His Brother’s Ruin

The Tearing

The security guard had been stern but respectful once she’d stammered out Liam Vanderbilt’s name. She’d been “escorted” off the property, not charged. The taste of Kaelan was still on her lips in the Uber home, a phantom brand that made her stomach churn with shame.

She scrubbed her mouth raw with the back of her hand, but it was no use. The memory was seared in, brighter and more visceral than the ghost of his adolescent cruelties. She needed to remember that. Not the man who kissed like a conqueror in the dark, but the boy who had been her personal monster.

She went to the walk-in closet in Liam’s apartment, her apartment now, too, and pushed past the tailored silks and soft cashmere. In the back, on a high shelf, was a single, battered cardboard box labeled “Mom’s Storage.” She pulled it down, dust motes dancing in the lamplight.

Inside, beneath a few yearbooks she never opened, was a smaller, shoebox-sized container. She lifted the lid.

The smell of old paper and grief wafted out. Here were the relics she had kept, not the ones Kaelan had stolen, but the survivors. A dried corsage from a middle school dance she’d attended alone. A stack of Scholarship Applicant letters. And at the very bottom, a sketchbook. Its cover was a marbled composition book, stained with what looked like grape juice.

She opened it.

Her younger self stared back delicate pencil studies of hands, of leaves, of the oak tree. The drawings were good. They were alive. She turned a page.

FLASHBACK - TEN YEARS AGO

The art room was her sanctuary. The smell of turpentine and clay was the smell of peace. She was putting the final touches on a watercolor, a jar of brushes on a sunlit windowsill, a study in transparency and light. It was the best thing she’d ever done. She was lost in the flow, her tongue caught between her teeth.

“What’s this? The pauper’s attempt at still life?”

Her head snapped up. Kaelan Vanderbilt leaned in the doorway, flanked by two of his lacrosse disciples. He wasn’t in her class. He never just visited.

“It’s for Mr. Albrecht,” she said, her voice small. She instinctively curved her arm around the painting.

“Let’s see.” It wasn’t a request. He strolled over, his casual arrogance taking up all the air. He looked at the painting, his head tilted. For a second, she thought she saw something flicker in his cold eyes, not admiration, but a kind of furious recognition. It vanished.

“It’s derivative,” he pronounced. “Boring. Just like you.” His finger, clad in a simple silver ring she’d later learn was a family crest, hovered over the wet paper. “I need something.”

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He smirked. And then he dragged his finger straight through the center of her jar, smearing the cobalt blue and burnt sienna into a muddy, ruined gash.

A sound escaped her, a small, animal whimper of pain. The destruction was so casual, so absolute.

He leaned down, his breath smelling of mint and privilege, his voice for her alone. “The world doesn’t need your pretty little pictures, Elara. It eats gentle things alive.”

He straightened, laughed with his friends, and ramble out, leaving her staring at the wreckage. The tear that plopped onto the ruined paper mixed with the paint, creating a new, ugly color.

PRESENT DAY

Elara flinched, touching the page in the sketchbook as if the wound were still fresh. She turned another page. Half the drawings here were defaced. A mustache drawn on a portrait. The word “TRY-HARD” scrawled across a landscape.

The next page was blank. But something was written there in a familiar, slashing script, fresh ink on the old paper. Her blood turned to ice.

It was Kaelan’s handwriting. Now.

It read: “You painted over the scar. I bought the original from Albrecht last year. It hangs in my study. The tear stain is the most honest part.”

A wave of nausea hit her. He hadn’t just kept her trinkets. He was actively hunting down every artifact of her pain, buying them, preserving them. The violation was boundless.

Her phone buzzed on the carpet. A text from an unknown number, now saved in her phone under a chilling contact name: K.V.

K.V.: Did you find my note? I wondered when you’d look. The past isn't a box you close, Elara. It's a foundation. You built your strength on what I did. Admit it.

She threw the phone across the room. It hit the soft rug with a thud. She hugged her knees to her chest, rocking slightly. He was in her head, in her history, in her home.

The front door unlocked. “Honey, I’m home!” Liam’s cheerful call echoed.

Panic seized her. She scrambled, shoving the sketchbook back in the box, pushing the box back onto the shelf, smoothing her hair as she emerged from the closet.

“In here!” she called, her voice strangled.

Liam appeared, looking tired but happy. He carried a large, flat gift-wrapped box. “Look what just arrived at the office for you! No note. Must be an early wedding present.”

The box was the same size as the one that had held the portfolio. Elara’s breath hitched. “Who… who’s it from?”

“No idea. Fancy wrapping, though.” He set it on the bed. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

With trembling fingers, she untied the silver ribbon. She lifted the lid, dreading a cold stone in her gut.

Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a framed watercolor. It was the jar of brushes on the windowsill. Her watercolor. The one Kaelan had ruined. But it had been professionally, meticulously restored. The ugly gash was gone, the colors vibrant. Only if you looked incredibly closely, under the glare of the museum-quality glass, could you see a faint, textured irregularity in the paper where his finger had torn through the “tear stain” he’d mentioned.

It was a masterpiece of twisted sentiment. He’d destroyed it, then paid to have it restored, and now he was giving it back to her as a perverse symbol of… what? His capacity for repair? Their shared history?

“Wow,” Liam breathed, peering over her shoulder. “That’s stunning. Is that your work? The style looks like yours from the sketchbook.”

“It… it is,” she whispered.

“It’s beautiful. So delicate.” He kissed her cheek. “See? You’ve always been amazing.” He was so proud, so utterly blind to the horror story behind the frame.

“Who would send this?” Liam mused, picking up the empty box, looking for a card.

Elara stared at the painting, at the ghost of her own tear, now preserved forever under glass by the man who caused it. This wasn’t a gift. It was a manifesto. I can break you. I can put you back together. I own every version of you.

Her phone, facedown on the rug across the room, buzzed again.

She knew what it would say without looking.

The past wasn’t just cracking the facade. It was methodically taking a hammer to it, and Kaelan was waiting for her in the wreckage.