The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  I pulled away just as his hands settled on my rib cage. “Tell her all that. What you want and what you’re willing to do. Tell her why. All of it.” I stood and held out my hand to him. “And when she’s reminded how unbelievably amazing and selfless her son is—because she loves you and she already knows—you’ll be able to help her let go.”

  * * *

  Once we got back to his house, I didn’t hang around to watch the conversation between Chase and his mom, but I did watch the way he walked up to her, squatted down beside her and smiled.

  I made it all the way home before that same expression crumbled from my face.

  Chapter 31

  Pushing aside the sick guilt sloshing in my stomach, I returned to Chase’s house on Monday.

  He smiled at me, and my heart twisted. He kissed me and unshed tears burned behind my eyes. They nearly spilled down my cheeks when he hugged me too close while telling me about the conversation with his mom, the fruit of which was the partially refilled garbage and donation bags that had been emptied last time I was there.

  A start, he said.

  While I knew it had to be an ending. I couldn’t do it much longer, lie to him when he was more honest with me than maybe anyone had ever been. If I didn’t find what I needed that day, then I never would.

  * * *

  I hit pay dirt a few hours later.

  Photo albums.

  Boxes and boxes of photo albums. Thank you, Sandy.

  Dropping onto the dusty floor, while Chase was busy checking paint cans to see which were dried out, I pulled the closest box to me and took out the first album. Lots of pictures of Chase stared back at me. Baby pictures, school pictures, vacations and birthdays. I caught myself lingering over one of him and Brandon clutching a squirming brown puppy mid-face-lick, both of them grinning in that manic I’m-so-happy-I-can’t-contain-it way only little kids can. Selena and I had photos like that with our dog, Slammer. An ache tugged at my heart knowing that while we’d done so many of the same things, had so many of the same experiences, we hadn’t done them together.

  I finished one album and started another, and another. I kept turning pages, smothering a laugh when I found one of Chase unwrapping his rock polisher with way more joy than anyone should have opening a rock polisher. That urge to laugh faded as I opened more albums, watching my brother lose baby teeth and learn to ride a bike, seeing his sullen face the day he got braces and the perfectly straight smile the day they came off. I found shots from his and Chase’s brief foray into Little League, and then so many more once he discovered he was meant to be racing through water instead of tearing around a baseball diamond. I dragged a finger over my brother’s face and across the silver metal hanging from his neck as he stood poolside after a meet. The ache in my chest swelled even as I smiled. If he’d grown up with Selena and me, he’d be holding a bat in most of these photos rather than a pair of goggles—Dad would have made sure of that.

  There was so much more in these pages than what I’d found online. I was seeing Brandon’s whole life, all captured and carefully pasted into books. And not just his, Chase’s too. Somehow that made the sting sharper, seeing them together, the two people I wasn’t allowed to have but couldn’t stop myself from wanting.

  There was only one album left in the box I’d found, and unlike the others, which mostly had plain black covers, this one was powder blue and had a stork embossed on it just above Brandon’s name.

  “Hey.”

  It was like the blood in my veins electrified. It jolted through me and I dropped the album, my trembling hands involuntarily flying to cover it. But it was too late. Chase squatted down next to me.

  “I wondered what had you so quiet.” He slid the album from my lap, and I had to refrain from grabbing it back. “I didn’t realize we still had this.” Then, before I could stop him, he opened it.

  Every muscle in my body clenched. There he was, all eight pounds two ounces of my brother the day he was born. I hadn’t expected it to be the same photo Brandon posted online every Mother’s Day, and it wasn’t. It was the same hospital room, though, the same woman lying in bed with her newborn son cradled in her arms. This one showed the hand on the railing, but also the arm, the shoulder and the full smiling face of the man looking down at them. My shoulders jerked, then jerked again and again as I tried and failed to muffle the sob that racked my body.

  Chase’s head turned to mine in an instant. “Dana?”

  I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anything but that photo, that face. I gasped in a breath and it tore out again, sounding as if every jagged piece of fear long lodged in my heart came with it.

  I pushed off the concrete to my feet and rushed into the driveway just as the moon was rising in the purple-pink sky. Open air and open space. I filled my lungs, but the air all came back out too fast.

  Chase hurried after me, heedless of the boxes his much larger form knocked down.

  “It’s not him,” I said, looking up at Chase, my body still shaking, me still half crying but smiling now too.

  Chase’s arms came around me, holding me tight. “Not who? What just happened?”

  I just shook my head against his chest, looking back into the garage at the other photo albums piled inside. All of it, Brandon’s entire life...our dad wouldn’t have missed it. The conviction burned through me, sudden and sure, helping—with Chase—to steady my breathing. He wasn’t there. He didn’t know. He couldn’t have.

  It wasn’t a secret I had to keep anymore, not when it had never been kept from me.

  And that was it, the thing that let my heart beat blood through my body again instead of misery: Brandon wasn’t a secret, and he wasn’t a lie. He was a brother and a son, which meant...

  I’d have to tell them. All of them.

  My breath hitched again, and some of that pain I’d let go of trickled back in before I even looked at Chase.

