Checkered Hearts
"The way his ribs curved around his heart. The adhesions from an old appendectomy—he was, what, sixteen? The scar tissue that slowed my dissection. I know the exact pressure his aorta can withstand before it tears. Does that count as knowing him?"
"No," Arthur said. But his voice had lost its edge. "That's just... information. Theo is—" He stopped. How to explain Theo? The way he laughed at crashes, at pain, at the absurdity of surviving. The way he stole Arthur's shirts and returned them smelling of gasoline and foreign cologne. The way he looked at Arthur sometimes, across the dinner table or the garage or the starting grid, with an expression that said I know you calculate everything. I d