He'd practiced what he'd say. He'd practiced in the bathroom mirror with the fan on so no one would hear. He'd say, It's not really mine. It's ours. But it has to stay in the living room. That's the rule. And Caleb would get it — Caleb would get the whole thing in one second, the way Caleb always got things before Jordan even finished explaining them — and Caleb would laugh his real laugh, the one that went up at the end, and say, You're such a weirdo, and they'd hook it up right there with the pizza boxes still on the table, and play.
That was it. That was the whole plan. They'd play.
He hadn't planned for Caleb's face. He hadn't planned for Caleb to say cool in that flat, gone voice and walk away before Jordan could even get the little box off his lap. He'd sat there with it for a second, not understanding, and then he'd gotten up and followed, because maybe it could still work, maybe he could still do it in the kitchen, it didn't have to be at the table—
What do I have to do to be your favorite.
Jordan pulled his knees up and put his forehead on them.
Here was the thing that nobody knew. Here was the thing he hadn't told Dr. Ines, even, even though she always said there was nothing he could tell her that would make her think less of him. He'd thought about it. He'd almost said it, a bunch of times, sitting in the purple beanbag with the owl machine going shhhhhh. But it was too stupid to say out loud.
The thing was that he didn't care about being Mom's favorite. He knew Mom loved him. He knew it so much it was almost boring. It was like knowing the floor was there.
What he wanted, what he'd wanted so long that he couldn't remember not wanting it, was to be Caleb's.
Not favorite, even. Just — somebody Caleb looked at. Somebody Caleb saw when he walked into a room. When Jordan was little, Caleb used to let him sleep on the floor of his room on a pile of couch cushions when there were thunderstorms, and they'd play Grandpa's old PlayStation 2 at the barn on Saturdays, the one with the cracked tray, and Caleb was always Player One and Jordan was always Player Two and Jordan didn't care, he never cared, because Player Two still got to play. Player Two was still in the game.
Then Caleb turned twelve and started wearing headphones all the time, even when nothing was playing, and stopped coming to the barn, and started saying go away, Jord, I'm busy, and Dev moved in, and then there was the thing with Eli and the lunch table in October that Jordan didn't think about, he wasn't thinking about it right now, and then there was the front door, and the wave, and Caleb didn't notice any of it. Caleb, who noticed everything. Caleb, who'd once noticed that Jordan's left shoe was untied from across a whole soccer field. Caleb didn't notice that Jordan ate lunch in the library. Caleb didn't notice that there was no orthodontist.
So Jordan had made a plan. If you couldn't get someone to look at you, you could get them to look at something you were holding.
It was stupid. He saw that now. Sitting on his bed at 11:56 with the stunned bird in his chest, he saw it so clearly that it made his face hot. He'd thought if he had the thing Caleb wanted, then Caleb would want to be where he was. He'd thought about it like math. He hadn't thought about how it would look from the other side of the table. He hadn't thought about Mom saying not this spring.
There was a soft knock at his door, and Mom's voice. "Bug? You awake?"