“At some point his throat went raw from crying out,” Noah explains, “but when my father finally found him, he wasn’t crying or calling out. Not anymore. Just sitting in the seat in his own filth staring off and barely even registering when the door was finally opened.”

“How much time?” I ask. “How much time did he lose?”

It takes a moment for him to answer. “Four days.”

My face cracks and silent tears fall.

“Something separated in his head,” Noah tells me. “What goes through your mind when something like that happens, you know? When one day turns into two and two into three? You’re four years old. You can’t get out. You can’t figure out what to do to help yourself. You’re starving. You’re cold. You’re alone. You can’t stand up. You don’t know when help is coming…”

I turn it all around in my head for a moment trying to imagine how long the hours felt to a four-year-old. Minutes filled with fear feel like hours, and hours of fear feel like an eternity.

“It must’ve felt like he was buried alive,” Noah adds. “The doctors said he gave up. A wall just sprung up, and over the years not talking became the one piece of control he had when he had none during those four days in that car. His voice was the one thing no one could demand from him. It was his way of punishing everyone. A way to make the world share the pain.”

Needles prick my throat. Yeah, I know what that’s like. Denying myself anything that made me happy for so long because I couldn’t let it go. It couldn’t not matter.

Kaleb has been punishing the world his whole life, almost like me. Unfortunately, the world moves on, and then it just becomes punishing yourself.

“Don’t cry for him,” Noah finally whispers. “Especially not in front of him.”

After a while, Noah falls back to sleep, and I’m not sure how long I lie there, thinking about what he told me.

Kaleb almost died. Slowly. Painfully. That would be a nightmare for anyone at any age. How much does he remember?

Hopefully not much.

It changed him, though. He turned inward and couldn’t trust again. That’s why he doesn’t speak. Not out of spite necessarily. He doesn’t want to give anyone a piece of himself again. People hurt.

He may not even know how to talk anymore. It’s not like four-year-olds are enunciating full speeches to begin with. You can’t really lose an ability you never had.

And it’s hurt the whole family. His mother must be in prison for other things to keep her there this long, so she’s all but dead to them. Jake had to raise two boys on his own, miles away from the help that Kaleb needed, and Noah never really knew his brother. He’s never known what Kaleb could’ve been. They’ve all been alone, and somewhere in the time I’ve been here, we’ve all learned to care about each other, but I also created a whole other wedge. Kaleb couldn’t learn to live with another woman in the house, and when he tried, the lines were fucked up. How did I fit? Was I his cousin? His friend? His brother’s?

His?

I pull my arms off Noah and swing my legs over the bed, sitting up, the weight of my role in all this sinking in. He acts wrong. He treated me wrong tonight. I’m confused, too. I’m making mistakes, too.

But I don’t want to hurt him. All I know for sure is that I can be there. Maybe over time he’ll trust me as a friend.

Hopefully as someone who cares about him, at least.

I stand up, looking at the clock and seeing it’s after four in the morning. I pick up a clean shirt out of Noah’s laundry basket of clothes he never puts away and slip it on. Leaving the room, I close the door and head for the shower.

As soon as I open the door, though, the steam hits me. The shower is running, and I spot Kaleb sitting there on the edge of the tub. I stop, my heart beating fast again.

His elbows rest on his jean-clad knees, and he hangs his head, quiet. He doesn’t look up.

I almost turn and leave. I need space. He needs space. Right now, anyway.

I don’t, though. I step in and close the door.

Slowly, I walk over to him and stand in front of him, waiting. Maybe for him to make a move or for him to lash out and storm out the door, but I’m not leaving for months yet. He can’t get away from me.

When he doesn’t make a move to escape, I hold out my hand and lightly graze his soft, dark hair.

He immediately clutches it in his own and nuzzles his head into it.

I let out a breath.

Kneeling down, I come in and circle my arms around his waist and lay my head on his chest, hugging him. I wish I knew what he wanted. I wish I trusted him, and I wish he trusted me.

Friends is a better way to start. Can we go back?

His arms hang limply at the side, and while he lets me hug him, he doesn’t hug me back. I let go, letting him have his space.

Looking up at him, he doesn’t meet my eyes. He pinches my shirt, staring at it. At Noah’s T-shirt.

“It’s okay,” I tell him softly. “I didn’t do anything with Noah.” I glide my hands down his arms. “I’m not going to…”

My right hand comes to his right hand, and I notice he’s holding something in it. I stop, bringing it up and taking the piece of wood from his fist.

“What is this?” But it doesn’t even take a second to realize exactly what it is.

The blue-green leg of my chest I painted with gold accents. I turn it around in my hand, my heart pumping so hard that a cool sweat breaks out on my forehead.

“What happened?” I dart my eyes up to his, breathing hard. “What did you do?”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I drop the leg, running to the door. No. I race from the bathroom, down the stairs, pain and anger curdling in my stomach as I bolt into the shop. The frigid air hits me as I see the bay door open, and I leap down the stairs, into the shop, and spin around, frantically searching for my chest. My first piece. The one he helped me design.

And all at once, it’s not there, and I see the barrel outside in the snowy driveway, spitting fire, remnants of the colored wood I painted sticking out of the top.

My hands shoot to my head, everything going blurry in front of me as silent sobs wrack through me.

No.

I stand at the open door, watching sparks fly into the black night and any traces of my piece quickly deteriorate into the barrel. My hair blows across my face, and I cover my eyes with my hands, unable to stand the sight of it.

But in my head, all I see are my stupid, kid drawings in the trash.

Stupid, stupid… I cry into my hands.

The stairs creak behind me, and I clench my teeth, wanting to kill him. I want to hurt him. Why would he do that?

Spinning around, I head over to the wall in my bare feet and grab a pipe from the collection of parts. When I turn around, he’s there within reach. I raise the pipe like a baseball bat, glaring at him, and ready to kill him. I’m done. I can’t take anymore.

I swing, but instead of smashing his head, I slam the fucking steel into the bookshelf I finished today. The side splinters, giving way, and I’m gone. Lost in my rage, I beat the fucking piece—slamming the bat as hard as I can into the sides, on the top, and moving to the desk I started a few days ago, too.

“You can’t hurt me!” I scream. “There’s nothing you can take from me! I don’t care about anything. I’m nothing!” I growl, destroying everything I made and beating it as hard as I want to beat him, because this is it. Now he fucking knows there’s nothing he can do to me. There’s nothing anyone can do to me. No one gets that power anymore. No one matters.