"Bro or Dirk or-- whoever else you are in there?" Steven asks, shrewdly. "You said when we met you've been a lot of guys."
He shrugs. "I didn't raise her," he says after a long moment, because suddenly he does want to talk about her. "I mean, I'm older, but not by that much. She'd have been... your age. Tyler's age. Honestly, with that kind of difference we shouldn't have been close. And we weren't until she was four and I was thirteen, when she started breaking into my room and getting into my stuff. But she was-- special. Brilliant. Intuitive. I tried to teach her... god, how to fake normal, I guess. And why it was important. And she was someone I didn't have to be fake around."
Re: This is prose now,
He shrugs. "I didn't raise her," he says after a long moment, because suddenly he does want to talk about her. "I mean, I'm older, but not by that much. She'd have been... your age. Tyler's age. Honestly, with that kind of difference we shouldn't have been close. And we weren't until she was four and I was thirteen, when she started breaking into my room and getting into my stuff. But she was-- special. Brilliant. Intuitive. I tried to teach her... god, how to fake normal, I guess. And why it was important. And she was someone I didn't have to be fake around."