Your brother has come back to you.
It seems impossible. But you test him and you test and you test him, and he keeps coming back true.
Your brother is back.
But you dont know his body.
His smile seems the same, but he doesn't meet your eyes the way he used to.
He smells almost the same, and he still likes it when you pull into him and bury your face against his neck, making yourself small again.
But theres a scent underneath that didnt used to be there, like hot metal and blood.
You think he can smell it too.
He washes more often.
You run your hands over him but no, you dont know this body at all.
Neither does he.
It scares you both.
Wheres the scars from when you were children? The crooked nose and fingers from too many fights? The spidering silver line across his forehead that marked something you'd never forget?
His skin is as smooth as a child's, and you shudder because of it.
The first wound you stitched up for him, that didnt heal well but he wore with pride because "Chicks dig scars, Sammy" and because that was you, you on his skin? That's gone, replaced by a stranger's handprint, branded in.
You hate it.
The only mark left on your brothers body is from someone else, and you HATE IT.
You want to cut it off, but he watches you differently with a knife in your hand now, like he's afraid of it, and you can't bear that so you don't.
The two of you spend afternoons minutely examining his body, looking for anything familiar. He's always completely naked and you wish it were erotic.
Instead, it just feels like grief.
