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“You,” he snaps. “It’s you. Because of your health issues. If Mom and Dad have ten minutes, you get nine of them. They want to make sure you’re feeling okay. They want to thank you for running their errands and for gluing the house together. It’s been that way for years. I was…I am…invisible.” Logan swallows loudly. “I was getting sick of it. I wanted to make them look at me. For fucking once before college, I wanted attention. I knew Aaron liked me at that point and used it to my advantage. When he wanted to hang out, I’d convince him to steal his dad’s bike so we could take a joyride, or sneak us into the school so we could cause problems…or break into a theater.”

Every word makes me feel a little more ill. I’m gnawing hard enough on my index finger to make it throb. “That’s horrible,” I whisper.

Logan winces. He inhales shakily through his nose before continuing. “I held on to this because I knew you had a certain image of me,” he says. “Straight-A student. Full-ride scholarship to a good university. An athlete. You thought Aaron corrupted me. You didn’t blame me for anything because you had such a high opinion of me. When we were arrested, it was worse than anything that had happened in the past. I got scared that you would find out I was behind it. And you’d hate me.”

Logan grinds his jaw, scrunching his eyes shut like he’s seeking the will to continue. Aaron just stands there. Silent. Stiff. His face is uncharacteristically stoic.

“So I blamed Aaron,” Logan says breathily. “I let you believe he was the reason I lost my full ride. I smeared his name. Told everyone that he tainted me and that we should’ve never been friends. He got pissed.”

There’s this raw aching expanding through my stomach. My heart has been throbbing fiercely in my ears, but suddenly, it’s slowing down. Like it wants to stop time to keep Logan from continuing.

“Aaron hated you,” Logan snaps, his voice rising. “We used to bitch about how you’d always nag us and get between us. He knew I was protective of you, though, even when I found you irritating. He knew how important my image was. That you saw me as this perfect brother who got caught up with the wrong person. So he decided to use you to get revenge.”

“Stop,” I try to say, but the word lodges in my throat.

“He knew you were attracted to him, the same way I knew he was attracted to me,” Logan says. His eyes are becoming bloodshot and desperate. “He decided he’d seduce you. Make you feel special and wanted. And then, when you fell for him, he’d shatter your heart and dump you in the trash for me to find and pick up the pieces. When he crawled through your window and you agreed to date him to keep him off my back, he told me his plans. He said if I warned you, he’d spill everything about the past year to you. How I’m the one who fucked my future, how I manipulated him to get us into bad situations for attention. I didn’t want your image of me to crack. So I…”

Logan breaks into a tremble. I stare at Aaron.

“I tried telling you,” he says. “We were coming home after helping Aunt Lydia move some furniture around. I explained everything in the car, because I thought you’d walk away from the conversation if we were somewhere else. We were in our neighborhood. You were angry and wanted to hear Aaron’s side. You took off your seat belt and tried unlocking the door so you could get out and walk to his place. I was so distracted trying to calm you down that I…I didn’t see the stop sign.”

Logan pauses to breathe. I stare at Aaron.

“I should’ve immediately re-explained things when you woke up. But I thought maybe all I had to do was try to keep you away from him. Obviously, it didn’t work. He’s got his claws in you again. Maybe his intentions changed, but he obviously still emotionally manipulated you into leaving us so he could have you to himself. So I…”

He lowers his head, his lashes wet with tears.

“I wanted to tell you the truth before you tried to leave again,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

I’m still staring at Aaron. Waiting. He won’t look at me, but his face is a sickly gray, and the sparkle in his eyes is dead. I know the answer, but I ask anyway.

“It’s true?”

A muscle twinges in his locked jaw. Silence hangs in the air for several seconds as he finds his voice. It’s drizzling now, matting his hair to his forehead. He whispers, “I wasn’t a good person, Riley.”

I nod, my thoughts fuzzy, my mind echoing. I taste blood, and I realize I’ve chewed open my index finger again. “When were you going to tell me?” I ask.

“Riley—”

“Never?”

He falls silent, his eyes sliding shut.

“So, then.” I twist toward Logan, whose face is flushed. “You decided I was better off broken than thinking negatively about you?”

He rips his stare away from mine. The gray asphalt is darkening under the fattening raindrops.

“You decided,” I try again, “as my ‘protective’ older brother, to let me get my heart shattered so you wouldn’t have to fess up? Is that right?”

Suddenly, tears are grating down his tan cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.

I return my eyes to Aaron. “So you felt bad for me somewhere along the way.” My voice is thick and stilted—I can’t find the air in my lungs. I can’t hear myself think. “I looked so pitiful to you that you realized you’d feel guilty for breaking me.”

“No,” Aaron says, his face contorting with desperation. “That’s not—”

“It is,” I say. “You felt bad because you found out how difficult my life can be. You lost interest in hurting me. I was already invested, though, so you kept playing along, probably hoping I’d break up with you at some point so you wouldn’t have to do it yourself. Then you accidentally fell in love. Does that sound right?”

Aaron’s staring at me like I reached into his chest and crushed his heart into dust. “Riley,” he whispers. “Falling in love with you was never an accident.”