“Francie heard Martha and Tobias talking about you, so of course she told Barbara, and Yasmin overheard Francie and Barb talking, so of course she told me.”
“Huh?” Gabriel couldn’t make sense of Simon’s tangled narrative.
“It’s just—” Simon sat on his own bed and pulled up his knees protectively. “—I’m just…sorry about your brother.” Gabriel didn’t reply. He simply rolled over and chose to stare at the fascinating floral wallpaper. It wasn’t a pattern he would have chosen for a room for teen boys. “My brother died too,” Simon said after a long pause. “He was older than me, in college. He was going to finish his degree, and then he was gonna get us a house to live in together.”
The hitch in Simon’s voice lured Gabriel to turn back around. Simon had draped an arm over his eyes, as if that
