He took in my face, the second tear that had joined the first. His voice lost a fraction of its edge, then a fraction more. “This isn’t about you. I don’t even know you, and you don’t know me. We’ve lived our entire lives without realizing the other even existed, and we can keep on living those lives, because this—” he dropped a crumpled paper on the table, and my eyes snagged on the DNA Detective logo visible on the side “—is the only thing that connects us. I’m sorry, but I don’t want more from you, and I’m asking you not to force more from me.”
I lifted my tear-filled eyes to his. I understood what he was doing—protecting one relationship by excluding the possibility of another. I might have done the same thing in his position, only I wasn’t in his position, and I couldn’t just walk away. From the corner of my eye, I saw Selena moving to the center of the stage. “I don’t want to walk away, but if it’s what you want, I won’t come back to your work, and I won’t try to contact you again. But, Brandon…” Pain had taken root deep in my chest, and the shoots were burrowing their way through every part of me as I glanced at the paper between us. “It’s not the only thing that connects us. Look.” I nodded my head toward Selena.
Brandon’s eyes moved even as his body fought the movement.
“Hi, everyone. My name is Selena Fields and I’m going to be singing ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac.” She angled the mic toward her mouth, finding my face as she did. “I hope you like it.”
She started picking out the first notes on her guitar and I felt my heartbeat rise along with them. And then she started to sing. I didn’t know who to watch, my brother or my sister.
Selena’s voice was lovely. It had this twinge of sadness, but it was so pure that I think I might have wanted to cry listening to her, even without watching my brother see his older sister for the first time. Brandon was caught up in her too, her voice, the lyrics. His shoulders began to lower.
I heard when Selena’s voice changed, and looking at her, I saw her eyes weren’t focused on me. She was looking at Brandon with a slight frown—a frown that shouldn’t have been there, because she shouldn’t have been able to see him, not clearly. He was supposed to be in the shadows, but he wasn’t. He was too tall, just like our dad, and there was no missing him. Her voice caught once, like she’d forgotten to take a breath, and I stopped breathing completely even as she kept singing. I ached to see inside her head—both their heads. Did she know just from looking at him? Could she see it as clearly as I could, or was she reacting to something she saw in him but couldn’t explain?
The same confusion didn’t linger on Brandon’s face. Even with the lights and makeup, he’d heard her say her name—the same last name I’d given him when we met, the same last name on the DNA test results he’d seen. He knew who was singing on that stage.
The song ended, the last note drifting off into a second or two of silence, no more, before every person in the coffee shop was clapping, save two.
Brandon stood, not hurriedly or with any kind of anger. His chair slid back from the movement, and he walked out. With a glance at Selena, who was still frowning at his retreating form, I followed him outside.
He hadn’t gone far, right outside the door really. He’d stopped to lean against the wall, his head hanging forward. If he was breathing, I couldn’t see it.
With the door shut behind me, I moved to his side and wiped the tears from my face before placing a hand on his shoulder. Instantly, he jerked away.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of this, but it’s not just you and me. She doesn’t know yet, but—”
The door opened again, and Selena was there. None of us said anything. We just stood there, no more than a handful of inches between us.
“Dana, what—” She couldn’t finish her own question. She wouldn’t have known what to ask to explain the guy standing next to me. Only he wasn’t standing next to me; he was walking as fast as it was humanly possible to walk without running.
“Brandon, wait!” But he didn’t even glance back before he was in his car, and with a squeal of tires, he was gone.
Gone. And I knew he’d never come back.
My legs were shaky as I turned away from the now vacant parking spot. Selena was still standing there, still frowning.
“Who was that?” she asked, bewilderment lifting her voice.
And I couldn’t justify lying to her anymore. My heart cleaved clear in two when I said it.
“Selena…that was Brandon. He’s our brother.”
CHAPTER 35
“He’s what?” Selena pulled a face, somewhere between a sneer and a scrunch. “That’s a really unfunny joke, Dana, even for you.”
“Sel.” I took a step toward her, letting her hear how every word killed me. “I would never joke about this. You saw him. You have to have seen it. Isawyou see it when you were singing.”
Selena’s gaze roamed my face and her voice went breathy. “I can’t believe this.”
“I didn’t want to believe it either but—”
“No,” she said. “Why do you keep doing this? Are you really this starved for attention that you need to make up something like this? Think about what you’re saying.”
No, I thought, cold creeping up my insides.She’s supposed to believe me.“Thinking is all I’ve been doing since I found out Dad cheated with his mom and—”
“This is about Dad? Oh my gosh, Dana, grow up!” Her arms snapped to her sides. There wasn’t anything soft left in her expression. Her eyes narrowed and her tone went sharp. “What has he done to make you come up with something so despicable?”
“This!” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
