“Alon…” Adrian’s voice faltered, unsure. “What—”
“You know what I think?”
Adrian’s stomach coiled with unease. “What?”
Alon’s voice dropped, quieter, more dangerous. “That even when you’re dying, your life is still fucking perfect. Even when everything should be falling apart, you still have everything.”
Adrian felt his breath stutter, his skin prickling, his heart aching in ways he couldn’t name.
“Youthink it was easy?” Adrian’s voice cracked, shaking with something raw. “Do you have any idea—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alon interrupted with a bitter smirk. “I remember. I remember when things weren’t perfect for you. But, of course, even when something bad happens, everything just falls back into place.”
Adrian’s fists curled at his sides. His lungs burned. But beneath the anger, something shifted.
Because for the first time, he realized—
Alon wasn’t just angry at him.
He washurting.
“Alon…” Adrian’s voice wavered, brittle as autumn leaves before they crumble.
“You got out,” Alon whispered, his face twisted. “You left this place behind. You got to start over. You moved in with Dean—” his voice caught hard on the name, as if saying it cut him open. “So not only did you have it all back then, now you’ve got a fucking American boyfriend too. And you still act like you don’t understand. Like you didn’t take something from me...”
Adrian stared at him, speechless. His little brother—his Alon—stood before him, a storm unraveling, years of anger, hurt, loneliness spilling out all at once. His hands trembled at his sides. Adrian knew that look, the tears threatening to fall. But they weren’t tears of sorrow. They were furious, resentful, the kind that sting because they’ve been held back too long.
And yet… what he said—about Adrian, about Logan, about Dean—wasn’t making sense. He spoke like he had been keeping score, like Adrian had stolen something from him without ever realizing it.
Oh, shit.
“And youflying away, off you go—”
“To have treatments!” Adrian snapped, voice sharper than he intended. His body ached from just speaking. “I’m not going on a fucking vacation!”
“Every fucking person alive is fighting for you to live. And you—” Alon’s voice dropped to something venomous, something broken. “You just want to be left alone and die.”
“Alon…” Adrian whispered. His hands clenched into fists. “Why didn’t you ever say something?”
“To whom?” Alon’s laugh was hollow, bitter. “To Mom? To Dad? Dad doesn’t even see me. When he looks at me, all he sees is you. Every time he talks to me, it starts with you and somehow ends with you. Even when I’m doing well, it’s never just mine—it’s always compared to you. Always, Adrian, Adrian, Adrian.” He took a step back, shaking his head. “You are the star of that house. And me? I am just the echo, the spare, the one who came after you.”
Adrian felt his heart crack; the pain was not just physical anymore. It ran deeper than that, into places he didn’t even know existed. His little brother—his baby brother—had been drowning all this time, and Adrian never noticed.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” His voice was hoarse now, barely above a whisper. “Why, instead of being such an asshole, instead of mocking me, why didn’t you just come to me? I never knew, Alon. I had no fucking clue.” He exhaled shakily. “I wasn’t home much, but—”
“Yeah, because ‘kind-hearted Adrian’ was always working to help Mom and Dad—”
“Go to hell,” Adrian spat, voice cracking. “You think I wanted that? You think I chose to work instead of being a normal teenager? Dad was aboutto lose the house, Alon! And then what? You were, what, thirteen? You wanted to live on the fucking streets?” His breath shuddered, his ribs a cage of fire. “Believe me, I would rather have gone to school. I would rather have had a childhood.” He swallowed hard. “You don’t know shit about what I had to do to make sure you never had to worry about any of it.”
Alon’s anger flickered, like a candle caught in the wind. His shoulders slumped, the fight starting to drain from him.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said, softer now, voice laced with regret. “I had no idea you felt that way. I should’ve. But I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”
Alon didn’t answer right away. But he looked at him—really looked—and though his gaze still held pain, it wasn’t the same kind. It wasn’t sharp and fresh anymore. It was older, quieter. Bruised, not bleeding.
Adrian knew what he had to do. He had always been the big brother, whether he wanted to be or not. And maybe he hadn’t always been good at it. Maybe he’d been too consumed by his own pain and struggle to notice his younger brother gradually disappearing. While standing in the same room, his brother was being erased, ignored, and dismissed, fading into silence that no one bothered to break. But he saw him now. He saw everything—the bitterness, the loneliness, the hollow ache of being the one always left behind. The one always in the shadow. Alon wasn’t really angry. He was hurt. Deeply, deeply wounded in a place no one had ever thought to reach. And Adrian had never noticed. Never realized how much Alon had been waiting—craving—just to be seen.
So Adrian took two steps forward, closed the space between them, and pulled his little brother in. A short hug, but real, nonetheless. Solid. He felt the tension in Alon’s body, the way he hesitated for a fraction of a secondbefore melting into it, like he wasn’t used to being held this way anymore. Like he had forgotten what it was like.
