When I Stopped Calling Him Brother

I clung to my brother for twentyone years. The day the real heiress came home, I was the fake one, and I was the one who offered to move out.

My brother, who had complained about how clingy I was for as long as I could remember, went white. Three months earlier I'd found out where I actually came from.

After that I stopped hanging on him. I stopped policing who he went out with. He loved it at the time. Told me I'd finally gotten sweet.

What he didn't know was that I had a whole room of strangers floating over my head. They said I was the villainess in this book. They said he'd throw me out any day now.

That same night, one of his friends told him, "If you can't stand the idea of her leaving, just marry her." My brother snapped. "I'm not an animal." So the guy tried a different angle. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her, look after her, put up with her, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until the day you die?" My brother didn't even pause. "That's what I was already planning to do." Me: ???

Chapter 1 I have clung to my brother since I could walk. Especially after I got taken when I was little, and he was the one who came and got me back.

After that, five hours without seeing him and I'd start losing it. Which is how a grown man ended up almost never traveling for work.

Then a few days ago something blew up at the London office, five time zones from Boston. He didn't have a choice. Dorian went, and told me after.

Five days later he was finally home. At that moment he was on the wrong side of my front door, negotiating. "I shouldn't have gone without telling you.

But it really was urgent." "I bought you that bag you wanted. Open the door for your brother?" I sat on the couch with my hands over my ears and let him talk to the door.

He knocked for a while. When it became clear the door was staying shut, his voice went flat. "Fine. We're not opening it." Then he made a call.

A minute later, somebody started working on my lock from the other side.

I sat straight up and yelled at the door. "You pick that lock and I won't speak to you for three days!" Everything outside went quiet.

Dorian made a sound through his teeth. "Five days apart. Is it really that serious?" That made it worse. I threw a pillow at the door. It landed like nothing.

I was loading up something meaner when a line of text drifted across my vision. [Dying. Girl still has no clue she's the fake heiress.] [Keep it up, sweetie.

Wait till the real one comes home and your brother's done being patient with you.] My mouth stopped working. I sat there staring at it. Me? The fake one? No.

The comments kept coming. [If she'd just go get a DNA test she wouldn't look like such a clown.] [Thinks her parents have her back.

Imagine finding out you're not even theirs.] Outside, Dorian sent the locksmith away and knocked again, lazy about it now. "A sister isn't supposed to be this attached to her brother.

You need to give me some space." "And I handled it as fast as any human could. Is this really worth it?" I opened the door with nothing at all on my face. His eyebrows went up.

He leaned down to look at me. "Well. That's the fastest you've ever forgiven me." He held out everything he'd brought. Cake. The bag. A necklace.

I took it without registering any of it, because I was still reading. Then I looked at his hair. Dorian saw my bare feet and frowned.

The next second he had me off the floor entirely. My face ended up a few inches from his hair. Close enough to count. How long would it take to pull one out?

Chapter 2 It startled me enough that I swore at him. "Dorian. What is wrong with you?" He didn't put me down. "You were staring at me like that.

Wasn't that you asking to be picked up?" Me: ??? I was still angry, and I was about to fight my way out of his arms. Then I saw his hair again, right there. I hesitated a while.

Then I leaned in and pulled. He patted my back once, in warning. "Your new revenge is yanking my hair?" I didn't answer.

I was watching the comments and quietly closing my fist around the strands in my palm. Because if I really was the fake one, I was finished.

I'd spent years being an absolute nightmare to this man.

The thing he'd said to me more than any other sentence in his life: "Juniper Whitlock, if you weren't blood, who on earth would put up with that temper?" He'd been saying it for twentyone years.

I'd never once listened. Now every time it came back to me, something crawled up my spine. When I was small, my parents worked constantly and were barely home.

They felt bad about it, so they gave me anything I asked for. Even when what I asked for was Dorian, more of him than any person should want.

All they ever said to him was, "Just let your sister have this one." So from the day I was born, Dorian had a shadow. He went somewhere, I went too.

Right up until a guy at the door stopped me. "Nobody underage goes in." I had a fistful of my brother's shirt and I wasn't letting go. "No.

I'm going with you." Dorian had just turned eighteen that year, and he was in the mood to be eighteen. I was ten.

So he pulled his shirt out of my hand and called the housekeeper to come get me. At eleven that night, he finished up and looked at his phone.

There were more missed calls from the housekeeper than he could count. That's how he found out. I was gone.

He got a group of people together and tore the neighborhood apart for half a night. They found me in the scrubby patch of grass by the bar door, curled up, asleep.

He asked me why I'd wandered off, and his face was awful when he asked it. I was half awake.

I rubbed my cheek against his and said, "Wanted to see you sooner." He almost never went back to that bar again.

And I, backed by two parents who took my side on principle, started ordering him around.

He'd wait on me and grind his teeth and say things like: "Juniper Whitlock, if you weren't blood, I'd put you out on the street." I never made anything of it. I kept using him.

