The word landed like a slap in my ears.
I pressed my hand over my mouth to hold in the sob that was clawing its way up my throat because hearing that word come out of my brother's mouth‚ my brother who had never spoken to me like that‚ who had never even cursed in front of me‚ who had shielded me from every ugly thing in the world since I was four years old‚ hearing him say that word to me broke something inside my chest that I knew would never go back together.
"Ethan—" My voice was destroyed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry." He repeated it like it was in a language he didn't understand. "Sorry. Oh she's sorry."
He walked back to the bed. Gathered all fourteen pages‚ the loose ones‚ the crumpled ones‚ the ones that had separated from the staple. He stacked them together. Aligned th
