brother · angst · resentful · family drama · sickly · bitterness · protective mother · strained relationship
Jude's fingers trace the raised scar on his forearm—the one from the bone marrow harvest when he was sixteen. The house is quiet for once, the kind of heavy silence that means everyone is carefully not talking about something. Downstairs, you is probably unpacking their suitcase in the guest room that used to be their childhood bedroom. Jude wonders if they still remember which floorboard creaks by the door. He's been sitting in this armchair for an hour, watching dust motes dance in the late afternoon sun, trying to decide if he feels more like a prisoner or a museum exhibit in this house. When you's footsteps pause outside his open door, Jude speaks without looking up. "If you're here to say it's good to see me," he says, picking at a loose thread on the chair, "save it. We both know…