The Brother She Was Meant To Love

Chapter 4

The library had become their place without either of them deciding it.

Damien slid a worksheet across the table, tapping the corner of it twice. “Try this one on your own first.”

Jennie chewed the end of her pen, eyes moving over the numbers. A minute passed. She wrote something, crossed it out, wrote something else.

“There.” She turned the page toward him, almost proud.

He looked it over, then looked at her instead. “You didn’t need me for that one.”

“I know.” She smiled down at the page. “Felt good anyway.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched her gather her books a moment longer than the silence needed.

Weeks later, she found him in the courtyard during lunch, alone, a sandwich untouched beside him and a book open in his lap.

“You’re antisocial,” she said, dropping onto the bench beside him without asking.

“I enjoy my space.”

“That’s what antisocial people say.” She reached over and took half his sandwich before he could answer, biting into it like it was already agreed she could.

He watched her eat it. “That was mine.”

“You weren’t using it.”

He almost smiled.

It was raining the day she showed up at the tutoring session soaked through, hair plastered to her face, laughing at herself.

“I forgot my umbrella. Obviously.”

He got up without a word, pulled his jacket off, and set it around her shoulders. His hands stayed there a second too long before he stepped back.

“You’ll get sick,” he said, like that explained it.

“You gave me your jacket. Now you’ll get sick.”

“I run warm.”

“Thank you,” She said her cheeks getting red like a tomato.

She pulled it tighter around herself anyway, and didn’t argue further, and something in the way she looked at him afterward made him have to look away first.

Jason has been watching their interactions, and he knew that Jennie has friend zoned him keeping him at arms length and always claimed too busy to hang out with him while she is all around Damien.

She promised to hang out with him today after practice but sent a text instead that something came up.

He’d gone looking for Damien after practice instead, cutting through the courtyard, and stopped at the edge of it when he saw them Jennie laughing at something, Damien’s jacket still around her shoulders from two weeks ago, like she’d just never given it back. Like it had become hers.

He didn’t approach. He stood there a moment, jaw tight, then turned and walked the other way.

That night at dinner, he was quiet in a way that wasn’t like him.

“You’re not eating,” Mrs. Yates said, frowning at his plate.

“Not hungry.” He pushed a piece of chicken across his plate without lifting it. Then, like it had just occurred to him: “Did you know Damien’s been trying to steal my girlfriend?”

Mrs. Yates set her fork down. “What?”

“Jennie. I told you about her. He’s been meeting her every week. Tutoring, he calls it.” Jason’s voice cracked at the edges, just enough. “I saw them today. He gave her his jacket.”

“Damien,” their mother said sharply. “Is this true?”

Damien looked up from his plate slowly. “I’ve been tutoring her, yes. She’s not his girlfriend, Jason has never….”

“He’s lying,” Jason cut in, looking at his plate now, voice smaller. “He knows I like her and he went after her anyway.”

“Stop spilling s**t you know that’s not what happened.” Damien’s hands had gone still on the table.

“Enough.” Mr. Yates’s voice, quiet, cut through both of them. He looked at Damien, something unreadable behind his eyes. “You knew your brother had feelings for this girl.”

“I didn’t go after her because of Jason. I’ve liked her since before he even noticed her…”

“So you admit it.” Mrs. Yates’s voice had gone thin, careful, the way it always did when Jason’s name came up in trouble. “You knew, and you pursued her anyway. Knowing how your brother feels.”

“That’s not…” Damien stopped himself, jaw working. He looked at Jason, who wasn’t looking back, eyes down, shoulders hunched just enough to look wounded.

He knew that posture. He’d seen it his whole life.

“I’m not doing this to hurt him,” Damien said, quieter now, because he could already feel the room deciding without him. “I care about her. He only wants her because I want her”

“You’re the older one, Damien.” His father’s voice again, flat, final. “You know what your brother has been through. Are you going to fight with him because of a girl?.”

“So I’m supposed to give her up too.” It came out before he could stop it, sharper than he meant it, years of it behind the words. “And she is not just any girl.” He pointed out.

Silence dropped over the table.

Mrs. Yates’s hand went to her chest like she’d been struck. “Damien.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You’re being disrespectful,” his father said, standing now, chair scraping back hard against the floor. “After everything this family has given you.”

Damien stood too, hands at his sides, something in his chest closing tight. “I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m trying to tell you I love her.”

The word landed in the room and did nothing. His mother’s eyes were already on Jason, checking him, smoothing invisible hurt off his shoulders with a look.

“You’re going to your grandfather’s,” his father said.

The room went still.

“What?”

“Tonight. He’s expected you for years, it’s time you learned some discipline.” His father’s eyes didn’t waver. “Clearly you need it.”

“Tonight,” Damien repeated, the word strange in his mouth. “I have…. I have somewhere to be tonight.”

“Not anymore,” his mother said, not looking at him, still smoothing a hand over Jason’s shoulder. “Go pack your things.”

Damien stood there, the room too bright, too loud in its silence. He thought of Jennie, of the note in his jacket pocket he hadn’t given back to her, of the words he’d been rehearsing under his breath for two days. He thought of tonight, of the bench by the fountain where he’d told her to meet him, of her waiting there not knowing.

No one in the room was looking at him.

He turned and walked upstairs, each step heavier than the last, and behind him he heard his mother’s voice, soft now, asking Jason if he wanted more chicken.