The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  I gave her a smile that didn’t reach my eyes, but fortunately, “Zelda” guy was finished and basking in his smattering of applause. Selena turned to clap too. In profile, she looked even less like herself. She did look pretty, beautiful even, but standing across from me, she looked like she was already gone, to Nashville or some other stage and spotlight much bigger than the one at Lava Java. She really was leaving. Not two-hours-away-at-college leaving, where I still saw her multiple times a week, but like I-need-to-take-a-plane-to-get-to-her leaving. That thought made my stomach clench.

  “Did I tell you what song I’m doing?”

  I shook my head. “Something you wrote?”

  “Nooooo. I’m not even close to being ready for that yet. ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac.”

  My mouth lifted. “I love that song.”

  “Why do you think I picked it?” She grinned at me, and I almost teared up on the spot.

  “I love you too, okay? Just don’t forget that.”

  “I have to head up in a minute. Where are you going to be?” The table up front was thankfully occupied by then.

  “I’ll grab one in the back, but I’ll make sure you can see me.”

  She nodded as we started moving in opposite directions. “And if somebody really awesome goes before me, try to make a scene or something awful for me to follow, okay?”

  I didn’t want to dwell on how easy that request might be. As soon as I took my seat, deciding with a heavy heart and a little bit of relief that he wasn’t coming after all, Brandon slid into the seat next to me.

  Chapter 34

  I could only gape at him. There. Next to me. “You came.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” Brandon’s teeth were clenched so tight I was afraid he’d break his jaw.

  I swallowed. His hostility was still in full force. It was painful to watch, knowing I’d done my part to make him feel that way. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should never have ambushed you that first day. You didn’t know me, and I showed up at your work reeling from things that I’d had no time to process myself, let alone figure out how to tell someone else.” And I could have tried harder to stop him from reading the DNA results.

  Brandon was staring straight ahead, not looking at me, but I knew he was listening by the way his shoulders began hunching up.

  “I don’t know how to deal with having a brother,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. Another singer was bowing, and I watched Selena offstage, sliding her guitar strap over her head, readying to take his place. “And maybe you don’t know how to deal with having a sister, but that’s just it—you don’t have one, you have—”

  “I can’t have a sister.” He forced the words through barely moving lips. “All I have is my dad, and all we have is a memory. She died right after I was born and I have one photo with her—one! And now I can’t even look at it anymore. There aren’t any pictures of her in my house, and I always thought it was because he missed her too much, but that’s not it. There aren’t any pictures because he doesn’t want any, because it’s enough to have to see me and know—” the muscle in his cheek jumped “—know I’m not his.” His voice nearly broke, and a part of me broke with it. “She died and he had to raise some other guy’s kid, but there wasn’t a single day where he made me feel unwanted or unloved. And I will never do that to him.” His head turned sharply to me. “Which means I can’t have a sister or anything else that reminds either of us that I’m not his.”

  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. M
y 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. I saw you 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.

  “You can’t go around saying stuff like this. What if someone actually believed you?”

  “You’re supposed to believe me! Just stop and listen—”

  “No, you stop it!” I recoiled at the vehemence in her voice. “Ever since I moved home, you’ve been unbearable. Sniping at Mom and being unconscionably cruel to Dad. And I don’t get it. Is it me? Am I taking something from you by being there that’s making you act up like this? I mean, you’re seventeen, Dana.” She shook her head in disgust.

  “This isn’t about you! Of course, you would think that—”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, like I was making her point for her.

  The instinct to grit my teeth was fleeting. If any part of her believed any part of what I was saying, she’d be dying inside, hurting the same way I had. The thought shattered me. “It was the DNA test, Sel.” My voice trembled, and I didn’t stop it. “That’s when all this started, not when you moved home.”

  So quickly that I almost missed it, Selena’s eyes flew to mine and there was a flicker of something other than annoyance. I took advantage of her momentary silence.

  “Brandon McCormick came up as a match with Dad, a nearly 50 percent match, Selena. That means he’s either Dad’s father or his son. Did he look like a member of AARP?”

  “Dana. Stop,” she said, in the kind of voice used to talk people down from bridges.

  “Why don’t you believe me?”

  “You told me the results were a bust, no real matches.”

  “I know, but I was lying then because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “And this isn’t hurting me?” She huffed, more a sound of exhaustion than anything else. “So the first thing was a lie, but this is the truth? Why shouldn’t I believe it’s the other way around?”

  I stepped toward her, reaching for her hand even as she pulled back. “Because I wouldn’t lie about something like this—you know I wouldn’t.”

  “No? You’ve gotten really good about lying about everything else.”

  “I don’t want to believe this any more than you do, but it’s true.” I pressed my clenched fist to my stomach and forced her eyes to stay locked with mine. “I have been going insane holding all this inside. I’ve barely been able to be in the same room with Dad, and looking at Mom makes me want to cry. And then I’ve been feeling so guilty around you, because I was stealing more time from you knowing your brother on top of the years you already missed. And Chase—” I closed my eyes when I said his name, my throat working before I opened them again. “You just have to believe me. Please believe me.”

