I stopped smiling completely. I held my hand across my mouth whenever I spoke. I forgave my brother for what happened, but I could no longer hear his thoughts. Gone was his heart beating inside my heart. Lij had suddenly grown shark skin. Now the truth loomed like the holy trinity right over my head—what he was being groomed to become had nothing at all to do with me. We would have mourned it then, if we could have seen it, our oneself being severed at the root.
