I met Becky and James at a fire drill two weeks into my freshman year. When the bell went off, I followed the other students into the hallway and then through the door as they trudged out to the street on a dreary day.

Everyone knew everyone else. Except for me.

It took a minute to notice James fitting himself into a doorway, marking up a paperback with a highlighter he kept bringing thoughtfully to his lips.

But then I couldn’t stop noticing him, couldn’t look away from his bright white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, or his gray striped suspenders. Couldn’t stop smiling at the girl who was twirling around in front of him, singing Blondie’s “Call Me” woefully out of tune.

I watched them, thinking they looked interesting. They looked unique. They looked like people who were living the kind of life I wanted.

Before that, I used to go to St. Sebastian’s Academy for Young Men, but then my parents decided to blame St. Sebastian’s for my brother being gay. So after they kicked Connor out of the house, they sent me to a mixed-gender public school.

You aren’t worried he’s going to get some girl knocked up? Connor asked my mother at one of our rare family meetings.

I think we’ll take our chances, my mother responded, looking wistful, as if my becoming a father at twelve had been an actual possibility. As if the law of averages guaranteed my parents one straight son.

I’m not going and that’s that. My father’s voice cuts through the walls. Pulling off paint. Dissolving Sheetrock.

But it’s Connor’s birthday, my mother pleads.

I don’t care if it’s the Second Coming, my father says. I’m not going to sit in some filthy diner in the godforsaken Village and shove some infected fork in my mouth.

This is the music of our house. This is how things are, now.

Connor and I sit next to each other at a table in Veselka. I try not to stare as he gobbles down meatballs and potato pancakes like he hasn’t eaten in a year.

My mother sits on the opposite side of the table from us—if this were a book, my English teacher would label this seating arrangement symbolic—and pushes pierogis around her plate.

Your father is sorry he couldn’t make it, Mom says, handing Connor a birthday check. He had to work.

My brother opens his mouth to call Mom out on her obvious lie, but I shake my head, begging him to shut up for once.

And for once, he actually does.

After she pays the bill, Mom hands Connor a slip of paper. Mrs. Jaffe’s daughter, Caroline, is moving back to the city, she says, not looking my brother in the eye. You should give her a call.

Connor tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. Waits to see where Mom is going with this.

Well, you were so close when you were kids, she continues, obviously feeling masochistic. And Caroline’s such a nice girl.