Cote Smith - Hurt People

And when all hope was lost was when I came in. The long-lost brother everyone forgot about. The ex-partner who could read the victim inside and out. At first, no one would notice me. I would slide into the room unseen while the others continued with their questions. These last-ditch efforts. You’re a smart kid. Your dad’s a cop, for God’s sake. You should have known what this man was up to. Surely you felt it, the more time you spent with him. Surely you knew he was leading you down a bad path. So why stick by his side? Why not tell anyone? Why follow him down that road, unflinching?

My brother shook his head. Under the hot lamp, he said he didn’t know. And maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t understand why he stuck by Chris’s side no matter what. Why, for that small window of time, he would follow Chris to the ends of the earth, if Chris asked, despite the feeling deep in my brother’s heart that told him where you are going, where he is taking you, is someplace wrong.

Just tell us why, the cops said. Let’s start there.

I stood in the corner, looking at my reflection in the two-way glass. I smiled with the realization. The reasons I understood, even if he didn’t.

Why? the cops begged. Please, just tell us why.

In the real world I took my brother’s hand. I squeezed it. In the imaginary world, I turned dramatically away from the glass. I faced my brother and my brother smiled back at me.

I think I know, I said. Maybe I can help.

It’s not enough, but thank you to Claudia Ballard, my agent, dream maker, and champion. To my editor, Emily Bell, the raddest woman I know. Whiskey’s on me, EB, ad aeternam. To Marie-Helene Bertino and everyone at One Story , who published my first story and gave me the encouragement to continue writing.

To the amazing English teachers whose classrooms I was lucky enough to wander into over the years: Ginny Scott, Tom Lorenz, and Deb Olin Unferth. In most of your classes I was the quiet kid, but I was always listening, and am thankful that I did.

To my brilliant MFA classmates at the University of Kansas: especially Robert J. Baumann, Iris Moulton, Dan Rolf, and Chloé Cooper Jones.

To my family: My mom and dad. If anyone asks if this book is about you, tell them only the parts in which the narrator looks at his parents with an ocean of love and pride. That’s how I think of you every day. My step-dad, Gary. Step-dad is a stupid word. Hero-dad is better, and more fitting. My sister, Candi. Thank you for being more proud of me than I will ever be. My brother Brent. In the world of brothers, you’re over 9000. My brother Brett: my role model, my favorite writer, and my best friend.

To all my pets, and in particular my dog Buckley. Thank you for reminding me that there’s a world outside of writing, waiting to be explored and sniffed.

And to my wife, Nicole. I sat behind you in Miss Scott’s high school English class. The only way I could get you to talk to me was to make bets on who would do better on our vocabulary quizzes. Here are words I could define but you could not: lugubrious, obdurate, acerbic . Thus, I won. In the years since, here are words you have helped me understand: life, love , and family . I guess I won again.

Cote Smith grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, and on various army bases around the country. He earned his MFA from the University of Kansas, and his work has been featured in One Story, Crazyhorse, Third Coast , and FiveChapters , among other publications. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Hurt People is his first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.