the turth?

His name was Bryce. I inherited him when I was nine years old. Actually, he became part of our family when my mother married his uncle.
It was a second marriage for my mother, and while it might have been less than desirable for my two older brothers, for me it was a slice of heaven. We moved to a beautiful neighborhood, into house three times the size of the one in which I had been born and raised. Not only did this marriage come with a big house, a pool and huge yard, it also came with Bryce. He lived in Northern Cali with his bro and parents, but he visited often, sometimes spend entire summers with us. Bryce became my good friend. He was six years older than I, but we had a instant rapport that belied the gap in our age.

He taught me how to dive and do flips off the diving boards, he helped my stepfather build a tree house for me, he helped me learn how to expertly negoti...