The Wall Between Us

OP: [The girl I've been in love with for three years just became my stepsister. Somebody tell me what to do.] My mom had been remarried a week when this landed on my local feed.

OP: [I'm hiding in my room. My hands won't hold still.] OP: [She calls me big brother. I want to die.] The comments piled on.

Commenters: [So what's the plan, you want your dad to file for divorce?] Commenters: [Talk your dad into a honeymoon. Whole house to yourselves.

You're welcome.] The next day, the icecold stepbrother started working on his father like it was a job. "Dad. When are you two taking that honeymoon?" "I'll book it.

Does three in the morning work?" He didn't know who was on the other end of that thread. The commenter taking his money, coaching him on how to chase his own stepsister.

That was me. He didn't know the girl he'd been quietly in love with for three years was asleep in the room next to his. Chapter 1 Me: [Next time she calls you bro, just yell it.

BEGONE. BEGONE. BEGONE. Fight fire with fire. /j] The post was scandalous and cheap and I loved every line of it. So I piled on. The thread had gone feral. Nobody was there to help.

Everybody was there to shitpost. OP answered exactly one comment. The honeymoon one. OP: [Noted. DM me. Sending you something.] Five minutes later the thread refreshed.

Commenters: [!!! GUYS STOP SHITPOSTING, THIS MAN IS A WALKING ATM] Screenshot attached. One transfer. Fifty thousand dollars. How mcuh??

I sat straight up in bed and started digging for material. Me: [I got this. I have a stepbrother too.

Mine can't stand me.] Me: [Find out quietly whether there's a band she's obsessed with, or an animal. Then get it for her. Start small, not expensive.

No girl on this earth holds out against a kitten.] Ten minutes went by. Moneybags didn't answer. I hadn't lied to him. A week ago my mom remarried into the oldest money in Boston.

I'm twentyone, a junior, and summer break had just started. I also had a brother now. Dominic Ashford.

The day we met I wore a new dress and smiled as sweet as I knew how. "You must be my new big brother.

I'm Rosalie." "I hope we get along." He stared at me. "Who are you?" "I'm... your sister?" The color went out of his face.

He turned and took the stairs two at a time, like something had gotten loose in the house. Nobody had ever hated me that fast before. I moved into the Ashford house anyway.

Shameless. To help us bond, they put my room next to his. Dominic had opinions about that.

I was passing the study when I heard the two of them going at it. "Why does she have to sleep next to me?" "It isn't convenient." "What isn't convenient about it?" Everett tried the patient voice. "She's your sister.

You need to—" "She's not!" The door came open hard and Dominic walked straight into me. His face was awful.

I apologized in a small voice, scared of being hated, and took one small step back. Then I did what I do with my real brother. Tugged his sleeve.

My fingers caught the back of his hand on the way. Two knuckles. Less than a second. Dominic's whole face changed.

He clamped his other hand over his fingertips and bolted for his room. Disgusted, apparently. Angry enough that his face had gone red. His earlobes too. I let out a breath.

Two stepbrothers, same job description. How does one of them come out like this. My phone buzzed. Moneybags. Moneybags: [Send me your account.] Moneybags: [Also. Hypothetically.

If your stepbrother confessed to you, what would you think?] Chapter 2 Dominic. Confessing. To me. I gave it some thought. Bad temper aside, the man was top shelf.

The face especially. The face hit you. I accepted the transfer with one hand and typed with the other. Me: [Honestly?

I might say yes. lol] Everett flew to New York to close something. Dominic had an emergency. He called and called. Everett never picked up once. He went through two phones over it.

He was in a mood after that, and Mom told me to go keep him company. "You two are going to be brother and sister. Get on his good side." "Okay." Sweet as pie.

Then I thought about it, warmed a mug of milk, and knocked on his door. "Come in." Not a friendly voice. Something in my chest jumped.

I pushed the door open. "Big brother." The room went silent.

The long shape sprawled across the bed came up all at once. "You— why are you here?" "I brought you milk." "It's still warm.

A cup at night helps you sleep." I had the rejection ready before I walked in. He took the mug. "Thanks." Very quiet.

Like maybe he didn't hate me quite so much. "Rosalie." "Hm?" "Do you like animals?" I blanked. Then I remembered the advice I'd handed a total stranger the night before. No.

