Then one afternoon he came through the door and threw his backpack down so hard it skidded across the floor.
“Owen called me his brother again.”
I almost laughed. “Maybe he’s just teasing you, bud.”
Ethan glared at me like I wasn’t taking this seriously enough. “He keeps saying we have the same dad but different moms. It’s so annoying.”
Something in my stomach pulled tight for a second, sharp enough that I actually stopped what I was doing. Then I told myself the obvious thing — kids say bizarre stuff all the time, half of it borrowed from a show they watched or a rumor that got twisted three times over on the playground.
“Just ignore him,” I told Ethan. “He’s probably just trying to get a reaction out of you.”
A week later, the school called.
“Ethan got into another fight with Owen,” the principal said. “This one was serious. We need you to come in right away.”
