Titan Books

“What were you?” he asks, finally. It sounds rude, but it’s just exasperation at his own inability to better craft the question.

“We were a lot of things. Friends, brothers, partners in crime.” His expression darkens, but I ignore it and continue. “James was everything I desperately wanted to be and never could: talented, intelligent, worldly. The only child of a family that prized art over logic and passion over peace and quiet. I stuck to him like a burr from the day we met, hoping some of his brilliance might rub off on me.”

“I think he was enamored with you because you were so enamored with him.”

The world fell away, and she fell away with it. Had this been here all this time, this gentle succor, this sweet emptiness? Her lungs expanded and contracted as normal, and she knew that she was getting air, but it felt distant. It felt immaterial. Ecstasy danced across her nerves, a sweet delight, perfect in its tenor, blotting out all else.