There was no way. Something must have crossed my face, because he got fast about it. "Don't get the wrong idea. A friend has two kittens he can't keep.

He asked if I wanted them." "I don't know how you are about pets, so I'm asking." Oh. That was all it was. I breathed out. "I love them. Cats most of all." "Then guess.

What breeds." I made a show of guessing. "I'm hoping Siamese and Ragdoll." He smiled. "Yeah. Good guess." Things were thawing. The next morning I knocked and tested it out. "Bro.

Dinner." The door opened fast. His face did something uncomfortable. "I'm barely older than you. Just use my name. Stop calling me bro." "Okay." I did as I was told. "Do. Mi.

Nic." And what was he blushing for? I didn't get to look closely. He'd already fled down the stairs. I followed slower, in a worse mood than I'd started the morning in.

Because in the second the door had been open, I'd seen the mug on his desk. Still full to the line. A skin cooled over the top of it. He hadn't taken one sip. So that was that.

I was still the thing he couldn't stand. "Dad!" I got to the landing and Dominic was already shouting, already halfway down. "You're finally home." Everett ignored him, said hello to me first, and then took his time about it. "Out of money again?" "No!" Dominic was lit up. "When are you two going on the honeymoon?" "I'll book it.

Does three in the morning work?" Everett knows his son. He landed on it instantly. "Short on cash?

Looking to skim the difference?" "What kind of garbage is that," Dominic scoffed. "Could you think one good thing about me for once." "I just mean you and Ms.

Quinn got married a week ago and you're already back under a pile of work. That's not how it's done. A marriage takes work.

However busy you are, you owe her a honeymoon." "The honeymoon is nonnegotiable." "And it can't be somewhere close.

Close looks like you don't mean it." "Does Antarctica work?" "..." Everett looked like the floor had shifted under him. My mom's eyes went red. She was that moved.

I was the only one in the room watching Dominic. Somebody in that thread had told the OP to talk his dad into a honeymoon. Get the house to himself. What were the odds.

That local OP. There was no way that was Dominic. Right? Chapter 3 That night I pulled the post back up. OP had added a few lines.

OP: [SHE CHECKED ON ME LAST NIGHT.] OP: [She's so kind it's unreal.] OP: [Saw her in her pajamas. Little pigs all over them.

So cute so cute so cute.] That last one let him off the hook for a minute. I looked down at myself. Wrong. My pajamas have dogs on them. Still.

To be safe, I left one more comment on purpose. Me: [Try getting her a concert ticket. Paper Kingdom is playing here this month and nobody can get seats.

She'd love it.] Two minutes later my phone buzzed twice. One was OP. OP: [Noted.] The other was my bank. Fifty thousand dollars. Nerves, probably.

I lay awake most of the night and didn't get up until noon.

I'd barely reached the bottom of the stairs when Dominic came straight at me. "Rosalie." I played innocent and came out tense anyway. "What?" "For you." He held out a ticket.

Concert ticket. Frontrow floor. My heart clamped down on itself. It was him. So the post. All of it. My face went hot.

Before I could decide whether to say anything, he'd already turned and gone. I couldn't eat after that. Couldn't hold a thought still. Until.

Serena Whitlock's post came up on my feed. Serena: [Frontrow seats from Nic. Shame I'm busy. Guess he'll have to dump them on somebody.] The photo was a concert ticket.

Underneath it, a string of comments from people we both know. Commenters: [AAAAA Nic is so good to you] Commenters: [when's the wedding] Serena hadn't deleted a single one.

I zoomed in. The seat number on her ticket, the seat number on mine. Down to the letter. Down to the letter. I sat there a while, then pulled one corner of my mouth up. Good.

That cleared that up. What exactly had I been expecting. What exactly had I built up in my own head. "Rosie." A knock, and his voice with it.

He'd dropped it lower and switched to Rosie. It sounded close. Almost like family. The door opened and I got there before he could speak.

I put the ticket back in his hand. "Something came up for tomorrow. I just remembered." "You should take it back. Thanks, big brother." He'd asked me yesterday. Specifically.

Not to call him that. I knew. That's why I said it. The smile came off Dominic's face all at once. Everett actually cleared his calendar and took my mom away.

Not to Antarctica, obviously.

