Page 159 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

"Yeah. I'm also twenty-five, and I've been managing an entire life on my own for almost seven years."

"I know that."

"Do you? Because..." I take a deep breath, knowing I either stop now, or we're having this conversation. I guess we're having it. "...Okay, you want to talk about the guys? Let's talk about the guys. What actually happened, with you and them?"

Now it's his turn to turn his face away. "That's none of your busine⁠—"

I cut him off with a huff. "Wow. Really? You really want to go there. You've been in every corner of my business my whole life, Leon, and that includes this situation." I shake my head. "And we're talking about it. So if you can't think of anything to say, let me ask the questions. What was it that really bothered you about us being together? Was it that they got involved with me? Or that they hid it from you?"

He doesn't say anything, and it's the first time all morning — hell, maybe our whole lives — that he doesn't have a quick comeback. So I keep going. "And what would you have done if they'd decided they weren't going to end things with me?"

Still nothing.

I sigh. "Fine, I'll talk. I want you to know this: if I wasn't so afraid of you losing them..." My voice catches at that thought and I have to take a beat. "...or them losing you, I'd be with them right now. No hesitation. You are the reason I ended things. I want you to understand that."

"Alexia..."

"Let me finish." I press the heel of my hand flat against my sternum. "You are the reason. And I've made my peace with that. And no, I don't resent you. I promise. But"—I swallow, and it feels like razors in my oesophagus—"leaving them felt like ripping something vital out of my own chest."

He winces and I consider stopping, just for a moment. But I don't. I continue. "So, I need you to actually understand what it took out of me to end it with them. It was, and will probably always be, the hardest thing I've ever done, except sit in a hospital room waiting to see if I was going to ever see you again."

He's gone completely still, bracing for more.

"And why? Because I could never be the reason they lost you. I could disappear out of their lives completely, and eventually the three of them would get it." My eyes sting badly enough now that there's no holding back what's coming. "But the four of you losing each other? That's not something I ever want to be the reason for."

Leon's quiet for a long moment, then he finally says, "You really felt that strongly for them, after only a few weeks?"

I wipe a tear away. "But it wasn't only a few weeks, was it? It's been since I can remember. It's been always." I sigh. "Or, at least it was for me. For them... I don't know. Maybe I walked away because I knew it would always be a one-way struggle, and I didn't want to go through it all to find out I'd be the only one standing on the other side. That I was the only one willing to fight for it. So I just never even... started to."

And there it is, the thing I hadn't let myself say out loud until now. I pushed them away because they'd hurt me, and I'd held onto that hurt like armour. But I never fought for them either, never showed them I'd risk it all — that even knowing it might come to nothing, the trying was the important part.

It's quite a thing to realise, standing on a footpath. And it knocks the wind out of me.

I grab my stomach with one hand, brace the other on the wall, dragging in long, deep breaths.

But nothing helps.

Leon just watches. Not saying a word, but somehow understanding.

Finally, when I've stopped gasping, he limps over and pulls me gently into his hold. "You're wrong, you know. It's not just that I think that I think that, or whatever it was you word-vomited up before," Leon says, gentler than I've heard him in years. "Your happiness is all that matters to me. I'll work on getting better at showing you that." He presses a kiss to my temple. "I love you. And in case you're wondering, if I ever had to make a choice, it would be you. I'd choose your happiness."

"Thank you for your time this morning, Dr Ri—" The panel chair catches herself, half a smile at the slip. "Ms Riley. The panel will take some time to deliberate, and we'll call you back in once we've made a final decision."

I thank the panel for their time, and it's only once the door's shut behind me that my hands actually start shaking, my knees barely able to hold me up.

Leon's waiting right outside, and he lets go of the cane to grip my hands. When I ask how much he heard, he says that even though he'd been kicked out for the question portion — his words — he has supersonic hearing and didn't miss a word. And then he pulls me into a hug that lifts me half off my feet.

Seven years of coursework, journals, rejected drafts, two a.m. panic emails to supervisors, hundreds of sleepless nights, heartbreak and broken pride, and now it's just over. I don't know how to feel something that big all at once, so it arrives in pieces: my knees going soft, my throat closing over, my body breaking into a full body sweat, something that's been winding tighter and tighter inside me for years just... letting go.

Leon must see all of it happening on my face, because he holds me longer and tighter than a normal hug dictates. "You did it, Xi-Xi," he says, quiet, right against my ear. "You actually did it."

"We don't know yet. They might come back and say it was all terrible and I have to go back to the drawing board."

He rolls his eyes and doesn't even bother to argue.

Instead, he digs his phone out of his pocket. "Someone wants to see your face." He holds the screen up between us, and it's Mum, camera wobbling, already crying, already talking too fast about how proud she is, how much she wishes she could be here, how our father would have — she doesn't finish that one, and neither of us makes her.

I laugh and cry at the same time, waving at the screen like an idiot. Leon had told her in no uncertain terms that she was absolutely not allowed to get off the cruise ship to come home for him when all he had was "a little bruise" and nothing a bandaid wouldn't fix. So she hadn't come, but I know it's been hard for her to be so far away when big things are happening here. But it's her first trip... ever. And we both knew it was her time to do the things that made her happy. And seeing her smiling across the screen is all I need.