The Broken Brother

The bass thudded through the sliding glass door like it had a fist, vibrating the cheap bottle in Tyler Mercer’s lap. He kept his wheelchair angled just out of the main path on the back deck side of the Branson house, where the drunk bodies stumbled and swayed without noticing him. The air was warm with May heat and sweat, but the glass was cold under his knuckles when he shifted, and the condensation on the beer made his grip slippery enough that he had to squeeze harder than he wanted.

Nicholas stood behind him, close enough that Tyler could feel the shadow of his body over his shoulders. Nicholas didn’t talk much tonight - he didn’t have to. His presence was a kind of pressure, like a hand on the back of Tyler’s neck. Tyler could hear the party inside: laughter breaking into cheers, music snapping louder whenever someone dared each other to do something stupid. Somewhere down the hall, a door banged and a voice yelled Morgan’s name like it was a punchline.

Tyler lifted the bottle and took a sip anyway. It tasted like warm metal and cheap hops. He swallowed it like a dare to himself. If he could keep drinking, keep watching, keep pretending he wasn’t the center of anyone’s pity, maybe he could make it to the end of the night without cracking.

“I said, you want to leave?” Nicholas asked, low, leaning down so his words wouldn’t get swallowed by the bass.

“No.” Tyler didn’t even look back. He stared at the back deck, at the sliding track that stuck sometimes when the humidity got mean, at the dark reflection of himself in the glass. His face looked too young under the porch light. His legs were a missing part everyone else kept circling around. “I’m fine.”

Nicholas made a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh. He rested one hand on the wheelchair handle like he was anchoring it. “You’ve been ‘fine’ for an hour.”

Tyler finally turned his head. Nicholas’s jaw was tight, the way it always got when he watched Tyler get treated like something fragile. Nicholas was twenty - graduated, working construction, shoulders broad enough to be intimidating if he wanted to be. Tonight he didn’t, not outwardly. Tonight he stayed close and silent, like he could hold the whole party away from Tyler with his body alone.

Tyler wanted to be grateful. He wanted to want the protection. But pride had its own weight. Tyler hated how easy it was for people to decide what he needed.

The living room door thumped open somewhere inside, and a wave of noise rolled over the deck. Someone screamed laughter. Someone else dropped something glassy and it shattered. The music kept going like it hadn’t heard.

Tyler tightened his grip on the bottle, the slickness making his fingers ache. “Morgan’s here,” he said, because the words came out before he could stop them. If he could latch onto a distraction - if he could focus on her - maybe he wouldn’t start counting the ways the night could hurt him.

Nicholas’s eyes flicked toward the house. “Yeah.”

Tyler didn’t ask what Nicholas meant by it. He didn’t ask why Nicholas kept hovering. He didn’t ask why his brother’s silence felt like warning.

He could hear Morgan’s laugh now, bright and sharp, threading through the chaos. She had a way of making people lean toward her. That was the whole problem. She made attention feel like a gift instead of something stolen.

Tyler set the bottle down on the deck rail for a second, just to free his hands. His fingers hovered near the wheel spokes, restless. The air smelled like beer and weed and the chemical bite of body spray that tried too hard to cover sweat. His throat felt dry anyway.

“Ty,” Nicholas said, and the nickname landed heavier than it should’ve.

Tyler looked back at him. “What?”

Nicholas’s gaze held Tyler’s for a beat too long. Then he said, “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

Tyler almost laughed. Regret was what filled him up these days. Regret that his mother hadn’t been able to dodge a drunk driver. Regret that his legs were gone, that his life had been split in two and he was stuck on the wrong side. Regret that he couldn’t walk into rooms like everyone else. Regret that he still wanted things and still hated needing them.

“I won’t,” Tyler said, and the lie tasted better than the beer.

*

Inside, the party shifted the way weather shifts - sudden, dramatic, unavoidable. Tyler heard it before he saw it: chairs scraping, feet pounding down the hallway, voices clustering. The sliding glass door rattled as someone brushed it on the other side, and Tyler’s shoulders tightened.

Nicholas leaned in. “They’re coming out here.”

Tyler’s stomach turned like the wheels of his chair had hit a crack in the deck. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was the old, familiar sensation of being pulled into something he hadn’t agreed to, forced into the spotlight while everyone pretended it was his choice.

Morgan appeared first, moving through the crowd like she owned the sound. Her hair was damp-looking under the lights, and she wore a grin that promised fun....