After that stressful and absurd morning, I had Amanda drop me off at my apartment in Brooklyn. The drive was silent: Manhattan traffic thinning slowly, streets becoming more familiar. I stared out the window, hands still trembling on my knees, bag clutched like it held the last shred of normalcy. Amanda shot me worried glances now and then, but didn't speak. She knew I needed space to breathe.

When we arrived, I got out of the car with heavy legs, heels still making me wobble slightly on the asphalt.

"Thanks for the ride, Amanda," I murmured, leaning toward the window. "Talk later."

She nodded, gaze sweet and worried.

"Call if you need anything, okay?"

I watched her drive away, the Honda slipping into traffic with a low rumble and vanishing among the cars. I stayed there a moment on the sidewalk, late afternoon sun warming my skin through the borrowed suit fabric, makeup starting to weigh on my face like a suffocating patina, a mask I couldn't wait to remove.

I pulled the keys from my bag, slipped them into the building door lock. That metallic click gave me a small relief, the sound of a return, even if temporary, after a day that seemed endless.

I climbed the stairs slowly, each step an added weight on tired legs. On the third floor I inserted the key into the apartment lock and turned. The door opened with a slight snap.

Immediately the home smell enveloped me: fresh-brewed coffee, lemon floor cleaner, a vague hint of incense Trick had burned the night before.

But inside, I already heard voices.

Trick laughing heartily at something, that full, contagious laugh always filling the space.

And another voice lower, familiar.

David.

I took a long breath, plastered on one of those smiles I used to mask horrible days, and crossed the threshold.

The kitchen-living room was as always: spacious, with the solid wood table in the center, wide couch facing the flat TV mounted on the low cabinet cluttered with books, vinyls, and the vintage stereo David tended like a treasure. Trick was sprawled on the couch, feet on the armrest, remote in hand, immersed in a basketball game replay. David was at the sink, rinsing two plates—probably lunch leftovers—with slow.

"Hey," I said from the threshold, leaning on the doorframe with what I hoped looked relaxed.

Trick was the first to turn.

"Hey, you're back."

David turned, drying his hands on the dish towel, and stared at me for a moment.

"And who the fuck are you?"

"David, it's Matt," Trick interjected, chuckling.

David burst into an incredulous laugh, shaking his head.

"What the hell is all this? Don't tell me you need extra cash."

The joke seemed straight from Samy's mouth, not his—David wasn't usually one for sharp irony.

"Very funny," I replied, trying to keep a light tone. "It's not what it looks like."

Trick, now more at ease without Amanda around, sat up.

"With that smudged makeup I'd say it looks exactly what David means."

"You're both idiots," I shot back, but exhaustion weighed on my shoulders like an invisible cloak.

I dropped into the chair, set my bag on the table with a slow, almost exhausted gesture, then interlaced my fingers in my lap, squeezing them hard like to hold together the fragments of me threatening to unravel.

I took a breath.

And started telling: the interview, the disguise, the case to examine. But I kept Andrew Harrington out of it all. That part stayed sealed inside, a knot too complex, too intimate, too risky to untie there, in that moment, under David's eyes staring at me from across the table.

As I spoke, his face changed silently, frame by frame.

First pure incredulity: eyebrows arching, mouth parting slightly in a mute "seriously?"

Then worry clouding his eyes, forehead furrowing as he tried to fit the pieces.

And finally something quieter, deeper: not anger, but real fear, the kind cracking his eyelids and making his voice tremble when he finally managed to say:

"What have you done?" He approached with slow steps. "Matthias... have you lost your mind? This isn't a prank, it's madness that could destroy your life."

I looked him in the eyes.

"David, they didn't discover me. It went smooth."

But he shook his head, worry marking his forehead.

"That's not the point. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is? False declaration, identity fraud... you could end up in serious trouble, the kind you don't get out of easily. And for what? To prove something to people who don't even deserve you?"

His words hit me like a slow, deep slap, leaving me defenseless.

Trick interjected, trying to ease the tension.

"Dude," he said to David, "calm down a sec."

