we stand there, silent, looking at his dust-covered furniture.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Maybe it’s the way Zach seems like he’s listening to me rather than just waiting to talk, but something makes me want to tell him things. I haven’t talked about Jordan with anyone since he died, and tonight I can’t stop. I tell Zach about the pranks we used to play on our parents when we were younger, before Jordan’s extracurricular activities took over our lives, activities that I was a part of before my parents seemed to realize that I’d never catch up to him. That I’d never be on his level. It was like this unspoken, gradual thing, until finally he was the one with everything and I was the one left at home, studying in my room, looking for a way out. And then came freshman year, when Chim and I discovered how many people in our class were having parties. How many of those parties involved booze.

But sitting here, I forget all that. I talk about better times, like back in elementary school when our parents were still moderately fun and Jordan and I hard-boiled all the eggs one night after they went to sleep. The next morning, we fell on the floor laughing as we watched our dad try to crack one egg and then the next, and then the next, getting more and more frustrated and confused with each failed attempt. When we finally fessed up, my dad laughed and hugged us both tight.

I haven’t seen him laugh in years.