He cups my face with both hands. “I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.” My voice comes out a little cracked, like the words are too big for my throat.
I’ll never get tired of hearing him say it. I’ll never get tired of saying it back.
He drops his hands, and I force myself to turn and walk down the hallway before I lose another hour in his arms.
The campus is golden this morning. November in New York usually means everything turns dull and colorless, but today the sun is out and the last remaining leaves on the oaks along the main path are twirling to the ground. I walk through them feeling like my feet aren’t fully touching the ground.
I’m replaying everything. The way he confessed his feelings. The way his hands felt on my face. The way my whole name, my whole self, felt different.
My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket and I smile, reaching for it. It’s probably him already. We do this. I leave and within minutes one of us cracks and sends the first message.
I stop in the middle of the walkway, thumb hovering over the screen.
It’s not Dorien.
New unknown number.
My smile drops and every muscle in my body tightens for battle. How many phones does Aubrey have? This has gone past petty and childish and is now genuinely unhinged. If Aubrey has a problem with me, she should say it to my face.
I release an irritated sigh and open the messages. They’re images. The first one loads and I literally cry out from the shock.
It’s a photo of my diary cover. I swipe to the next image. A full page of my handwriting. Chunks of text are circled in red.
My mouth goes dry and I start typing with fingers that are clumsy in my rage.You stole it?? What the hell is wrong with you?—
But a new message appears before I can hit send.
Unknown Number:Aeron’s gonna hate you bitch
Aeron?
I start actually reading the circled text as my heart is in borderline panic attack mode. Every circled section has something about Aeron, my private, unfiltered entries about my brother. They’re things I wrote in the safety of my own diary because I was trying to process complicated feelings.
One image shows the entry about Mom’s confession, and I let out another alarmed cry. That night she had wine and told me Aeron was unplanned.
“I never wanted to be a boy mom. I only wanted one child. Just a girl.”
If Aeron ever sees these images, he’s going to be devastated.
But not even because of those words; he’s going to feel hurt because he’s not seeing the rest of what’s in my diary. The image cuts off right before the next paragraph where I wrote about how Mom started crying after confessing that. She sobbed about how she hated herself for ever thinking that. She was so depressed after giving birth and deep in postpartum that it took her awhile to come out of it, but one day she looked at her baby and just realized how much she truly loved him and was thankful for having a son. She’s always felt like a horrible mother because she struggles to connect with him the way she connects with me. She said he was the most adorable, sweet baby, and her biggest regret is not building a better bond.
She loves him so much.
None of that is in the photo. Whoever took these knew exactly where to crop. Every image captures the parts that sound so ugly and mean because they’re taken out of context.
Another image:“Thinking about when Mom said Aeron wasn’t planned. I love my brother but I was thinking, what if he was never born? My life would be so different.”
And that’s where the photo stops. The very next line in my diary reads:“The house would feel so empty. Even if I grew up as an only child, I’d have a longing to have a sibling, especially a brother. I don’t care if it was an ‘accident.’ I’m really happy Aeron’s my brother.”
Of course, that’s not in the picture. My words have been twisted to sound horrible.
Every single image is a fragment designed to make me look like I resent Aeron. Like I wish he didn’t exist or like Mom doesn’t want him.
I erase my half-typed message and my thumbs fly over the screen:You fucking bitch! You’re a psycho! Why are you doing this??? Don’t you fucking dare send these to my brother!
The response comes immediately.
