The first thing I saw was a guy in his underwear doing a head-stand against the wall. A guy who was, thankfully, not my brother. His upside-down eyes widened, and he gave a little yelp before tumbling over. “Um, what?” he asked, scrambling to his feet. He was a little chunky, with thick brown curly hair.

“That’s why I’ve told you, Muz, put some damn clothes on if you’re going to do yoga.” I looked across the room and saw my brother sitting in an armchair, as though he had been expecting me. “After all, you never know when my sister might decide to drop by.”

I turned and faced Charlie, both because I wanted to get a better look at him, and because I wanted to give Muz some privacy while he—hopefully—put some pants on. Charlie looked much better than he had the last time I’d seen him, though it probably would have been hard for him to look worse. But he looked healthier, and tan, and more in focus. It was like seeing the slides at the optometrist, when you didn’t even realize how blurry something was until you got to see the clearer version, and you could see what had been obscured before.

“Hey,” I said, coming a little farther into the room.

“This is a surprise,” Charlie said. He sounded casual, but I knew him well enough to see that I had rattled him. “Were you just in the neighborhood?”

“Kind of,” I said. I glanced up at the intercom. “Um, I heard the announcement. You have to leave in twenty minutes?”

“More like fifteen,” Muz said from behind me, and I turned a little cautiously. But thankfully, he had put on shorts and a T-shirt, and was extending his hand to me. “Zach Tyler,” he said.

“Amy Curry,” I said, and we shook quickly. At this point, it might have surprised me if we hadn’t shaken hands.

“Oh, I know,” he said. “Believe me.”

I turned to look at Charlie, who just smiled and said, “Amy, meet Zach, more commonly known as Muz.”

“Messed-Up Zach,” Muz translated. “But, you know, for brevity’s sake, we usually went with the acronym.”

“Muz is from Richmond, Virginia, and until recently, his hobbies included freebasing.”

“Hi,” I said to Muz, then looked back at my brother. “So you have to go in fifteen minutes?”

Charlie glanced over at the clock between the two beds. “Yeah,” he said.

“Do you have to?” I asked. “I mean, can you get out of it?”

“No, I can’t get out of it,” Charlie said sharply. “This is rehab, Amy, not homeroom.”

Muz cleared his throat and murmured, “I think maybe I’ll just go wait in the hallway now, okay?”

“Thanks,” said Charlie. Muz shuffled out and pulled the door a little farther shut—though he still didn’t close it—behind him.

“This is a nice setup here,” I said, looking around the room. I could tell Charlie’s side because there were stacks of books around his bed, and a tennis racket with a can of tennis balls next to it. I wondered if he’d started playing again while he’d been here. In his leisure time. I could feel myself beginning to get angry again.

“Amy, what are you doing here?” Charlie asked, staring at me.

“I went to Graceland yesterday,” I said, looking right back at him.

Charlie’s face seemed to close off a little. “Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, and I could hear that my voice was shaking. “You know, the trip you didn’t want to go on? The trip that you told Dad was stupid?” Charlie looked down at the ground. He picked up a tennis ball and gripped it hard. “I thought that one of us should go on it.”

“Why did you come?” Charlie asked, looking up at me, his face drawn. “Seriously. Was it just to make me feel bad?”

“No,” I said. I hadn’t intended that, but seeing him here was just feeding an anger that I’d been holding back for a long time. A little of it had slipped out in my conversation with my mother, but clearly there was more where that had come from. “But I’m sure that if I do, you can discuss it in your group.”

Charlie looked at me sharply. “How do you know about that?”

“Oh, I just climbed in the window of two girls who seemed to know all about me. That’s all.”

“We talk about things here,” Charlie said defensively. “It’s part of their whole philosophy.”

“Then why—,” I started, and could hear my voice crack. “Why couldn’t we have done that? Why did we just …” I searched for the word, but it wasn’t coming. I wanted to know why we had retreated to different parts of the house, and then to different parts of the country, scattering when we should have been coming together. I sat down on the edge of Muz’s bed and looked at my brother. “Maybe I needed you,” I said. “But you were always high, and—”

“Oh, is that what this is about?” Charlie asked, some anger coming back into his voice. There was an expression on his face I recognized, one I’d never liked, one I’d always backed down from. “You’re here to tell me what a fuckup I am?”

“No,” I said, standing my ground this time. “But I have been completely alone, until this week. You’ve been here. You’ve had people to talk to.”

“You could have talked to me,” he said.

“It wouldn’t have done any good!” I yelled, surprising myself. Charlie glanced toward the open door, and I lowered my volume a little. “You were never there. You haven’t been there for almost a year.” I stared at him hard. “I should have told Mom and Dad. You were right when you said I wouldn’t. But if I had, then maybe …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. It was just one more way in which I’d brought this about, one more reason it was my fault. One more thing I couldn’t undo.

Charlie turned the tennis ball in his hands and gave a short, bitter laugh. “You think I don’t ask myself that every fucking day?” he asked. “You think I don’t wish that I could do things differently?”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, hearing my voice shake. “What, you’ve been here for a month and suddenly you’ve grown a conscience?” Charlie looked at me like I’d just slapped him without warning—that surprised, that hurt. “I was always covering for you,” I said, the words spilling out of me in a torrent. “For years. And you never had to take any responsibility. And if you’d thought about someone else other than yourself just once in your fucking life, this wouldn’t have happened.” The sentence was out before I could weigh its consequences, or take it back.