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I don’t even know where to start. What’s the beginning of this story? The middle? The end? It’s all just a mass of pain folding in on itself.

All I can do is pull at a thread and see where it goes.

“If you think things are bad now, you should have seen what happened after Elena,” I begin. A sharp twinge moves through my chest at the mention of my sister.

“Luke completely imploded,” I continue, fighting a swarm of memories threatening to surface. “I doubt he even remembers the first month. The band took a hiatus, everyone understood, and the publicity actually helped us. You know how tragedy goes… Well, as long as it’s not your fault.”

I study the weave pattern in the area rug as the words build into an avalanche. “And it wasn’t, and the media had a field day with it. Our Label didn’t help matters and sucked every last dollar and headline they could out of Luke’s devastation.”

Bitterness is creeping into my voice. I swallow it back down and turn off my heart as much as possible. It’s the only way I’ll be able to tell this story.

“The problem is, it kind of was his fault. Not in an obvious way, a criminal way. But the kind of way that tears you apart inside and turns compassion into poison.”

“Stop asking how I am! Don’t you get it? I should be askingyou!I’m the only person in this entire situation who doesn’t deserve that question. You want to ask something? Ask why the fuck you’re still here.”

I shiver through the vivid memory. The scent of soggy earth and cut flowers. The sting of ice cold pellets of rain. The fear that I’m going to die becausehewanted to die.

“Everyone said he just needed time… and space,” I recall quietly. “Even the other guys let him go. They wouldn’t have known what to do with him anyway, but I couldn’t. I stuck by him.”

I dare another look at her and wince from the concern echoing on her face. I still don’t understand how she can care so much, but it feels good to finally let some of this poison seep out. I spent plenty of time in therapy trying to sort through it, but no therapist ever looked at me the way she is now. They’re paid to keep walls between you, not tear them down.

I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to share my pain—liveit with me—until this moment.

Luke’s was the hardest kind to carry. The kind you had to fight for.

“Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Casey! Get the hell out.”

“So you can fuck yourself up? No.”

Doors slamming. Fists flying.

Insincere words carving honest wounds.

I was never going to let go. He knew that better than I did.

I release a harsh laugh at the memory. “Oh, he hated me for it, believe me, and made nothing easy, but he was my brother,and I couldn’t just abandon him and take advantage of his pain like everyone else.”

I sink back against the cushion, lost in another flashback. They’re flooding in now. Mila Taylor’s scathing public attacks. Lawyers. Threats. Flaming pitchforks and violent condemnation.

All the brutal screens are back to light up my skull.

“You know, at one point the Label almost cut me because I refused to be part of some major cable ‘special’ about the whole thing. I don’t know why Sweeny and Eli did it, but they did. I guess the Label realized Night Shifts Black couldn’t afford to lose both Luke and me, so they agreed to let me sit out the interview, if I agreed to participate in another tour. We had canceled the rest of the current one after what happened.”

I feel her probing stare, but can’t meet it this time.

“And Luke blames himself for almost getting you kicked out of the band?” she asks.

Two paralyzed bodies sinking into the mud.

“No, Luke blames himself for almost getting me killed.”

She flinches, and I divert my gaze to the carpet again. It’s a lot safer than her compassionate patience.

“I’m not an expert at grief, and I certainly wasn’t then. I didn’t know what to do with Luke, how to take care of him. I was full of my own pain too. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to abandon him like everyone else. But I’ll admit, in the beginning, I made the mistake of thinking ‘being there for him’ meant ‘joining him.’”