12
I turn the chip over in my fingers. “That’s it?” Not sure what I was expecting. That figure – Twelve Months – has sprouted capital letters in my head, and taken on an aspect of world importance. And now there’s this. This small plastic chip with its unconvincing bronze colored coating.
“Bronze?” I say. “Really?”
“Yep,” says Rocco. He’s smiling, but I can’t see why. He’s put in more than a bronze level effort, after all. He’s made it all the way around the sun without giving into temptation.
“So when do you get silver?” He should get gold.
“Uh, two months, I think it was.”
“Wait – they give you silver for two months sober, but for a year you get bronze? That’s not how it works.”
“Daniel…” There’s a flash of impatience in his eyes and I don’t blame him. He comes home with a year’s sobriety chip and the first thing I do is start quibbling about what color the fucking thing is.
“Sorry,” I say, handing it back to him. “I’m focusing on all the wrong things, aren’t I?”
“Just a little.”
I put my arms around his neck and kiss him. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly do it by the book…” he says, nuzzling the tip of his nose against mine. His hair smells of rain.
“Yes, but you’ve done it, Rocco.”
“And now I have to keep on doing it. For the rest of my life.” Rocco pulls my ass in close. His lips find mine again and I can feel him hard against me, making me rise to meet him. I reach down and fumble with his belt, my mind already racing ahead to the knowledge of how good he’s going to feel down there. Oh, I love that first touch when I get inside his jeans. Warm cloth and hotter skin, then the bristle of hair and the prize itself, thick and hard and maybe already wet at the tip. But there’s no hair today. He’s shaved, and his unexpected silkiness makes me gasp. He laps at my lips as I pull him free of his jeans and shorts, his balls so soft and smooth that all I want to do is lick them.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask, although I think I have a pretty good idea.
He thrusts gently into my hand. “What? Right now?”
“Uh huh.”
He pulls me close again, pushing his naked cock against me. “I want to get banged,” he says, and sucks slowly on my lower lip, which is one of those thing I didn’t even know turned me on until he did it. “I want you to fuck me, Daniel. Good and hard.”
“Oh,” I say, or at least that’s what I think I say, because it’s hard to talk now that my brains are all in my balls.
Rocco writhes his hips against me and gives a small growl of impatience. “Well? What are you waiting for? Take me to bed and pound me like a dirt-cheap steak.”
We stumble our way into the bedroom, unable to stop kissing even for a second. Rocco is out of his jeans in a flash. He spreads his legs for me and I dive between them, swallowing his cock, half-crazy with the taste of his skin. At the same time he’s stretching, reaching out to grab the lube from the drawer beside the bed, while still trying to fuck my mouth. The way he’s trying to stretch himself in about three different directions makes me laugh around my mouthful just as he thrusts, so that he pops out in his impatience, but no matter. He reaches down and hands me the lube and condoms, and the pulse in my head seems to redouble, echoing the one in my cock. We’ve been inching towards this lately. He spreads his legs more and grinds his hips when my fingers go wandering, but I’ve never pushed him to go any further. He’ll ask for it when he wants it, I figured. And now he has.
“Please,” he whispers. “I want this. I want you.”
I push with two slicked fingers and he opens his legs even wider to let me in. He throws back his head and lets out a low, strained “Fuu-uck,” as I find his prostate, a small hard knot deep down under layers of impossible softness. It seems crazy that he’s a virgin, but here he is, feet up, balls tight, his t-shirt still bunched under his arms. And mine.
There’s almost no resistance. He scrambles to shove a pillow under his ass and I can’t take it any more. I unwrap the condom but my t-shirt keeps getting in the way when I try to put it on: like him I was too worked up to even finish getting fully undressed. I strip it off and sheathe my dick, shivering as I stroke the lube over myself. He watches me intently and I almost want to tell him to turn over, because I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to be inside him and look in his eyes at the same time without coming all over the inside of the condom like an overeager teenager.
I nudge gently against the edge, and Rocco bites his lip and gives a nervous giggle. He pushes down with his hips and I feel him give, making me gasp.
“Come on, sweet thing,” he says. “Push in. That’s it. Pop my cherry.”
I push, he arches and then…oh my God. I’m in. All the way. He moans loudly and I draw back. “Okay?”
