"I dunno. It's..." How did he even begin to explain Matty to someone who'd never met him before? "Mostly it's my father. He'd never be all right with it. And Matty thinks that anything that goes wrong with me is his fault and our dad's gonna blame him for it. And he would. That's my dad."

Sam shrugged. "Matty hates that I did well in school. Hates that I applied to college. Hates that I got in. Hates that I'm attending it. You can bet your sweet ass he'd hate anyone I've met at college and the person I've turned into or whatever paranoid crap is in his head." Their father's shadow loomed large. "But he cares for me, really. So i think he's always gonna come around eventually. It's like with my hair. My dad wanted it short, Bobby couldn't handle the curls, but I never wanted it cut. So Matty stood up for me."