ebram ainsley. d2. fin.

People always say that when you reach a certain age, your priorities change. It's gradual until it isn't, like the sun drifting across the sky, gentle, unassuming, until it practically crashes into the horizon. But I think it's the same with kids - tantrums fade away to sulking, pulling pigtails turns into pulling punches, crayons get replaced with makeshift weapons until those get replaced with real weapons.

I can't remember the birthday party our Mom had thrown that year, but I remember that when my brother turned eleven he was already top of the class.

That's how it starts.

Zinnias were Mom's favourite flowers.

Before I moved out, she told me that she always liked how bright they were, how happy they made her, these little splashes of bright colour that she set on the kitchen windowsill every morning.

She told me how much they reminded her of Zeke.

And so eventually, inevitably, he got too big for his breeches. Zeke let his ego get in the way and started talking about volunteering, boasted about how he would come home with a gilded crown and make our parents proud.

I knew I could never do that. I knew I would never be stupid enough to sacrifice myself. But I knew Zeke would be that stupid. Which meant I could never let him go through with it.

If he came back with that kind of victory on his shoulders, I'd never be able to catch up.

I figured a few busted ribs would put him out of commission for a while, just long enough so that we could both hit nineteen and the playing field would be even again.

Maybe, I thought, a shattered tibia would help too. Just to be safe.

It was so dark that night, a new moon, but I still remember the way his bones had crunched against the tire iron.

I still remember, for the first time in my life, winning.

I was the one who got married first.

No one wanted my brother after he was crippled, certainly not after he lost his position at the centre. Because that was mine now, and by the time we were both twenty, I was finally out of his shadow. I had the job he had always wanted, one of the new career trainers that he had always thrived under the attention of.

And he got stuck with a limp, something forever shifted in his leg, and he starting working the books instead.

There was a girl he used to have a crush on when we were kids, little Marie Stealt, the one who spent almost every day in the back corner perfecting her spear throw. I remember her putting it to good use whenever anyone got to close.

And she was cute, kind of pretty in a way, and she seemed to be good enough to get Zeke's attention.

We had our first date a month after his accident and got married two years later.

Ever.