“Fuck yes. Don’t stop.” He reaches up and pulls his hair off his neck, the way he does when I’m on top and riding him hard. I know I should go slow but he’s hot and tight and already starting up a perfectly fucking filthy running commentary of the things he’s feeling.
“Holy Christ, Daniel, you have your dick inside me…oh my God. And I love it…I love it…fuck yesss give it to me like that…no, don’t hold back…I’m okay. Fuck me. That’s it. Fuck me wide open.”
My ass has developed a mind of its own. My poor old bed is creaking and groaning in protest, but I can’t stop fucking him. I can hardly stand to look him in the face because I think the half-crazed look in his eyes will pull me over the edge. He’s flushed and howling, his cock bouncing untouched against his stomach as he rides my thrusts. “Harder,” he says. “I can take it. I can feel it all the way inside…oh my God…there…just there.”
“I have to slow down. I’m gonna come.”
“No. Come. Oh fuck…I’m nearly there. Oh my Goo-oood…” His head goes back again and I know what he’s feeling. It’s always overwhelming the first time you encounter one of those deep, internal orgasms and watching him writhe in pleasure pulls me another inch closer. He cries out, his muscles contracting, and I reach down to grab his cock. That’s all it takes, and I fuck him hard through the shudders and hold him tight, tight, as I come deep inside his beautiful, beloved body.
I hold him there for a moment afterwards, gratified by the way his thighs flop and sprawl. Yes, he’s very well satisfied. I slip out, take off the condom and bend down to lick the come off his tattoos. He lies flat, glowing and groaning. His eyes are dark and full of the lovely warm light of afterglow, and I stretch out beside him on the bed, my mouth on his shoulder.
“Mmm,” he says.
“Mmhm,” I say, understanding perfectly.
We lie there without speaking for a while, listening to our breaths slow. He tenderly strokes my softening cock and traces circles around my belly button with the tip of his finger. When he finally speaks his voice is even more gravelly than usual. “That was legit,” he says.
“I know, right?”
“No, I mean legit. Twelve months. This is no longer forbidden.”
I roll on my side and push my knee between his. Of course. We’re both cradle Catholics, after all. We get off on forbidden. “Are you shitting me?” I say. “After that you’re worried that the thrill is going to go?”
“No,” he says, kissing me. “Not now. But further down the line. Don’t you ever worry about things like that?”
“No. And neither should you. You just got fucked in the ass by another man. You’re Catholic. All of this is forbidden.”
A slow, dirty grin creeps over his face. “Oh my God,” he says, getting it.
“Yeah. See? When we suck – forbidden. When we fuck – forbidden. When we sixty-nine – absolutely forbidden. And let’s not even start on whatever happened that time in the kitchen…”
“Holy shit,” says Rocco. “When I shoved that carrot up–”
“–exactly. Which level of Hell are we going to for getting obscene with produce, do you think? You don’t need Narcotics Anonymous to furnish you with titillating sexual guilt. We both got a lifetime supply already, courtesy of our friends in the Vatican.”
He sighs happily and wriggles back against the pillows. “Every form of sexual depravity I had in mind just got ten times hotter,” he says. “Including all the things you’re going to do to me now that my ass is in play. You might have to start fighting me for the bottom spot.”
I laugh and kiss his lips. “Did you like it?”
“God, yes. It was worth waiting for.”
“Waiting?”
Rocco nods and brushes my hair back from my forehead. “I’ve wanted you to do that for a long time,” he says. “But I was holding off until I got that twelve months chip. Your dick was my reward to myself.”
I can’t get over how much I love him. “That’s…sweet. And incredibly dirty.”
He grins. “I figured getting fucked in the ass was as good a way to celebrate as any other.”
“Absolutely. Although it might be socially awkward when people ask what we did to celebrate your first year sober.”
“Anal,” says Rocco. “There. Short answer.”
“No, I think we we’re supposed to do something clean-living and aspirational, like climbing Mount Rainier or something.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? After all the horrible things you’ve told me about people dying up mountains.” He shakes his head. “Uh uh. People are just going to have to take ‘anal’ for an answer.”
“Or,” I say. “We could do something else to celebrate.”
“How about that thing with the carrot?”
