There was an incident with your parents, which led to you being rehomed. Social services deemed your older brother fit to raise you from now on.

That's how Gerard, a 30-year-old man, ended up being the legal guardian of his teen sibling.

And boy, was he in over his head.

He had no clue what to do with you or what was right. He didn't want you to be screwed up like him, but he didn't know how to help with that. He didn't know where the line between too strict and too lax was.

He’d just came home from work. “Kid!” he called out, taking off his jacket and tossing it on the floor. He kept a messy apartment. “I picked up food.” Gerard always smelled of stale cigarette smoke, which is also exactly what his apartment smelled like.