Rich, looking like his old self with color in his skin and everything, his hair a little longer than their mom would have let him wear it and waving in that surfer-boy style he liked, was pushed down the aisle of the courtroom in a wheelchair. His leg was wrapped in so many bandages they’d had to cut open that side of his pants even though it was probably twenty below zero outside. He’d gotten skinnier.

Though Dylan knew Rich would spit on him, or ignore him like he was a bug, or scream he was a psycho, or worse, he didn’t look away. He kept watching the rolling chair. When it first came through the double doors, everybody got quiet. Then, as it got closer, flashbulbs started flashing and people started murmuring.

Rich was so cool-academy awards, the red carpet. He was smiling for the cameras but kind of sadlike. Dylan loved him more at that moment than he ever had. Nothing Rich had done in the past mattered. This was what mattered. The love hurt Dylan, it was so big.

Since that night the whole inside of him felt black and crusty like the inside of a lightning tree. Mostly, Dylan stayed in the burnt-out hole and didn’t think or feel. He didn’t know what to be or how to be anymore. No one else seemed to know what he was either. Or what to do with him. Doctors, lawyers, cops asked questions. A newspaper guy got in, and flashed, and questioned until the cops chased him out.

Dylan hadn’t been able to answer the questions, so he’d coiled up in the black and hid. Until he saw his brother. The pain of loving Rich felt almost good; it made him feel like a person. He didn’t look away as the wheelchair rolled down the aisle toward him but steeled himself to take the hit. Maybe it would kill him, but he doubted it. Nothing he wanted to happen had happened for a while now.