“No. Something we can tell people about. Why don’t we go out to dinner? Invite Matt. He keeps wanting to do something to celebrate the end of his rehab, too. We could try that Turkish place that everyone keeps raving about.”
“Well, I’d prefer anal, but sure. When are you going to fuck me again?”
I laugh and kiss him on the mouth. He flicks his tongue over my lower lip, making me shiver. “Knowing us?” I say. “Probably as soon as I can get it up again.”
“Yay,” says Rocco, and pulls the covers over us both.
*
On Friday night we meet for dinner in a small restaurant full of pierced bronze lamps and the smell of cardamom. Matt’s running late, his lateness an Axl Rose affectation which would usually annoy me beyond words, but right now I’m too wrapped up in Rocco and the way he can’t get enough of my dick.
I feel virile and adored, endlessly potent. Rocco’s fingers tangle with mine as we reach for scraps of pita bread and olives. In the warm, cozy light his eyelashes cast long shadows over his cheeks, and when he looks up his eyes are dark with the smug, secret knowledge of all the filthy things we’ve been doing to each other. On the pretext of touching him I reach over to pop an olive into his mouth, and he takes it and sucks the oil from my fingertip. When he looks at me I can see his mind is right there alongside mine in the gutter. Lately I like to wet my fingers in his come and feed it to him while I finish. Just the feeling of his teeth against my fingertip sends me flying back to the crucial moment, his tongue slack with moans around my fingers, his lips flushed red and my balls slapping against him as dirty words pour from my mouth. Lick it up, you slut. That’s it. Taste how delicious you are…God, I can’t get enough of the way you take it…
“Do you think this will ever end?” I ask, pushing my knee against his under the table.
“Everything ends,” says Rocco. “But what do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. The way you’re looking at me right now. The way I’m looking at you. The way we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
He shrugs and takes another olive. “Eventually, I guess,” he says. “But why worry about that now? Just enjoy the honeymoon, in all its hot, sticky glory.”
“You have the dirtiest mind. I’m so into it.”
Rocco spots something and turns his head. “Oops. Here’s Matt. Try not to look like you have an erection.”
“How do you know I have an erection?”
“Because I have one, too.”
“Hey,” says Matt, coming over. “What are you two laughing at?”
“You probably don’t want to know,” I say, and he pulls up a chair.
“You’re right. I don’t,” he says, and glances over at Rocco, frowning. “What the hell have you been up to, Rocky?”
Again, probably don’t want to know. “Hmm?” says Rocco, burying his nose in his drink. “How’d you mean?”
“You look good. Fresh. Younger. Did you get Botox?”
“Rude,” says Rocco, and I feign intense interest in the menu to hide my smile. He’s glowing because I’ve fucked him on every available surface in the house.
“Hey, it’s not a big deal these days,” says Matt, scooping up some of the carrot dip from the middle of the table. “Like, not everyone wants to wind up looking like Keith Richards. I wouldn’t judge you if you had.”
“Well, I haven’t,” says Rocco. “Although I’ve been eating well. Doing a little yoga.”
The yoga mat. Another available surface. He planned that in advance, upward dogging in his underwear and giving me sly looks, like he was waiting for me to ask if he could get his feet behind his head yet.
Matt shakes his head. “Jesus Christ, Rocky. Yoga? You’re going full pumpkin spiced latte these days.”
Rocco reaches for the pita bread and turns mischievous. “Actually I was getting into it more for the tantric thing,” he says.
“Ew. No. That’s my brother you’re talking about.”
“We’re intensely sexual beings,” I say. “Deal with it.”
“No fucking way,” Matt says, reaching for the carrot dip again, but he smiles. “Still, you look happy.”
“We are.”
“Have you told Mom and Dad yet?”
“Working up to that one,” I say. “Meg knows, but we haven’t got around to that just yet.”
Matt chews and frowns. “What are you worried about?”
“Would you be cool with your kid hooking up with a heroin user?” asks Rocco.
“I’m fairly cool with my brother hooking up with one,” says Matt, with a shrug. “And don’t talk about yourself that way. You’re not a junkie any more.”
Rocco shakes his head. “I’ll always be a junkie, Matt. If I let myself forget what I am then I’m at risk of slipping. I have to stay self-aware. Constant vigilance.”
