At dinner, my brother sneered, ‘still single, huh? must be lonely being a failure.’ my parents chuckled – so i smiled and said, ‘funny coming from a guy whose rent i’ve paid for 3 years. not anymore, by the way.’

Neither asked how much money Connor had made by presenting my work as his own.

And neither apologized.

Then, one Sunday morning, I received a text from Connor.

You happy now? You got what you wanted. I lost my job, my wedding is ruined, and everyone thinks I’m a fraud. Hope it was worth it.

I read it twice.

Then another message arrived.

I need $5,000. Just to get through the next month. I’ll pay you back.

I stared at the screen.

For a moment, I remembered the younger version of my brother.

The boy who used to sit beside me while I played video games.

The kid who once cried when I left for college because he didn’t want his older brother to go.

I remembered thinking that no matter how different we became, we would always have each other.

Then I remembered the USB drive.

The stolen projects.