That was before Auggies turned my cousin into someone who talks about himself in third person like he's afraid of his own hands.
Another memory pushes forward. Unwanted. Uncomfortable.
Christmas of senior year in high school. Giovanni brought Lorcan home for the holidays. Lorcan Ó Fearghail—the Irish kid from Auggies whose family controlled Boston's docks. Polite violence wrapped in good breeding. Storm-gray eyes and a smile that promised either friendship or a knife, depending.
I remember being annoyed. Three's a crowd, especially when two of the three share secrets you're not privy to. I spent that entire break in the backseat of Giovanni's new Jeep—Salvatore's guilt gift, because while he might've considered his son disposable, gifts were a reflection of the giver, not the son receiving them.
I was always in the backseat. Invisible. Forgotten.
That’s why I heard them.
Lorcan and Giovanni, talking low in the front. I was half-asleep, head against the window, watching the Pennsylvania winter scroll past.
"...the dog story..." Lorcan's accent made it sound foreign, ritualized.
I perked up. The dog story. That was our private ‘code’ for that night we buried Enzo. It was something that bound us together. A cold, dark night of mourning. Giovanni’s arm draped over my shoulder. No words, just the sound of the midnight woods.
"You ever think about it?" Lorcan again.
"Every day." Giovanni's voice was flat. Empty.
"Me too."
Silence. Just the road and the heater and my confusion. At the time, I didn't understand it. Just assumed they were talking about Enzo.
But now... withcontext. With the monster comments. With Giovanni's complete unraveling tonight.
The dog story.
Not Enzo.
Something else. Something that happened at Auggies. Something that replicated the night we buried my best friend. Something with frozen ground, a pickax, and secrecy between two boys who've carried it ever since.
Something they buried together.
Someone.
My stomach turns.
The pieces assemble themselves against my will.
I can pinpoint it now. If I had to choose the exact moment my cousin became a stranger, it would be then. That Christmas with Lorcan. That spring when he graduated. That summer when he stopped meeting my eyes for longer than necessary.
I thought it was Auggies changing him. The military discipline, the regimentation, the brutality of that place.
But it wasn't the academy.
It was what happened there.
What he and Lorcan did there.
The dog story. But it wasn't a dog. That was just code. They buried a body together. Who?
On the monitor, Giovanni lifts Emmaleen. She's limp, boneless, deep in subspace's aftermath. He carries her like she's sacred. Like she's breakable.
Like he knows exactly how fragile a body becomes when you've already broken one before.
I watch him navigate the dungeon, moving through the door to the sparse bedroom. He places her on the vinyl mattress with surprising gentleness. Straightens. Walks over to the tub.