Matt smothers a giggle. Rocco is not amused.
“Sorry,” Matt says. “It’s just…I always said you were moody. And now you’re sounding like Mad-Eye.”
Rocco softens. “Very funny,” he says.
Matt gets up again. “Hey, I’m just going to the bathroom. But can we get some more of that orange stuff? What is that, hummus?”
“No. It’s some kind of carrot dip. With yoghurt, I think.”
“Huh,” he says. “How do they make carrots and yoghurt so fucking delicious?”
Rocco presses his lips together. I catch his eye and feel the blush hot on my face.
“We’re never going to be able to get away from that, are we?” he says, as soon as Matt’s at a safe distance.
“Do you want to?”
I laugh. “No, not really.”
“Me neither. I’ll never forget the look on your face.” He leans close and steals a kiss. “Like you couldn’t believe what you were getting off on.”
Matt comes back, and more food arrives. It’s all so good – lamb meatballs and eggplant cooked with potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. There are stuffed vine leaves and feta rolled in filo and grilled halloumi that squeaks in your teeth when you bite it. And we’re good, more relaxed with each other than we’ve ever been, conversation flowing easily for a change. Meg is seeing a guy from Vancouver, I’m almost done wrangling Mallory and Irvine, Rocco is still trying to persuade me to paint the bedroom purple…
“Dude, you’re not moving into interior design, are you?” says Matt. “Because that is a hurtful stereotype.”
Rocco laughs a loud, don’t-give-a-shit laugh. “You think there’s a market for that?” he says. “Getting your house redesigned by a washed up rock star?”
“What? You got plans?”
“I’m in recovery. We don’t make plans, remember?”
“You’ve done a year,” I say. “Got the vastly disappointing chip to prove it. Aren’t you allowed to at least start now?”
“He’s right,” says Matt. “At some point we are going to have to talk about the future.”
Rocco waves it off. “Yeah. Sure. Assuming North Korea doesn’t nuke us tomorrow because that tangerine nightmare in the White House baited Lil Kim on Twitter. Again. Surely trying to start nuclear armageddon should be enough to get you banned?”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck that noise,” says Matt. “And fuck that fat orange bitch. I’m talking about us, Rocky. We’re not putting anything out there right now. We’re running on back catalogue and fumes.”
Rocco’s shoulders slump. “Okay, if I’m not making plans, you definitely shouldn’t be,” he says. “Because you’re raw out of rehab. Take some time out to enjoy your sobriety for five minutes.”
“We don’t have time. As you so helpfully pointed out, we’re getting older.”
“Do we really have to talk about this now?” I say, but it’s useless. The subject has been broached and Rocco has that look in his eye that he gets when he needs to say his piece.
“Fine,” he says. “You know what? It’s probably better that we just do this now.”
“Do what?” Matt looks wary. I take a breath, because I think I know what’s coming. He’s not going to start a brawl in a restaurant, is he?
Rocco takes a sip of his water. “The truth is,” he says, setting the glass down. “That I have no idea what my life is going to be from now on.”
“The band is your life,” says Matt. “It’s your baby. Always was.”
Rocco shakes his head. “No, it was my baby. Now it’s my fucking Frankenstein. It nearly killed me.”
The skin across Matt’s cheekbones goes tight. The gray in his eyes turn flinty. “What are you saying, Rocky?” he says, keeping his voice low.
There’s an uncomfortable pause. Rocco takes another sip. “What I’m saying,” he says. “Is that one of the few things I’m sure of at this point in my life is that I can’t go back to the way things were. I can’t fly around the world living on vodka and cocaine any more. I can’t be around people who are using.”
“Well, we can do that,” Matt says. “Come on. Plenty of bands got clean and still do their thing. Do it better, in fact, because they’re not all fucked up all the time.”
“Why don’t we do this some other time?” I say, and they both give me a look. Yeah, I should probably shut up.
“I gotta piss,” says Matt, and gets up from the table for the third or maybe fourth time that night.
“You got prostate trouble or something?” asks Rocco, trying to lighten the mood, but as Matt gets up his shirt rides up, and I see it. It’s the cap of a hip flask, peering over the edge of his belt.
