"I wanted to kill Aaron," Tyler told Pogue as they sat in the back of Nicky's.
"He has some balls to say that, I admit, but you know that he was only saying it to piss you off," Pogue assured his friend.
"Jamie is my sister! She isn't just any other girl. She's off limits and he knows it. I don't care about the stupid fucking feud he has with Reid. He never should have gone off of Jamie. He's such a fucking asshole!" Tyler took a long sip of his beer. "And why the fuck was she so wasted? I know she's hurting, but he could have gotten herself into a lot of trouble if we hadn't gotten her out of there. She was lucky things weren't worse than they were."
"I'm just glad that everyone else seemed to be too drunk to notice that no one actually smashed the vase, TV, or window. And at least Aaron got what he deserved. I can't believe quiet little Jamie Sims—out Jamie—punched him like that!" Pogue chuckled. Tyler couldn't help but to laugh with him.
Then Tyler thought about his conversation with Jamie that morning—about how she wasn't their Jamie anymore. She was Jamie Wheeler now. She was the wild, rebellious, party girl from Miami whom his dad had told him countless horror stories about over the last three years. They were a lot easier to ignore or deny when he wasn't witnessing them first hand. Was he ready to accept the fact that the girl he used to know was never coming back?
According to their dad Jamie—new Jamie—stayed in trouble pretty much all of the time. No stunt was too daring. Her gym teacher thought that she had transferred schools earlier that year because she had skipped his class every day for the first two weeks of school. She'd been escorted home by the police more than once in the last three years. She was so angry. Even when she was laughing or smiling Tyler could tell she was angry and hurt. She had become almost like a stranger to Tyler. He'd talked to her every week almost for three years, but Tyler was beginning to realize that he didn't know Jamie at all.
"What are you thinking about Man?" Pogue asked after they had sat in silence for almost five minutes while Tyler contemplated his relationship with Jamie.
"Was I a good brother?" he asked finally. "Before Jamie moved, was I good at being her brother? Did I really know her at all?"
"Where is this coming from?" Pogue wondered.
"When Jamie was younger, was she this angry? Did I just not notice it? Did I just casually acknowledge her existence like most people did? She talks about how much she hated Ipswich and how much she used to dream of escape. I never understood why. I was such a damn fool.
"Jamie hasn't changed as much as we think she has. We just never really took the time to pay attention to her before. At least, I didn't."