It was dawn when I walked back into my house, Cross right behind me.
I was going to get dressed, and then we’d go to his house so he could do the same before school. It felt right having this closeness with him again—not that we hadn’t been close before, but there’d been a brief interval when we hadn’t been himandme, just him and me.
I’d stepped into the hallway, turning toward my bedroom when I heard the floor creak behind me.
I stiffened, knowing it wasn’t Cross. He was just coming through the screen door.
“Why do you do that?”
My brother.
My heart dropped. He sounded mad, and I turned to find that he was. Or he wasn’t. He had bags under his eyes. He seemed to have aged in just the few hours since I last saw him.
He wore a ripped T-shirt and grey sleeping pants.
I took a beat to