On his way out he gave Dominic the serious voice. "Look after your sister." "Don't give her a hard time." "And rein in that temper." "I heard you!" Not a friendly voice.

I let my eyes drop. Every time somebody said the word sister at him, his face did that thing. The honeymoon was set for ten days. Ten days. I did the math.

Two hundred and forty hours, one house, nowhere to hide. Privately I figured I'd spend all ten avoiding him. I can't outargue the man, but I can outavoid anybody alive.

Turned out I couldn't. The whole next day, wherever I went, Dominic was already there. I got hungry and ate dessert at the table.

He sat down across from me and drank his coffee like he had all the time in the world. I took the swing in the garden.

He turned up beside it with shears and pruned a perfectly good rose bush down to stubs. Worst was the couch. Me curled up with a kitten, halfway through an episode.

He sat at the other end with his phone. His eyes kept sliding over. Chapter 4 I'd left my phone downstairs, and when I went for it Mrs. Alvarez had one of the kittens in her arms.

She's been with the Ashfords twenty years. She raised Dominic, more or less, so she gets away with things the rest of us don't.

Right then she was carrying the kitten over to him to show it off. "Nicky. You want to hold her? She's sweet." His back was to the stairs. I couldn't see his face.

I heard him turn it down. Twice. "It sheds. Take it away." He pointed at the couch I'd just been sitting on. "Look at that. Hair everywhere." "I hate cats." That's what he said.

My guess. The half of the sentence he left off was probably about me. First night alone in the house. The post had updates.

OP: [WHICH ONE OF YOU TOLD ME TO PUT MYSELF IN FRONT OF HER MORE. REFUND.] OP: [Pruned her favorite flowers down to nothing by accident.

She also gave the ticket back.] OP: [I'm useless.] OP: [I think she hates me now.] OP: [She holds the kittens. She pets them. SHE KISSES THEM.] OP: [She won't look at me once.

Am I not better looking than two cats?] OP: [I hate cats.] I sat there staring at the new lines. Nobody is slow enough to miss it. Not even me.

The Moneybags throwing cash all over that comment section was Dominic. And the stepsister in his posts. That was me. Except. Didn't he hate me more than anything on this earth.

Thanks to Dominic I spent the night running in circles, and came out my door in the morning with two black eyes.

Dominic froze. "Did you... not sleep?" "No." I didn't much want to deal with him. "Your room's too loud. I couldn't sleep." Then. Dominic stopped breathing. His lips were shaking.

He started, stopped, and his eyes stayed wide on me. "I..." "You— you heard?" What was that face for.

He looked like he wanted to die on the spot. "I'm sorry." Dominic apologized for nothing at all and fled.

I sat in the chair chewing on it, and my sleepdeprived brain finally caught up. Well. Somebody had been busy last night. My feelings about Dominic were complicated now.

Relief first. He didn't hate me. I could stop killing myself trying to win over the jerk. But he's my stepbrother. That's an entire genre. Thrilling. Horrifying.

My mother would take my head off. I shut myself in my room for a full day working out how to face him, got nowhere, and finally went with the nuclear option.

A brandnew forum account and a post of my own. Me: [Help. I think my stepbrother hates me.] Me: [He runs the second he sees me. Never makes eye contact.

Talking to me makes him so mad his face goes red.] Me: [He can't stand me. Won't let anybody call me his sister.] Me: [He didn't want me sleeping next door.

Complains that my kittens shed. Won't drink the milk I warm up for him.] I paid to push it, so he'd be sure to see it. Screw it, then.

He'd been hiding behind an anonymous account for days, running his little show. My turn. The post took off fast. Commenters came running at the smell of it.

Commenters: [Textbook emotionally constipated man. Mr. Tough Guy.] Commenters: [Won't let you sleep next door?? Is he hiding something in there.

Like a wall of your photos.] Commenters: [My read: 92.7% chance your brother is in love with you, 5.3% chance he's gay, 2% chance he's an alien.] Commenters: [Don't cry, sis.

Throw $50 my way and I'll go drink his milk for him.] Chapter 5 The thread went feral again. Then one comment came up on my screen. My thumb stopped on it.

Nobody types like that when they're joking.

Commenters: [Has anybody considered that your brother is secretly in love with you, that he's jealous of the kittens, and that he happens to be allergic to milk