Page 109 of My Family

He keeps turning the medal over. I watch his hands. He looks almost boyish. Younger. It’s so weird.

"There was a guy at my school in senior year. He made this girl's life hell for two years. Everyone knew. Nobody did anything."

He pauses.

Ethan and I exchange a look.

"So I did something. Put him in the hospital. Orbital fracture, fractured jaw, two cracked ribs." He says it flatly, shrugging. "Aggravated assault. My uncle called in every favor he had to get me Aspire instead of prison. I was eighteen already."

Nobody speaks for a second.

"She moved schools after," he says. "I don't know where she ended up. I never got to ask if she even wanted me to do it. Maybe she even loved him."

He finally looks over, and he's looking at me, not Ethan.

"I don't know if I should have done that. I wonder about it all the time."

I hold his gaze.

"I understand," I tell him.

And I do understand.

He nods once and looks back at the street.

"The part I can't shake," he says, quieter now, "isn't that I did it. It's that I knew when he was down, and I kept going anyway."

He's quiet for a moment.

"I'd have killed him."

The street is empty.

"I'm not running," Reed says again, and this time, it sounds like he's saying it to himself as much as to us. "I've got things I'm not done with yet."

He stands.

Pockets the medal.

His face closes back up, the usual Reed reassembled, but not completely, and I don't think any of us are pretending otherwise.

Ethan looks at him. "Why are you telling us this?"

Reed turns.

Something in his expression sharpens.

"Because I fucking felt like it," he says. "And I was telling Liam, who's my friend, not you. You just happened to be here listening too."

"Who said I want you as my friend?" Ethan says. "You've spent four years making my life difficult."

"You've spent four years acting like you're the only person in Aspire with a moral compass. It's exhausting to be around."

"Someone has to have one."

"Sure," Reed says. "Very inspiring. Put it on a poster."

I press my lips together. I'm staying out of this. I find it a little bit hot that Daddy has a rival.