He's Not My Brother

The text came at 11:47 at night. Aria stared at it in the dark of her room, the glow of her phone the only light, and read it three times before the words actually landed. We need to talk tomorrow. It's important. — Dad Her dad didn't text like that. Her dad sent memes and asked if she'd eaten. He did not send we need to talk at almost midnight. She barely slept. By morning she'd convinced herself it was something small. A bill. A car problem. Something normal. She was wrong. "You remember Victoria," her dad said. They were at the kitchen table. He had two coffees poured and hadn't touched either, which was its own kind of warning. Aria's stomach dropped. Of course she remembered Victoria. The woman from his work events. The one who laughed a little too easily at his jokes. The one Aria had clocked months ago and said nothing about, because saying it out loud would make it real. "The one from your office thing," she said carefully. "We've been together three years." The coffee cup stopped halfway to her mouth. "Three years?" "I wanted to wait until things felt stable for you." He couldn't quite look at her. "I should have told you sooner." Three years. Three years of dinners that were supposed to be just the two of them. Movie nights. Sunday pancakes. The whole time he'd had an entire second life she knew nothing about. She set the cup down before her hand could shake. "Okay," she said, voice flat and careful. "So why tell me now?" He hesitated. And that hesitation told her everything before he opened his mouth. "We're getting married." The kitchen went silent. "And," he pushed on, fast now, like ripping off a bandage, "she has a son. Your age. Senior year, same as you. Her work is in LA. So we're moving. All of us. In three weeks." Aria laughed. It came out wrong, sharp and humorless. "You're joking." "Aria—" "You said we were done moving. You promised. After everything with Mom, you said this was it." "I know what I said." "Then why are you doing this?" "Because I love her." He said it simply, like it answered everything. "And you'll love her too. And her son, Cayden, he's—" "I don't care about her son." But something flickered at the name. Cayden. She didn't know why it caught. It just did. A small snag, like a thread pulling on something she couldn't see. She pushed it away. "Three weeks," she repeated. "You're blowing up my entire senior year in three weeks." "I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner. I was scared it would change things between us." "It already changed," she said quietly. "You just hid it until now." He didn't have an answer for that. She didn't wait for one. She walked to her room, closed the door — not slammed, just closed, which was worse — and sat on the edge of her bed in the quiet. Then she did the thing she'd promised herself she wouldn't do. She looked him up. It took thirty seconds. Victoria Hollis. Interior designer. A portfolio full of bright, perfect rooms. A beautiful house in Los Angeles. And then, three photos down, a family event. Victoria in a green dress, laughing at something off camera. And beside her, a guy. Tall. Dark hair, just messy enough to look effortless. An easy grin that probably worked on everyone. One arm slung around his mom's shoulders like he owned the room and knew it. Cayden Hollis. Aria froze. Because she knew that face. Not from the photo. From before. From somewhere she couldn't quite place — a flash of a memory that wouldn't fully surface, just the certainty, deep and strange, that she had seen him somewhere and that it had mattered. She stared at the screen, scrolling back through her own memory, trying to place him. Nothing came. But the feeling stayed. She put the phone face down on her bed. Senior year. Same age. New school, new house, new brother. And a face she somehow already knew and couldn't explain. "Great," she muttered to the empty room. What she didn't know — what she wouldn't find out for a long time — was that three hundred miles away, in a bright perfect house in Los Angeles, Cayden Hollis was looking at a photo of her too. And unlike her, he remembered exactly where they'd met.