“We weren’t always like this, you and I,” I said. In his pause, I let myself hope—for a quiet shift in the way he regarded me, for the slow and steady change that our relationship could undergo, if he would just let go of his fear. His gaze found mine and it was almost there, I could see it, I could almost hear it. We could be as we once were. “Then you killed our mother,” he said quietly. “And now, this is all that we can be.” I shouldn’t have been surprised, shouldn’t have marveled at the way words could hit me like a hard punch to the stomach. But hope had made me a fool.
