“Why’d you do that, Joe?” I croaked out, standing in front of him. I was physically shaking from head to toe as my earlier adrenalin deserted me. "Because he hurt you," he replied, looking up at me with the most lonesome expression I’d ever seen. In this moment, Joey Lynch looked like the quintessential lost boy. “Because he put his hands on you." "But he’s my brother, Joe,” I heard myself explain softly. We were only messing. It was play fighting.” Joey looked up at me like I was speaking a foreign language, and the rare vulnerability caused me to do something incredibly reckless. “I don’t…”
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