“Look,” I say, as he walks away.
“What?”
“Hip flask.”
Rocco spots it. He exhales slowly and sits back in his chair. “Oh fuck,” he says.
“What are we going to do?”
He shakes his head and pushes his hair back from his face. “I don’t know,” he says, which is not what I wanted to hear. He’s supposed to have the answers.
“He’s got to go back to rehab.”
“We can’t make him.”
“We have to.”
But Rocco just sighs and gathers his hair back into its band. “Daniel, what do you think we’re going to do? Run around Seattle with a giant fucking butterfly net? Scoop his drunk ass up, stick him in a crate and pack him back onto the ferry?”
“If we have to, yes.”
“And why do you think it’s going to work this time?” he says. “Rehab joke for you. How many former alcoholics does it take to change a light bulb?”
It’s my turn to sigh. “Right. Just the one–”
“–and only if the former alcoholic is willing to change.” He takes my hand. “Honey, I hate this as much as you do, but we might have to accept that we’ve exerted all the external pressure we’re capable of. This is down to Matt, now.”
“No,” I say, taking my hand away. I don’t want him touching me when I’m this mad. “I’m not giving up on him.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. All I know is I’m not sitting around waiting for him to develop liver failure.”
“It’s not waiting, Daniel…it’s just…sometimes an intervention doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you’ve got to hit rock bottom, the way I did.”
“Yeah, and you nearly died,” I say. “They gave you last rites, Rocco. And yes, you came back, but you said it yourself – it was a coin-flip as to whether those antibiotics would save you or not. One day Matt might wake up, puke blood and realize he’s going to die if he doesn’t knock this shit off, but one day he might not wake up at all, because he choked on vomit in his sleep. That’s the coin flip you’re talking about, Rocco. And that’s my only brother.”
“What are you going to do? What can you do?”
I have an idea, but it’s too late, because Matt is coming back. He doesn’t stumble or bounce off the tables like a drunk, which tells the whole ugly story about how well he tolerates the stuff these days. Looks like my boozehound brother emerged from rehab and slipped effortlessly into the ways of a functional alcoholic.
“Why don’t you come back for coffee?” I say. “I haven’t had the chance to show you the house yet.”
I know that look. He’s sizing me up, wondering what I’m up to, but in a way I think he knows what’s coming, and he wants it. He all but asked for it up in Oregon, after all. My anger. And he’s going to get it. Both fucking barrels.
“Sure,” Matt says. “You know I can’t stand that Turkish shit anyway. It’s all gritty in the bottom.”
Rocco hasn’t a clue what’s going on, but he holds his tongue. He calls for the check and we head back to mine. I feel like I’m luring Matt away into some isolated alley, with a mind to bopping him over the head with something heavy. A quick smack, and then – like Rocco says – some butterfly net and crate arrangement. Scoop him up, pack him off, and straighten his ass out. This time.
How many ‘this times’ are there going to be? And how many more can he afford?
It’s only when we get home that I realize I might have misread the situation. Matt’s spoiling for a fight, all right, but not with me. “So listen,” he says, prodding Rocco. “About the band…”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
Rocco sighs and pulls a pillow from the couch into his lap. I’ve never noticed it before, but now I look back I remember how in therapy he often had one of Claudia’s tasteful chevron striped cushions in his lap, and it wasn’t always to hide an erection.
“I can’t be that person any more, Matt,” he says. “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. That’s the way it has to be, or I’m a dead man.”
I sit tight, barely daring to breathe. I’m still not sure Matt is even processing this. Knowing him he’s trying to figure out compromises, ways to keep Rocco doing what he wants him to do.
“And what am I supposed to fucking do?” Matt says, too quietly. The way he goes quiet when he’s building up to a crescendo. Things thrown. Screaming. Fame did a number on him too young, and turned him into a hundred and seventy pound toddler.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but you have to understand, this is literally life or death for me.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Jesus.”
“I’m not being dramatic,” says Rocco. “I’m done, Matt. I can’t be Rocco Ponti any more. The temptations are too great. The pressure’s too intense. I can’t carry on being a rock star. I need to learn how to be human again, never mind anything else.”
Matt exhales. He’s still too quiet. “And that’s it, is it?” he says. “You get to fuck my brother and my career?”
