When Henly was young he liked to carry a blue blanket everywhere. Everett remembered often finding Henly standing—dangerously balanced—on the backyard swing with the blanket draped over his shoulders like a billowing cape. Or, on some days, Everett would come home from school to find the blanket tucked around Henly as he took his afternoon nap on Everett's bed. He remembered having to repeatedly warn Henly not to stand on the moving swings or go into his room unsupervised. Yet, the number of times he had had to shoo his kid-brother out of his room or save him from an unfortunate fall would stay the same.
On a particularly thunderous night, Everett encountered the blue blanket personally. He was propped up against his headboard, so absorbed…show more content… Undeterred by Everett's foreboding tone, Henly simply swathed the blanket more securely around his shoulders, shivering slightly at another crackle of thunder outside. Everett sighed as he directed his attention back to his homework. Thankfully, Henly hadn’t begun fidgeting at all; in fact, he remained unusually quiet and immovable at his side. Everett didn't even notice when he dozed off in the middle of the twelfth practice question, one arm wrapped around Henly protectively and the blue blanket haphazardly draped over the both of…show more content… Standing alone in his dingy apartment, he had clutched the phone close to his ear as he listened to his father relay what had happened.
All Everett gathered was that there had been a school dance and three guys had beaten the living shit out of Henly and another boy in the parking lot. A hate crime, his father had said. After he hung up, he called his boss without thinking and cancelled his meeting. He couldn't have cared less for it at the time as he booked the fastest flight that he could find and headed home for the first time in two years.
Little had changed in Vancouver. The people were the same, the places the same, but Everett felt dizzied and overwhelmed by how unfamiliar everything felt. It took forever to get to the hospital, his palms sweaty and head aching as he finally pulled in and leaped out of the cab, barely remembering to pay the driver at
