"I bought it online," Bryn said to me, playing with the chain of the made-in-China pocket watch dangling in his hand. "Stupid, I know. I just thought it was cool."

"Naw, man," I laughed, not really knowing what else to say without sounding old as shit. So instead of saying anything else, I took another drag off my cigarette and wiped the sweat forming on the back of my neck.

I don't know why, but he made me nervous now. Somewhere along the line, Bryn went from this nerdy, smelly kid I was always trying to get away from to this…this guy. This guy who made me feel old as shit.

"It's fuckin' hot out here," I said.

"Yeah."

Here he was, about to go start a real life, leaving me to sit here in my ma's backyard, smoking cigarettes on her picnic table as I stare at the ass end of my neighbor's fence.

"What time you heading out?" I asked, and my brother took a deep breath in and looked up at the sky and said, " around three-ish." I tell you, the kid might not talk like me but he was definitely my blood. The way he moved, his gestures. You know how, when someone has you all figured out, they give you this look? Like they're not impressed or amused or even interested in you, because they already know what you're about. Anyway, that's what it was like looking into Bryn's eyes, except, he didn't know he had me figured out. It was like looking in a mirror that didn’t know it was reflecting.

"You gonna be alright?" He asked me. And I know he was trying to ask in the best way possible to allow me to save face, but shit. There ain't nothing like your kid brother worrying about you. If there's anything that'll make you feel like a fuck up, it's that.

"Yeah, I'm clean."

"Because if you need anything, I can—"

"Naw man, I said I'm clean." I tried to say it with a little chuckle, as though it wasn't weighing on me like the end of some rusty iron bars, digging into my back. Because here was my little brother, about to go to college and become a doctor, saving the world. Saving people like me. Maybe even saving people from people like me. And what was I doing? This. While he would be going to orientations and meeting new people and starting new relationships, this would be the highlight of my year. This, here, right now.

"What time you got?" I asked, and Bryn looked at that wannabe Old-School style pocket watch.

"Two."

He didn’t know it yet, but this would be the last time I'd see Bryn like this. As real family. Next time, it'd be him bringing home a girl for Thanksgiving, talking to the family about anatomy and shit while he introduces me as his brother, and I can see the 'oh that brother' look in her eyes.

That brother.

Time is relative, they say. So maybe all of this is relative too. Maybe there's a place somewhere along the space/time continuum or whatever, where I'm not a fuck up. Where the fork in the road the brought me here never existed, and I'm coming home for Thanksgiving letting Bryn borrow my old college books. Or maybe, if time is relative, like they say, the old days are still happening. And I can go back there and stay there and choose to never leave there, and Bryn can be following me around asking me what kinda music to listen to again.

Yeah, that's funny. There's some people in life you wish you could manipulate time for. Very few people like that in my life. And that's love.

-The Mouse