In ninth grade, Jordan and I started playing in the jazz band together. Even though he’d been playing guitar for a couple years already at that point, I’d just taken up the trumpet. We loved practicing at night, and he’d help me when I got frustrated trying to learn new songs. He never had that issue. He could learn new stuff in a heartbeat—sometimes without even looking at the sheet music.

I forgot some of these stories until tonight, forgot that we used to have fun together, as a family. That Jordan and I used to have fun together. Even before the shooting, things had gone sour between us, and with my parents—my dad was always trying to get Jordan to do more, to push himself harder. My mom went along with it at first, but when my dad started talking about having Jordan apply to college early—mostly, I think, because he wanted to be able to brag about it to his friends—she finally started pushing back.

I’m not sure how much time passes with us standing here, Zach leaning against the doorframe, me close to him, arms wrapped tight around myself. It’s only when my stomach gives a ridiculous growl that I realize it’s getting late and I haven’t eaten. I ask him if he wants some food, and we head downstairs to make popcorn.

After, we sit on the couch in the living room and just talk. I tell him family stories, memories I haven’t let near my heart since Jordan died. I haven’t talked this much in forever—not since the days when I’d drink too much and babble on and on into Lucy’s ear.

Maybe Lucy is right. Maybe it’s good to open up about things before they begin to eat you from the inside out and eventually crater your soul.

I can’t believe this is the son of the person I hate more than almost anything. He was definitely home some of those times when I’d ride my bike over with a can of spray paint in my bag and write shit on the door of their garage. When Lucy and I salted nasty words into their lawn. When we left mean notes in their mailbox.

It hits me, deep in my stomach: he can never find out about any of that. I stopped going over there after the night I freaked out in their front yard. I couldn’t do it anymore. He was inside. If he ever found out, he would never, ever forgive me. And I don’t blame him.

I need to hide the things I did to his family forever.