"Ugh. I don't know what to think about him anymore. I had about six different crushes on him, as a kid. Did you know that?" she asked me, from behind a curtain of long, dark hair.
"Ellie, your crushes were visible from space."
"Oh, shut up!" She put her head down on the table, her face adorably red. "Ooh, everything's a little spinny."
"Just sit still," I said, rubbing her back again.
"Riiicckk," she suddenly whined. "I'm thirty years old! I'm supposed to have everything figured out by now! But instead I'm just... trying to figure out if my dead brother was a monster and I never knew."
"Don't, Ellie. You can't answer that question right now, maybe ever. He was who he was. You should just leave your memories as they are."
"Then why do you keep talking about him?!" She looked up over h
