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LEX: ok. here’s what you do. you go to him. tomorrow. you say “I saw you with her. what was that.” you say it calm. you look him in the eye

JENNY: what if he lies

LEX: then you’ll know. and you’ll leave. and I’ll come over and kill him.

JENNY: LEX

LEX: not literally

LEX: maybe literally

LEX: but here’s the thing. it might not be what it looks like. a lot of the time it isnt. its just a person standing in a window seeing half of it. so go ask. dont run. running is what idiots do.

There was a long silence. I could imagine her, twenty years old, curled in the dorm bed with the blankets pulled to her chin. Little dark braids. Bitten clown.

JENNY: you sound like you know something about that

I didn’t answer for a while.

LEX: maybe

JENNY: ok

JENNY: i love you bro

JENNY: you’re a really good brother

I read it. I looked at the ceiling. I put my hand over my mouth.

LEX: go to sleep, baby girl

JENNY: im not a baby!

LEX: ur my baby

JENNY: :)

I set down the phone and lay very still, trying to breathe past whatever was in my throat.

Running is what idiots do, I’d said.

My phone lay on my chest, and out in the hallway, down the stairs, in a corner room I couldn’t see, I felt something like a thread pull tight and hum.

I did not run to him.

But I didn’t sleep either, and at six, when the light came gray at the window, I was still lying there with my hand pressed flat over my heart, wondering how a person could be so brave for his sister and so pathetic for himself.

Chapter 19

JASON

Third Wheel

Here are the facts, as I understand them.

One. My best friend is in love with the scariest man in professional hockey.

Two. He doesn’t know it.