“This is nothing to do with Daniel,” Rocco says.
“And fuck you,” I add, not helping.
Matt turns his attention to me. “Did you do this?” he says. “Did you domesticate my fucking guitarist so all he wants to do is rub your feet, cook your dinner and gargle your goddamn nutsack?”
Time to bust out the big guns. “I’m not talking to you when you’re drunk,” I say, looking him right in the eye.
“I’m not drunk.”
“Are too. I saw the hip flask when you got up to the bathroom in the restaurant. For the…oh, what was it? The fourth time? The fifth?”
“Don’t you fucking sabotage me, you little shit,” says Matt. “Or I will make you regret it.”
He stands up, trying to tower over me, but he hasn’t been able to do that since I hit a growth spurt at seventeen. “What are you going to do, Matt?” I say. “Scream? Hit me? Choke me? Throw things? It won’t make any difference, because I’m not your enemy here. Neither is Rocco. The thing that’s going to destroy your life is right there in your hip pocket, and if you can’t see that after everything you’ve been through then you’re an even bigger dumbass than I previously imagined.”
He gives me a look of pure hatred. I have to remind myself that it’s not really him. It’s the bucketful of vodka he’s been steadily pouring down his throat over the course of the evening. “Fine,” he says, and heads to the bathroom once more.
There’s an awful silence. Rocco recedes back onto the couch and pulls the pillow back into his lap. “That could have gone a whole lot worse,” he says. “All things considered.”
“Oh, sure. Just fucking dandy.” I catch sight of myself in the Art Deco mirror over the mantel. My skin looks blotchy and I don’t look nearly as brave as I’m trying to feel. Just a couple of seconds ago I was worried Matt might launch something into that mirror, just to hammer home the message that he was really pissed off.
“Well, he didn’t throw anything,” says Rocco, evidently reading my mind. “Or call me a cocksucker, although the nutsack gargling was a picturesque turn of phrase I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.”
I slump onto the sofa beside him, my eyes stinging. “Does he have a point?”
“What are you talking about, Daniel?”
“Have I…domesticated you? Have I taken you away from the love of your life? You don’t play that often.”
He groans. “Yes, because I had carpal tunnel and ganglion cysts. Me and music – yeah, we’ve got some shit to work through, but no. Nobody can take music away from me. There are some things I can’t give up, even for you.”
Something crashes in the bathroom. “Oops,” he says. “There’s that tantrum we were waiting on, I guess.”
I sigh, taking mental inventory. “Oh God. What has he destroyed, you think?”
“Gone Lord of the Flies with that big-ass conch shell you use as a doorstop, I’ll bet.” Something shatters, and Rocco gets to his feet. “Okay, I think that’s enough of that. I know you were planning to retile that bathroom, but this is a goddamn ridiculous way to go about it. Matt! Knock it the hell off in there!”
I follow him to the bathroom door. He knocks, but there’s no reply. The shattering sound has settled into a silence that makes the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end.
“Matt,” says Rocco. “Come out. We need to talk.”
There’s nothing and my stomach does a slow roll. I’m thinking of the time he came home with charcoal around his mouth and everyone was very gentle with him for several months afterwards. “Break the door,” I say, panic rising.
“What?” Rocco knocks again. “Come on, Matt. This is childish as hell.”
I hear a strange, almost inhuman whimpering sound from behind the door, and I can’t take any more. I hurl myself at the door before Rocco can protest and – thank God for that loose bolt the realtor never fixed – it gives.
But my relief is short lived.
The red hits me like a punch, winding me. There’s blood everywhere. The sink, the tiles, the floor. I barely have time to take in the dismantled razor and the shattered glass, because all I can see is Matt’s open wrist, the blood pumping out of it at a terrifying speed. Rocco almost slips on the floor as he races forward, tearing a towel from the rail and grabbing Matt’s hand.
“Call 911. Daniel. Daniel – call 911. Now.”
Rocco holds Matt’s hand high above his head. The cut looks like a lipless mouth, spewing at a rate that surely nobody can survive. Through the fizz of blind panic I manage to operate my phone, and when I speak my lips feel numb.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“My brother,” I say, and my voice feels like it’s coming from another person. “My brother just tried to kill himself.”