"I'm calm," David replied, but his voice cracked just a bit, a subtle tremor betraying everything. "But did you hear what he did? It might be a stupidity to you, but it's a powerful firm. They're capable of annihilating your career, ruining everything. And I'm supposed to stay calm while he risks like this?"

I glared at him, even though inside I knew he was right.

"David, it's none of your business. Live your quiet life. You're not my father!"

The words came out harsher than I wanted.

David's mouth hung open, eyes clouding with raw pain, impossible to mask. I saw his face crumble silently: lips trembling just a bit, jaw clenching to hold the blow, gaze lowering for an instant, hurt deep, like those words had opened a wound in his chest and everything else was collapsing inside.

My gaze slid to the TV screen, and as if fate wanted to rub it in, a luxury perfume ad started. In refined black and white, there he was: Andrew Harrington, black suit, eyes piercing the lens with alluring intensity while spraying the fragrance on his sculpted neck.

"Oh, fuck," I growled through my teeth, a muffled sound vibrating in my throat.

I rose from the chair with a sudden snap, palms pressing the table edge for momentum. The chair scraped the floor with a strident whine, a sharp scratch grating my nerves.

I spun on my heels and marched to the bedroom, quick and heavy steps. I pushed the door hard, wood slamming the frame with a thud, the noise echoing in the hallway like an explosion.

It wasn't a calculated gesture: it was visceral impulse, a desperate attempt to bar out the turmoil boiling inside me, anger, craving, frustration, all wrapped in a scorching knot I no longer knew how to untie.

I started undressing with fury: shoes flew into a corner, skirt and blouse ended crumpled on the chair, I yanked off the wig with a rabid gesture, the liquid glue resisting a moment before giving, pulling the skin with a stinging burn along the hairline, right on the forehead where the edges had glued to the skin.

Then I removed the silicone prosthetics, cursing under my breath as I detached them: sweat had made them slick, clinging to the skin.

I sat in front of the mirror, grabbed Amanda's makeup removers, cleansing milk, cotton pads, toner, and inhaled deeply, trying to anchor to the present. But when I started rubbing my face, the movements were furious, almost punitive: cotton scraping skin, milk dissolving foundation in grayish streaks, toner burning slightly on irritated areas. Every swipe was an attempt to erase not just the makeup, but the entire day.

I continued until the mirror no longer reflected Madison Reed, but just Matthias: flushed face, shiny eyes, lips swollen from the lipstick rubbed off too hard.

From the door crack filtered Trick and David's voices from the kitchen, a contrasted murmur seeping into my room's silence.

Trick insisted with his carefree tone, almost playful:

"It was just a game, boys' fun."

But for me it wasn't at all.

David didn't go along.

"A smart guy, graduated like him should have more sense," he murmured, voice cracked by worry he couldn't hide. "Not throw himself into such crazy risks. You don't get how much it could cost him."

Those words didn't hurt me in the conventional sense.

No, they penetrated deeper, with a sneaky, painful slowness, because I understood them perfectly.

I understood them all too well.

David saw me as a little brother. He'd never said it outright, but one evening, after a few too many beers, he'd let me glimpse it.

We were alone in the kitchen, the dim chandelier light casting long shadows on the table. Empty bottles piled up slowly, and David spoke little, as usual. But that time his voice cracked just a bit, a subtle tremor I'd never heard before.

"You know, Matthias," he started, staring at the bottle bottom like his whole past was in there, "you remind me of him."

I didn't ask who.

I already knew.

He continued, voice cracked:

"When my parents kicked me out after my coming out... I was about twenty. I packed in half an hour and left. Didn't say goodbye to anyone. Only him, my little brother, watched from the kitchen window. He was fifteen. He waved at me, like saying 'don't go.'"

David paused long, breath breaking in his throat. He took a swig, like the beer could wash away the knot gripping his voice.

"He saw me as a hero. Followed me everywhere, copied how I walked, laughed at my jokes even when they weren't funny. But when I left, I thought it'd be okay. That my parents would protect him, that he'd grow up anyway, that maybe one day he'd understand why I had to go. Instead..."

David swallowed.

His eyes clouded, but he didn't cry. Just gripped the bottle harder, knuckles white.

