The betrayal felt crushing. Brandy, whom I'd known for years, who had been part of our group, who had sat at our family dinner table, was the one who had destroyed my brother's life. Not Oliver, not some stranger with a grudge, but someone we'd trusted.
"What are we going to do now?" I asked, feeling more lost than ever.
"We go home, try to talk to your brother, and assure him everything will be okay. I'll use this time to figure out our next steps. We need to make sure our friends know they can count on us. We still have a chance to prevent tragedy."
"I'm not so sure about that anymore."
I didn't know I had said those last words out loud until Kyle stopped walking and turned to face me, his hands gripping my shoulders gently. "Don't lose hope, Lily. I'm here with you, no matter what you need. Even if the world seems to be falling apart, don't forget that this time I won't let you fall."
He kissed me, like letting me know he would be there for me no matter what happened, but I didn't feel better.
I wanted desperately to believe him, to have faith that everything would be okay. But seeing that no matter how hard we tried, the past seemed determined to repeat itself, made me realize that maybe every effort we'd made was in vain. Maybe some things were just meant to happen, regardless of how much we fought against them.
I entered the house, and it seemed empty. Except for Bailey, who was asleep on the living room sofa, I was the only one here, or so I thought.
I climbed the stairs and heard soft sounds coming from my bedroom. I pushed open the door to find Leo sitting on my bed, his knees pulled up to his chest, staring out my window with red-rimmed eyes.
"Leo?" I said softly.
He looked up at me, "Now I'm ready to talk," he said, his voice thick with unshed tears.
I didn't ask questions. I nodded and went to the kitchen tomake us tea, and went back with the mugs. Leo was still in the same position I left him on my bed, looking smaller and younger than I'd seen him in years.
"I've been lying to everyone," he began, accepting the tea gratefully. "Including myself."
I settled beside him, waiting, giving him the space to find his words.
"I'm in love with Jeremy," he confessed. "I've been in love with him since we were kids, but I was too scared to admit it. Too scared of what people would think, what it would mean."
To say I was in shock was to minimize what I felt. I’d always believed Jeremy was the one in love with my brother, that he saw Leo as this impossible love and settled for being his friend, that nothing more had ever happened between them. I never imagined it could be the other way around.
Even in the present, Leo had never told me any of this. I thought we were close and told each other everything, but some secrets seem to have been kept deep inside him all these years.
"Brandy was just... a cover," he continued, wiping at his eyes. "I thought if I had a pretty, popular girlfriend, no one would ever suspect. And it worked for a while. But being with her when I wanted to be with him... it was torture."
"Leo..." I started, but he held up a hand.
"Saturday night, I was pretty upset all day. Jeremy told me he was going to have a date, and I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know who he was seeing, or where, but I assumed he would be at the party because I saw him with Kyle lately."
So that's why he had been upset all day. I thought it was because Brandy didn't want to come with us to the park to be with Oliver, but apparently, he didn't care at all.
"So I escaped home as soon as I could to confront him, only to find him withKyle."
"You know Kyle was only trying to calm him down, and nothing is happening between them, right?"
"Yes, now I know. But I just went crazy. It was like Jeremy looked to everyone but me. So that's why I made a scene."
"And what happened later?" I asked, knowing exactly what really occurred.
"We entered the car, and I just... I kissed him. I was the one who initiated it. I was the one who couldn't keep my feelings to myself, and then he continued, and I let him, because I really wanted to, and it was so incredible." His voice broke completely. "And now I've lost them both, Brandy and Jer. He won't even look at me, and the whole school is making fun of us."
"Did you know you were being recorded?"
"Of course not, I wasn't going to risk everything knowing someone was watching us. Especially after everything he's done to me. But at that moment, I wasn't thinking clearly, and now I ruined everything?—"
He burst into tears, so I hugged him, "Shhh, calm down, everything's okay."
We stayed like that in silence for a while, he trying to calm himself down, and me trying to process this complete reversal of everything I thought I knew about my brother. How had I missed this? How had I lived with him for years, in two different timelines, and never realized he was struggling with his sexuality?
