Marcus sat against the headboard, his right hand wrapped in plaster and pins. The painkillers slurred his words as he tried to dictate his college essay. "Say I learned grit from football," he mumbled, then drifted off mid-sentence. Theo sat at the laptop, the cursor blinking. The deadline was midnight. His brother couldn't type a single word, so Theo would have to do it for him.

Theo typed exactly what Marcus asked for: grit, football, never giving up. He read it back and it sounded fake, like a hundred other essays. But it was Marcus's essay, not his. So he kept going, putting his brother's voice on the page even though every line felt stiff and borrowed.

Theo submitted the football essay, then texted the truth to Marcus so he'd see it first thing: "I wrote what you asked. But that's not really you, and you know it." In the morning Marcus read the text, then the essay, and just nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I know. Thanks for saying it."