"After a while I heard he started hanging with the wrong crowd. Drugs. Nights out. Disappearing for days. My parents sent angry messages, like it was my fault. Like my leaving had opened a wrong path and he'd fallen in, lost. I tried to go back. Every time I found him, I begged. 'Come with me, I'll take you to a safe place, I'll help you.' I talked to him for hours on the phone, wrote letters he didn't answer. Once I met him in a parking lot, he was thin, eyes empty. He looked at me and said: 'You left first, Dave. Don't come playing savior now.'"

His voice cracked, just.

He passed a hand over his face, like wiping away the image.

"I tried. God, how I tried. But it was too late. He was too far. Too far."

A broken breath.

"One day I found him on a Bronx sidewalk. It was February, a damp cold that seeped into your bones and wouldn't leave. A dark side street behind Fordham Road, one where the streetlights hadn't worked in years and the smell of old piss and rotting trash stuck in your throat. I saw him from afar, before realizing it was him. Curled against a dirty brick wall. Hoodie hood up almost hiding his whole face, like he wanted to disappear into himself. Knees pulled to chest, hands abandoned in lap, palms up, limp and dirty fingers. I stopped ten meters away. My heart jumped to my throat so hard for a moment I didn't breathe.

I took the last steps running, tripping on an empty bottle that rolled away with an empty clink. I knelt there, on the frozen concrete, ignoring the cold soaking my jeans, ignoring the cars whizzing inches away. 'Brother... hey... look at me.' I took his face in my hands. It was icy. Too icy. Gray skin, almost transparent, like wet tissue paper. Bluish lips, slightly parted, no color left. Eyes half-open, glassy, fixed on a distant point that didn't exist anymore. That empty gaze. That gaze that sees nothing anymore. No light left, nothing behind the dilated pupils. Just a deep, dead black, like someone had turned off the bulb inside him and left the room dark. There was still some white powder on his fingers, on his knuckles, wedged under short, ruined nails. The final trace of what had taken him away. I pulled him against me. His body was heavy, limp, like an empty sack. 'I'll take you home, okay? I'll take you home now. Let's get out of here.' But there was nothing left to take home. He was seventeen... Just seventeen."

David raised his eyes to me for the first time since he'd started talking. They were red, shiny, but shed no tears. It seemed he'd used them all up long before.

"Seventeen, Matt. He still had a kid's voice when he laughed. And I... I couldn't bring him home. I couldn't save him. I left to save myself, and I left him there. Alone."

That evening I said nothing.

I just squeezed his hand hard, fingers interlaced with his like that contact could stem the silent collapse happening inside him.

But inside me something cracked.

I cried for him, for that brother he'd lost.

I cried for the pain David still carried sewn into his skin, every day, every hour, without ever asking me to help bear it.

I cried because I knew he never forgave himself for leaving, for leaving his brother there, alone, to plunge into an abyss he felt he'd opened himself.

And maybe he'd never forgive himself.

That's why he worried so much about me: his voice trembled when, in the kitchen, he listed the risks, the stupidities that seem harmless at first but can snatch a person away in a breath.

He was afraid of losing me, of seeing me slip away, of arriving too late again.

I understood it in that instant, with a clarity that burned: it was brotherly affection.

I finished removing my makeup in front of the desk mirror.

I collapsed on the bed: the mattress took my weight with a deep give, like it too had reached the day's edge.

I closed my eyes, intent on shutting everything out: the thoughts spinning in vain, the lingering images, David's voice still echoing in my ears, the memory of his brother curled on that sidewalk.

But tears came anyway, silent, scorching, unstoppable. They slipped from the corners of my eyes, traced slow paths along my temples, soaked the hair at my ears and the pillow under my head.

I didn't sob.

I didn't writhe, didn't hug my arms to my chest like to stem the flow.

I simply let go.

It was like my body had decided on its own to shed a burden my hands couldn't hold anymore: a tangle of lies and guilt born in a few hours and already unbearable.

I couldn't pretend anymore that it was all under control. I couldn't convince myself the risk was measured, that caution was enough not to get unmasked.