Alicia completely understood the brother situation. She loved her older brother, but he'd become something she didn't recognize. He wasn't Nick anymore. After their dad had died, it was like something inside of Nick just changed. Like something just switched off and he didn't care anymore. It wasn't like Alicia didn't get it, he was her dad too. But, with Nick and his drug problem it was like that took precedence. He was the one everyone was worried about. He would disappear for days, sometimes even weeks or longer, and finding him was always the priority. Nick was always the priority. That was why Alicia had stayed so focused on school, because she wanted to get out of there. She wanted to be out of Nick's shadow, so to speak. She wanted to not have to worry about him or any of her family anymore. She'd gotten into Berkeley and she had one more year, that's what she'd said to Matt so many times. One more year. But that was over now. Alicia wasn't going to Berkeley, she wasn't going anywhere now it seemed. She was going to school in a place she didn't know and surrounded by people who had no familiarity to them whatsoever.
"I get that, you know." Alicia finally said. "My brother, Nick, he..." She wasn't sure why she was telling Sam all this, but she felt comfortable with him. He had a calming presence. "After our dad died, he got into drugs. Basically my brother is a junkie." There, she'd said it. The cold, hard, bitter truth. "Totally different circumstance than you, I'm sure, but I get the brother thing, at least. Mine just prefers heroin or whatever his next fix might be."
Alicia got quiet for a few long seconds, just looking at the people walking by. "He's a total son of a bitch, asshole, you name it." She laughed a little. "But, he's my brother. I wanted away from them. My family. Nick was always the focus, you know? It was like I wasn't even there sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I know they loved me. But, I was never getting out from under his shadow, you konw?"