So it hadn’t been a dream after all. “Good morning,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep. “Did you sleep okay?” Lucy nodded, the hair sticking out around her head bobbing softly. She looked like a wild thing who’d been raised by wolves, or an elf escaped from one of those fantasy movies his brother, Kurt, used to watch when he and Brandon were kids. Growing up, Kurt had loved anything with an orc, dragon, or elf in it, and spent most of his time with his nose in a book, or online playing World of Warcraft. He’d been a nerdy kid—not a jock like Brandon—but he’d never seemed particularly unhappy. He was simply quiet, the kind of person who kept their thoughts to themselves and enjoyed the company of imaginary people more than real ones. But in high school, things had changed. Some guys in his gym class had started bullying Kurt, calling him a fag and making his life miserable. For the first time, Brandon hadn’t been there to protect his big brother. They were only fourteen months apart, but that meant Kurt had gone on to ninth grade alone, leaving Brandon behind in middle school for one more year.
