All This Life by Joshua Mohr

fun.”
    â€œWhat was?”
    â€œStomping those fools.”
    â€œWhat did you do to Rodney?”
    â€œI gained some respect for him today,” says Hank. “He didn’t have to square up with me. I’d already whupped the other dumb asses. But he wanted to take a go. It was impressive.”
    â€œDoes he need a doctor?”
    â€œHe’s needed a doctor ever since the balloon.”
    â€œYou know what I’m asking.”
    â€œHe’s fine, Baby Sis. He’ll have a headache, but these things happen.”
    Sara swells with conflicting sensations, a different kind of conjoined twins. On one hand, she’s happy that Felix got hooked, glad that the buffoon learned that there are consequences for being nasty. But she has guilt now, too. Some shame that it’s her fault that Rodney got hurt. She’ll apologize. It’s easy to be honest with him because she once loved him, probably still does deep down, in some unhelpful ways. They’d still be dating if he’d never mounted that balloon, and because of that he deserves the truth.
    And so does her brother, her protector. She loves the fact that he went down there for her. She loves that there’s no thinking with Hank, no weighing the pros and cons, no looking at problems from all sides and selecting the prudent course.
    No, Hank only leaps.
    He loves her and he leaps.
    He loves her and he leaps and she is protected.
    It’s going to be a hard conversation, but Sara has to be strong. He’s been strong for her, and Sara has to meet his brawn with some of her own.
    â€œThere’s something I need to tell you, Hank,” says Sara. “I’m sorry this happened, but you should hear it from me.”
    Her brother’s face, its mass of freckles and moles and some acne from the steroids, has a tenderness to it that Sara hadn’t expected to see. Normally, he wears his rage like war paint, but now he looks gentle and concerned.
    â€œEveryone already knows,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
    â€œYou know?”
    â€œI’ll beat Nat’s ass for you,” says Hank. “Wanna beer?”
    â€œSure.”
    He gets two more out of the fridge, and they sit at the sticky kitchen table. “You okay?” he asks.
    â€œI ruined my life.”
    The dog rests his head on Hank’s huge thigh. “Don’t say that.”
    â€œWhat’s left for me?”
    Hank rubs Bernard’s head. “Why are you asking that, Baby Sis?”
    Sara loves it when he calls her that. Baby Sis. So familial. What you call someone you love, no matter what they do.
    â€œI trusted Nat,” Sara says, checking her phone again to see if he’s responded to her texts, which he hasn’t. She sets the phone on the table next to the pile of fingernails and turns it over so she can’t see its teasing face. “I’m so stupid.”
    â€œYou can’t ruin your life, Sara, because our lives were already pretty ruined.”
    â€œDon’t say our lives are ruined.”
    â€œPretty ruined.”
    â€œThat’s not better,” she says.
    â€œLook around,” Hank says, pointing toward the squalor drenching their house, and right on cue the fridge burps and snorts. “This ain’t the Ritz. Hell, people probably thought you’d have six sex tapes by now.”
    For the first time all day, Sara laughs. For the first time since hearing about what Nat had done, she’s unaware of her body. She’s not thinking about her vibrating hands. She’s unaware that her heart has slowed to its normal resting rate.
    The laughter is pure. It is encompassing, taking over all of her conscious mind, freeing her. For that moment she is a human being without a digital twin. She has no mirror in cyberspace. Hers is an identity unmarred by technology. Sara is a laughing woman drinking a beer with her brother.
    â€œSix sex tapes!” she says, leaning over and punching