Chương 5
The spreadsheet he had avoided creating for years was finally on the screen.
Mortgage.
Utilities.
Savings.
School expenses.
Retirement.
Emergency funds.
His own life.
Not everyone else's life.
The numbers looked different when they were not being stretched across five households.
He felt guilty about that thought.
Then he felt guilty for feeling guilty.
He closed the laptop.
That was another habit he needed to break.
Punishing himself every time he had a normal human reaction.
The next morning, Ethan woke up angry.
Not the loud anger from the porch.
A quieter kind.
The kind that stayed after the argument ended.
He walked through his apartment looking at things differently.
The overdue notices on the counter.
The unopened mail near the television.
The empty space in the refrigerator where groceries should have been.
For years, those things had been problems.
Now they were consequences.
There was a difference.
He picked up his phone three times before finally opening Nicholas's contact.
His thumb hovered over the message box.
He typed something.
Deleted it.
Typed again.
Deleted that too.
Every sentence sounded wrong.
Sorry sounded weak.
Angry sounded childish.
Explaining sounded like another excuse.
He threw the phone onto the couch.
A few minutes later, his father called.
Ethan answered immediately.
"Hey."
There was a pause.
"Did you sleep?"
His father's voice sounded older than usual.
Ethan sat down.
"Not really."
"Your mother hasn't stopped crying."
Ethan rubbed his face.
"Great."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything."
His father sighed.
The silence between them was different from the silence outside Nicholas's house.
This one had uncertainty.
Neither man seemed sure what to say next.
Finally, his father spoke.
"Your brother was always sensitive."
Ethan almost repeated the sentence automatically.
Then he stopped.
Because something about it bothered him.
Sensitive.
That was the word they had used whenever Nicholas reacted to something they did not want to discuss.
"Maybe," Ethan said slowly.
"Maybe he was."
His father went quiet.
Ethan looked around his apartment.
For the first time in a long time, he wondered what Nicholas's life had looked like from the other side.
Not the version where Nicholas had everything together.
The version where Nicholas was just a person who had been carrying too much.
"He said something yesterday," Ethan said.
"What?"
Ethan looked toward the window.
"He said he didn't know what happens next."
His father did not respond.
That surprised Ethan.
Because usually his father always had an answer.
A judgment.
A reason.
Anything to avoid uncertainty.
But this time there was only silence.
And for the first time, Ethan wondered if everyone had been waiting for Nicholas to solve a problem that belonged to all of them.
Because for the first time in years, Ethan had no one else to blame, he sat with the uncomfortable possibility that the problem had never been that Nicholas stopped helping.
The problem was that Ethan had stopped noticing the help.
He stayed on the couch for almost twenty minutes after the call ended.
The television was on, but the volume was low.
A morning news anchor talked about traffic delays and local weather, but the words blended into the background.
His apartment looked exactly the same as it had the day before.
The same cracked coffee mug near the sink.
The same stack of unopened envelopes.
The same jacket hanging over the back of a chair because he never bothered putting it away.
Nothing had changed.
Except now there was no automatic solution waiting for him.
That was the part that scared him.
Not the bills.
Not even the embarrassment.
It was the empty space where Nicholas had always been.
Ethan had spent years believing his brother would complain, get frustrated, maybe argue, but eventually help.
Because Nicholas always helped.
People became predictable when you depended on them long enough.
That was the mistake.
Ethan had mistaken reliability for obligation.
He stood up and walked into the kitchen.
The refrigerator was nearly empty.
A few leftovers.
A carton of eggs.
A bottle of ketchup.
He stared at it for a while.
Then he laughed quietly.
Not because it was funny.
Because he remembered something Nicholas had said years ago.
You don't have to be rich to be responsible.
At the time, Ethan had hated hearing it.
It sounded like criticism.
Now it sounded different.
His phone buzzed.
A message from his mother.
Can you talk?
Ethan stared at the screen.
He almost ignored it.
That would have been easier.
But he answered.
"Hey."
His mother's voice came through softly.
"Are you okay?"
The question surprised him.
Not because she asked.
Because she sounded like she actually wanted the answer.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Then she said, "You're doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you say you're fine because you don't want to talk about something."
Ethan leaned against the counter.
"Since when are you good at noticing that?"
The silence afterward told him he had gone too far.
He closed his eyes.
"Sorry."
"No."
Her voice became quieter.
"Maybe I should have noticed earlier."
Ethan did not respond.
He heard movement on her end.
Probably her sitting down.
Probably looking at the same kitchen table where so many arguments had started and ended.
"I went to Nicholas's house yesterday because your father asked me to," she said.
Ethan frowned.
"You didn't want to?"
"I wanted to know what was happening."
"That's not what I asked."
His mother took a breath.
"I didn't want to fight with him."
Ethan looked down.
That answer felt honest.
More honest than anything anyone had said recently.
"Did you think he was wrong?"
She was quiet.
Too quiet.
"Mom."
"I thought he was hurt."
Ethan swallowed.
"And?"
"And I think I spent a long time convincing myself that hurt people eventually got over things if you loved them enough."
The sentence stayed with him.
Because it sounded like something Nicholas could have said.
His mother continued.
May you like
"I kept thinking he was stronger than everyone else."
Ethan sat down at the table.
