I take a running start, then collapse to my knees beside him. He gives me a grim smile as we settle against the edge of the building.
“John always told us to stay away from the lake when we were kids,” I finally say through my gasps of breath. “He said these skyscrapers were full of dangerous folk.”
Daniel nods. “He wasn’t wrong. You had to be careful which towers you chose to stay in, which floors you ventured on. Gangs would rotate in and out on these structures. I had to make sure I stayed out of their way and remembered what the schedules were. But it’s the nicest place that me and Tess were able to find. Whenever we had a chance to stay on these towers on the lake, we considered that a lucky day.”
A stone sinks to the bottom of my chest. I’ve always known, to some extent, why he’s never told me his stories—why he doesn’t seem like he wants to remember our home, or seems so eager to stay in the Sky Floors of Ross City. I knew, and yet I didn’t know at all. I’ve never walked these streets like he has, never understood what he faced out here every day, a child with a family he could never contact.
I was always drawn to the humble streets of Lake, always despised the luxurious ignorance of our current home.
But I never had to fend for myself in Lake, either.
The screaming, the blur of soldiers in our home. The sound of a shot to our mother’s head. The past crowds into my head, loud and relentless.
Daniel watches me quietly. What he sees in my expression, he doesn’t say, but after a while, he looks away and leans back on one arm. “How much do you remember of John?” he asks.
An old, rusty memory appears of Daniel and me waiting around our dining table, impatient for John to come home from his work shift so that we could eat. My oldest brother’s weary smile, his cheeks still red from heat and exhaustion, his arms outstretched as I’d dash from the table to greet him.
Enough nights pass now when I forget that we had another brother. The realization makes me flush with shame. “Not as much as I wish I did,” I reply.
Daniel smiles. “John was the one who taught me how to change your diapers, you know.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “That’s not where I thought this conversation would go.”
“Who do you think was in charge of you as a baby when Mom had to work late shifts?” Daniel raises an eyebrow at me. “John would drag me over to the table where he’d change you, and the two of us would hover over you, arguing about the best way to pin a fresh cloth diaper on you while you screamed your head off. It was the worst goddy chore in the world. He taught me how to put you to sleep and how to tell if you were sick. I almost burned down our house once when I was trying to boil you some mashed carrots. John almost killed me for that one.”
I try to picture two young boys bickering with each other while an infant version of me looked on. I try to imagine Daniel frantically putting out a kitchen fire while John watched in horror. The thought is so ridiculous that I can’t help a laugh from escaping my throat.
Daniel laughs once, too, and shakes his head. “I used to fight with him even more than I do with you. Everything was a battle. He hated how impulsive I was, how sometimes I’d stand in the street and complain about the police loud enough for everyone to hear. How many questions I’d ask about why Republic soldiers had roughed up our father or where he’d gone. I lost count of the number of times he had to drag me home after I’d gotten in some argument about Republic history with the kids at school. He was convinced I’d get myself killed someday with my carelessness, or that you’d pick up my bad habits.” He sighs. “I guess he wasn’t wrong.”
A breeze sweeps past us, bringing with it the scent of a Lake night—fried street food, smoke, briny water. I cross my legs and try to ignore the sudden lump that rises in my throat. “I should have listened to you,” I finally say, my voice so quiet that I can barely hear myself.
“I couldn’t protect you any more than John could protect me. You’ve seen the wrong in this world, powerful forces that no brother could ever hope to hide from you. And no matter what John did—or what I do—those things stay with us forever.”
I start shaking my head. “John shouldn’t have had that burden. You shouldn’t have.”
“Keeping you from the truth of the world only made it worse for you.” Daniel gives me a sad smile. “This place was your home too. Every single one of these rotting streets, these back alleys. This is where we were all raised, yeah? But I’m so afraid of this place, Eden. I’m afraid, even now. I wanted to hide it from you, like somehow that would keep you from being drawn back to it, so that you’d never have to know what it was like.” He shakes his head and stares out at the water. “Like somehow, us leaving this all behind meant that it didn’t exist anymore.”
I look out into the darkness, the voices crowding in my head. As always, I can feel myself pulling away, trying to shield the jumbled mess in my mind from Daniel, to turn it inward and let it churn there until it all fades again into the background. But it doesn’t fade.
Daniel’s looking at me now, and I realize it’s because there are tears streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t even noticed when I started crying. Embarrassed, I wipe them angrily away and try to force myself back into a state of calm. But the tears keep coming. I can’t stop them.
Daniel reaches out and seizes both of my wrists in his hands. “Look at me,” he says, his eyes locking on to mine. They are fierce in the night, and in them I see the same brother who had once stood up to an entire nation. “It is not weakness to open your heart. It does not make you less of a man to ask for help. To turn to someone when you’re vulnerable. To need a shoulder to cry on. You don’t have to bear the weight of anything by yourself. Do you understand me? I know what it’s like to be forced to go it alone. I never want you to feel that way.”
I find myself nodding through my tears, wishing I could have turned to him sooner, wishing I could be more like him in every way. “I see them every night,” I say to him, my words breaking. “They’re there every time I close my eyes. I jump at every sound. I see a soldier in every person standing at a corner. I thought—I thought if I could just drown it all out in the Undercity, if I could replace it with something else so loud and overwhelming, that it might go away—I thought if I could just see the Republic again, return home and understand my past…”
The pain in Daniel’s eyes is raw and real. The fear of this was what had kept me silent for so long. He nods once, his hands firmly on my shoulders. “I see them too,” he says quietly. “I should have talked to you about my nightmares. I can’t expect you to open up to me if I don’t do the same.”
I nod again. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t be.” His eyes soften, and he pulls me into a hug. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It is his embrace that finally breaks my last barrier. I cry and cry and cry. I cry because I’d never let myself truly understand my own brother, because I’d never understood myself. I cry for all the lives that our pasts have set on different paths—for June’s loss of her family, for Tess’s loss of her childhood, for Daniel becoming a parent when he was himself just a boy. I cry because I’m grateful that we still, in spite of everything, have all found each other.