  It hurt, finding out about the affair, and I still felt it. It hurt more when I thought about Mom with Selena only a baby herself when Dad was with Brandon’s mom. It happened nearly two decades ago, but the wound for me was fresh, and it would be for Mom—Selena too—when she found out. We wouldn’t suddenly be wrapped up together in a family hug, anxious and excited to welcome Brandon into the fold.

  I didn’t know what any of them would do, least of all Brandon. He didn’t know a thing about us; he didn’t even know he had another sister, one who played the guitar just like him.

  I started, a different kind of panic jolting me from Chase’s arms. “Selena’s singing at Lava Java tonight. What time is it?” I didn’t wait for his answer—the fading sky told me all I needed to know. I raised my hands to my head and said a word. Then I said it again, looking at him. “It’s the first time she’s letting anyone in our family come see her, and I promised her I wouldn’t be late. I have to go.”

  “Right now? Dana, what just happened?”

  My stomach clenched as I headed in a half jog to my car. “I should have already left.” That was more true than I could let myself admit.

  “Wait, or let me drive you.” He caught my hand as I reached to open my door. “Talk to me.”

  “I can’t,” I said, and even whispering the words hurt. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  He let go of my hand, but his hung in the air between us, and that trickle of pain became a stream. As I drove off, I watched Chase in my rearview mirror until it hurt too much to keep looking at him, wishing my heart could shut out what I didn’t want to feel as easily as my eyes could close on what I didn’t want to see. I hadn’t wanted to leave him like that. I hadn’t wanted to leave him at all, but the second I thought about Selena performing tonight—in less than an hour, according to the clock in my car—I had to go, and I had to at least try to bring someone else to hear her too.

  Cha
pter 32

  I drove to Jungle Juice without a clear plan in mind, hoping that once I saw Brandon, I’d know what to say.

  Chase wasn’t there, of course, but I was gambling on Brandon’s schedule, even as I pulled the door open and walked inside. Screaming monkeys and the girl my brother had a crush on greeted me.

  “Welcome to Jungle Juice,” she said, near deadpan. “Do you know what you want?”

  Yes, I thought, walking up and clutching the counter with a death grip. But I don’t know if it’s even possible. “I’m actually looking for Brandon. Is he working today?”

  She placed both palms on the counter and stared at me without blinking. “What do you want with Brandon?”

  I remembered the kiss I’d witnessed between them and wanted to make sure she knew I wasn’t trying to undermine whatever they had. Brandon was going to need as many people in his corner as possible in the very near future, and if he wanted Ariel to be one of them, then I wanted her for him.

  I was saved from having to answer her by Brandon’s entrance from the back room. That same needle of pain from the first time I’d seen him up close punctured my heart. It wasn’t as sharp, but it was there. I held the counter tighter, waiting and dreading the moment he’d notice me and feel it too. When he saw Ariel, his smile was almost embarrassingly happy, but when he followed her gaze to me, he looked instantly ready to vomit.

  “Apparently, she’s here for you,” Ariel said to Brandon, in a voice that made us both flinch, before disappearing through the door Brandon had entered.

  He wanted to go after her, I could tell by the way his shoulders started to turn when she passed him, but his feet stayed cemented to the floor. If he followed her, he’d have to explain my presence, and he looked like he’d rather stick his fist in a blender.

  “What are you doing here?” If Ariel’s greeting had been chilly, Brandon’s was subzero. “You need to leave. Now.”

  If I’d thought he might have softened toward me in the weeks since we first met, I was so very wrong. Before, he’d been struck dumb, so overwhelmed by his need for denial that he’d been able to generate only a flicker of true anger. But the animosity he was shooting off at our second meeting was lethal. I hesitated under his glare, but since I knew I was bringing him something good rather than earth-shattering, I couldn’t slink away. I wasn’t adding to the horrible discovery from last time; I was telling him he had another sister, one who played the guitar like he did and, if he wanted, he could see her play that very night.

  And then maybe he’d want to play again too. Maybe we could talk about all of it and he wouldn’t have to hurt alone. Maybe I could tell him all the other little things that we shared, the three of us. I could tell him we liked fishing too, that we’d all taken the same photo with Chip and Dale at Disneyland. I could tell him that I loved kung fu movies as much as he did, and if he didn’t love baseball, Sel and I could teach him why he should.

  “Brandon—”

  His eyes flared and he was suddenly right in front of me. He’d moved so fast and so forcefully that I took a step back.

  “You don’t say my name. You don’t come to my work. You don’t—”

  “And I won’t do any of this ever again. I’m not here to talk about—” I abandoned the names I’d been going to say when he tensed as though readying for a blow. My eyes swam with tears. I’d done it all so badly before. I’d ruined his life and just left him without getting to share anything good, and Selena was good, just like he was a good thing to me and would be to her. Whatever our respective parents had done decades ago, it didn’t change the fact that we were siblings. “I never meant to hurt you, then or now. Please, I just need—”

  “What about what I need!” The sound he made was inhuman, like an animal caught in a snare. It startled me into silence and brought Ariel back up front. Brandon’s shoulders hunched, and I knew he was aware that we had an audience. He wasn’t going to say a single word in front of her, and he was naked in his pleading for me to remain silent, as well. “I’ll just be a second,” he said, half turning his head in Ariel’s direction but never taking his eyes from me. We walked to the door, and his arm lifted to open it for me before he checked the impulse and dropped his hand. I told myself that his anger wasn’t wholly meant for me, but my hands still shook as I pushed open the door.