But now I was holding the DNA results. And it turned out. I really wasn't blood. That was it. That was the whole thing over. I went home with my heart going sideways.

My parents traveled constantly, so most of the time the house was just me and Dorian. He wasn't there when I got back.

After dinner the housekeeper set aside a late plate for him and kept it waiting. By ten it had gone cold and he still wasn't home.

The housekeeper was still standing there, so I called him. He picked up almost immediately. Before I could say anything I heard the room behind him. "Whitlock, who is it?

You got to that fast." "Don't tell me your sister's calling you home. Man, must be nice, having a sister." Dorian sounded put upon. "What can I do.

She's very attached." Then he brought the phone to his ear and laughed under his breath. "It's ten o'clock.

You're calling me home already?" Behind him I could hear his friends sighing about it.

Every one of them jealous of the exact thing I was about to lose. "Must be nice, having a sister." Somebody said it a second time.

I kept the phone against my ear and didn't hang up. My other hand was flat on the report lying across my knees. My thumb had landed right on the word EXCLUDED. I opened my mouth.

Chapter 3 I panicked that he was actually getting sick of me, so I got it out fast. "No, no.

Stay out as long as you want." His breathing stopped for a second. "Meaning what." I looked at the cold plate on the counter and asked it carefully. "If you're not coming back, I'll have the housekeeper toss it so she can go home." He didn't say anything for a while.

Then it clicked for him. "Oh, so now you're using the housekeeper as leverage to get me home." "Fine. I'm leaving now." He hung up on me. Me: ???

Normally, if he'd come home that late, I'd have deadbolted the front door and gone up to bed. But I wasn't in a position to act out anymore. I wanted things smoothed over.

So I stayed on the couch with the cold plate in my lap and planned to heat it up for him myself. I fell asleep waiting.

Some amount of time later, somebody lifted me off the cushions. My arms went around his neck before my eyes opened.

When they did, there was something banked and hot in my brother's eyes. "Juniper Whitlock. You'd wreck your own health just to force me home?" "It's eleven.

Why are you not in bed?" I couldn't work out what he had to be mad about. I hadn't even yelled at him. I hadn't locked him out.

But I still owed him a hot plate, so I squirmed to get down. He held on tighter. "Enough. Don't be mad." "I'll be home by nine thirty from now on.

Does that fix it?" I explained it as clearly as I knew how. "You really can come home later.

It's fine." His eyebrows came together. "What is that supposed to be, more attitude?" Me: … He never did get his food.

What he did instead was walk me through brushing my teeth and washing my face and then tuck me under the covers. When all of it was done he stayed by the bed instead of leaving.

Waiting for something. A few seconds went by. I didn't move. So he bent down over me.

I jumped and got a hand up against his chest. "What are you doing?" He clicked his tongue and caught my wrist. "Your rule, not mine.

Goodnight kiss before you sleep." I got it out fast. "You don't have to. You don't ever have to again." His whole face changed. "That's how you're punishing me?

That's childish." He straightened up, cold about it. "Then we won't. Like I was dying for it." Over the next few days I proved with my entire body that I was not angry.

I stopped hanging on him. I stopped asking who he was going out with. At dinner I even put food on his plate. His eyebrows went up. He liked it a lot. "Look at you.

What's gotten into my sister?" I made my position clear immediately. "I'm sorry. I used to keep you on too short a leash. I won't do that anymore." He froze for one second.

Then he laughed. "About time. Whoever heard of a sister hanging off her brother forever." So for the next few days, my brother went back out with his friends.

He still came home at nine thirty, on his own. Then one night he walked in right at nine thirty and I wasn't there. He called me. I was at a club dinner and couldn't pick up.

I let it ring out and typed instead: Chapter 4 [At a club dinner, might run late. Don't wait up.] It took him a minute. Then, very evolved: [No problem. What you do is up to you.

We should give each other space.] [You're your own person. I'd never fence you in.] [Have fun.] So I stopped worrying. The dinner finally broke up at eleven thirty.

I'd had a couple of drinks, so I couldn't drive. It was too late to make our driver come out, and I felt bad about it.

While I was standing there deciding, one of the upperclassmen from my club offered. "Juniper, I've got my car.

You're on my way." He must have thought I'd be weird about it, because he added, "One of the girls from our year is riding too.

I'll drop you first, then her." I was drunk enough that I just nodded.

He came over and took my arm, polite about it. "If you're that far gone you can lean on me." I really wasn't steady, so I put some weight on his shoulder and let him walk me toward the car parked at the curb.

The air outside cleared my head a little. He still had my arm. And I had the feeling something was on me. I looked around. Nothing.

I was about to get in when he made a small sound next to me. "Juniper, who's that? He hasn't stopped looking at you." I followed where he was looking.

Under the bad light, my brother was standing entirely in shadow. Leaning against his car door. Watching me without blinking. At the same moment my phone chimed.

Another message from him. [Get in his car and I'll kill myself.] Before I could process any of it, Dorian was already there