I introduce them and a kid with the same black hair as Tera comes walking up. He's big for a second grader and he's got an attitude.
"Who are these guys?" he asks Tera.
"Xander, Jesse, Ben, Kennedy, and Ethan. And this is my brother, Lincoln, but we call him Linc."
"They giving you a hard time?" Linc asks.
"Nope. They're cool."
Linc nods, and his fists uncurl.
"Were you going to kick our butts if we were?" I ask.
"I would've tried."
I nod. He just gained my respect.
That was the day we all became inseparable—including Tera. We found out pretty quickly that Tera and Linc's parents were nearly as messed up as Ethan and Kennedy's. They all spent most of their time at my house. Then Linc got sick.
"What's wrong with him?" I ask my dad. I'm eight. I don't understand all the big words the doctors said.
"He's got cancer," Dad tells all of us—Jesse, Kennedy, Ethan, and Ben. "It's in his blood and it's making him very sick."
"Is he going to die?" Ethan asks softly.
"We don't know for sure. We're looking for someone who is a match for Lincoln so they can take a special serum from inside their bones, called marrow. Then they can give the good marrow to Linc and hopefully it'll cure him," Dad says.
"He'll be better then?" I ask.
"It's hard to say, Xan. Even if he does get better now, he can get sick again later. People with cancer are never completely healed. When they are better it's called being in remission. That's what we hope will happen with Linc," he explains.
I nod.
"How come he's gonna live with you?" Ben asks.
"His dad is at work a whole lot and he has to travel for his work. It's a lot for his mom to handle on her own," Dad tells him.
"What about Tera?" I ask. "Is she coming too?"
Dad nods. "She is. I'd never leave her behind. She's been worried about her brother."
"I know. When will we know if he's okay?" Jesse asks.
"It shouldn't be long now," Dad tells him.
It wasn't too long. Three weeks and they found a match and it wasn't very long after his treatment that he was back to his old self. Tera clung to him and she still does a little. I think she's worried he might disappear, so if she doesn't let go of his hand, he can't leave.
* * *
One night, when we were in fifth grade, the shit hit the fan.
"Matthew, you know as well as I do this isn't working anymore. Why do you pretend?" my mom shouts.
I sit mute, staring at the blue wall of my bedroom, listening to my mother scream at my father. She's moving out, divorcing him—us.
"What about Xander?" Dad asks.
"What about him? He's safe here and all his friends are close by. I don't want to uproot him and move him to Paris where he knows no one."