  As soon as the door closed behind us, preventing Ariel from hearing us, Brandon turned on me. “Please,” he said, letting a sliver of desperation cut through his hostility. “I don’t want to hear any more.” His head extended forward. “I can’t.”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it. How could I begin to tell him about Selena in the seconds I had before Ariel came out and took him away from me? Already I could see her through the window, edging around the counter and taking slow steps toward the door.

  Brandon turned when my eyes left his, seeing Ariel’s approach, as well. Looking back at me, he said, “Please don’t do this. You get that you’re ruining my life, right? Every second you stand here, you make it harder for me to explain you away.”

  I winced, but if he saw it, he gave no indication. I didn’t want him to explain me away any more than I wanted to explain him away. I wanted to tell him he had another sister, one who wasn’t any part of the mistakes I’d made with him. Afterward, if he still didn’t want anything to do with us, then at least he’d know what he was walking away from.

  “I’ll go, but there’s a coffee shop called Lava Java, and—”

  “Fine. My shift is almost over. If you leave now, I’ll meet you there.” He looked over his shoulder again. Ariel was now on the other side of the door, arms crossed and staring. “Just go, now.”

  And he was gone before I could say another word.

  Chapter 33

  I waited outside Lava Java as long as possible, but Brandon had only said his shift was almost over. I had no idea what almost meant. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? It wasn’t cold, but I kept rubbing my arms and gnawing on my bottom lip as I scanned the parking lot for... I didn’t even know what kind of car he drove, or if he’d had second thoughts and wasn’t going to show at all. Or what if he came late and saw Selena before I had a chance to explain? What if she saw him before I had a chance to slip him into the back? The point was for him to see her, and then, when I’d had the chance to tell her everything and she was ready, I could tell her that he’d been there and heard her. Except my stomach was steadily punching its way up my throat as the minutes rushed by and there was still no Brandon.

  Inside, people were already performing. Selena was scheduled as one of the last to go on, but the longer I stayed outside, the more nervous she’d get, thinking I wasn’t going to show.

  “Dana!” Selena burst out of the door at my back. “I’ve been freaking out for the past twenty minutes. Where were you?”

  “I’m sorry, I was just...” My voice trailed off as I took in her appearance. She had on more makeup than usual, and she’d made her hair do this soft wave thing around her face. She looked like Selena, and she didn’t. She didn’t look like Selena the softball player or Selena the college student. She didn’t look like my big sister. I wasn’t smiling when she reached me.

  “Never mind. I don’t want to hear another lie anyway.” She pressed her hands over her stomach. “I’m so nervous. Do I look nervous?”

  “You look different,” I said, unsure why that bothered me so much but knowing that it did. Selena’s hands flew to her hair.

  “Whitney convinced me to try extensions. You can’t tell, can you?”

  “Who’s Whitney?”

  “She’s a friend of mine—mine and Gavin’s really, since he introduced us. I’ll make sure you meet her after. Did I mention I’m nervous?”

  “Yeah, you—”

  “Come on, there’s only a couple tables left.” She turned, towing me inside with her. “Gavi
n’s running late and there aren’t usually this many people here.” Selena’s gaze drifted around the room. “He put the word out with some people he knows, and I guess a lot of them came.”

  I spied an open table in the far corner and started toward it, but Selena tugged me to a stop. “No, I need you up front. If I get nervous...” Her laugh was a little shaky. “When I get impossibly more nervous, I can look straight ahead and see you.” She nodded at a spot much closer to the makeshift stage, which was really just a stepped-up section of the coffee shop with some lighting and audio equipment.

  “What am I saying? I won’t have to look for you—you’ll probably be booing pretty loud by then.”

  I pulled free of her grip. “Hey, no one is going to be booing, least of all me. I get that you’re nervous, but enough. I’m sorry I’m late, ’cause that guy murdering the theme song to ‘Zelda’ with I don’t even know what kind of flute is clearly a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but I wouldn’t have missed this, okay?”

  She took a deep breath and then flung her arms around my waist. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so panicky. Gavin’s usually here when I sing, and you’re usually not. And I just don’t want to mess this up, you know?”

  I did know. From over her shoulder I stole another glance at the window, and my own panic came skittering back. “You’re going to be great.”

  She let me go. “Tell that to my hands. I mean, I never got this nervous before a game. Feel them.” She reached for mine only to frown a second later. “Why are yours shaking?” Her face fell. “I really can sing, Dana. Maybe not as well as—”

  “No, I know you can.” I pulled my gaze from the window. “I just want you to be happy. I want all of us to be happy.”

  “Then maybe stop looking like you could cry any second,” Selena said. “Because I can’t be happy if you’re not.”