  But she didn’t. I could see it in her face.

  “Why did that guy take off, then?”

  “Because it’s hard. Every bit of this is hard.” I drew out the last word. “Brandon’s mom died right after giving birth to him, and he doesn’t want to hurt the man who raised him by acknowledging us.”

  She started blinking too fast at me. Then it was like she shook it off. “No. How am I supposed to believe any of this? He’s lying, and Dad’s lying, and you’re lying some of the time but not all of the time.” She leaned toward me. “And I’m supposed to believe you now because this is one of the nonlying times, right?”

  “You’re right,” I said, and the frown crept back onto her face. She hadn’t been expecting me to admit that. “I have been lying about a lot, to you and Mom and Dad. But I’m not lying about this. Look, I’ll pull up his picture on my phone and you’ll—” My hand slid over the flat back pocket of my jeans, and then I was frowning too.

  “I’ll what? What do you want me to do here?” Her lips compressed, and I saw the hint of a quiver in her chin. “Just go home, Dana.”

  “Will you talk to me at home?” The quiver in my chin was much more than a hint, but Selena started shaking her head while I was still talking.

  “I’ll stay over at Whitney’s. I seriously can’t even look at you right now.” She pushed open the door to Lava Java and was gone.

  And that wasn’t even the worst part. When I looked away from that shut door, I saw Chase standing not ten feet away, holding the phone I’d forgotten at his house.

  Chapter 36

  I wanted to shrink away at the sight of Chase moving toward me. Not because he looked angry or cold, like the last two faces I’d seen, but because he looked like I’d hurt him when he’d never have done the same to me. Any hope that he hadn’t heard us vanished.

  He stopped a few paces away and stared at me. He didn’t say anything. Selena had yelled and Brandon had seethed, but Chase’s silence was somehow worse. I had no altruistic excuse for the pain my actions had caused him. I wasn’t introducing him to a sibling; I’d used him, and now he knew it. Brandon had begged me to stay out of his life, and I’d done the complete opposite. I’d dug myself into it as deeply as I could, through Chase and even his mom.

  And I knew I’d lost him.

  Bruising pain gushed through me. I should have walked away that first day we met. I should have let him leave me crying in the parking lot.

  He lowered his eyes when mine started to well up with tears. Looking down at his hand, he slid my phone onto one of the nearby outdoor tables. “You left this. You said your sister was singing here, and I thought you might need it.”

  His voice was steady, neither harsh nor hopeful. He was just Chase, direct and to the point. After everything he’d overheard, and whether he believed any of it or not, only one thing mattered to him.

  “Was it always about him?”

  Brandon.

  My heart slammed against my chest in denial, beating against my ribs as I stayed silent. I wanted to say no, but the truth was uglier than that. All those little and not-so-little ignored thoughts swelled in my gut, accusing me until my heart could no longer move under the onslaught.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chase tucked both lips into his mouth and nodded more to himself than me.

  And I couldn’t stop him when he left.

  * * *

  I sat in my car for hours after Lava Java closed and the parking lot emptied, feeling as crushed as the printed DNA results I’d finally remembered to retrieve. I smoothed open the paper on my lap, noticing deep crease lines in several places. How many times had Brandon folded and unfolded this paper? And yet he’d kept it. A tear hit the top corner, blurring a little of the ink as it spread. Would it even have mattered if I’d shown it to Selena? Or would she have accused me of printing a fake result like I had supposedly tried to produce a fake brother?

  I hadn’t meant to tel
l her like this. It was just supposed to be Brandon seeing her and then taking time—however long—to decide what he wanted without pressure. Then, when it was just the two of us, after I had every word planned out, I’d tell my sister about our brother. But not like this. Another tear hit the paper I held. Not when she’d just sung in front of me for the first time and was half expecting me to tell her she wasn’t good enough.

  She was. I hadn’t even gotten to tell her how beautiful she was on that stage, how every eye in the coffee shop was focused on her as she sang, and how I hadn’t wanted her to stop.

  I put the paper away, following the deep folds Brandon had created, and my fingers stopped on a section that might have been a dried tear. I squeezed my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t add to it. I’d had one chance with Brandon to offer him something good, something to show him he didn’t have to cry alone, but that chance was gone, and I had nothing more to offer him. And the one ally I’d hoped to have now found my presence so abhorrent that she couldn’t even share a house with me, much less a room.

  I hadn’t stopped at just losing my brother and my sister either. I’d lost Chase too.

  I sat in my car, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me, gasping for air that wouldn’t come and knowing I had no one to blame but myself.

  Chapter 37

  The next night was our last game before the finals, and I nearly missed it. I’d thought things would at least be easier around my parents, but I was wrong. I still felt sick over the inevitable fallout that would come when they learned about Brandon, because there would still be fallout. Discovering Dad didn’t know he had a son just meant there’d be a lot less anger to temper the pain.

  That whole following day after Lava Java, I slunk around my house, hiding from my parents as best I could, claiming, for instance, that I needed to steal a few extra minutes for homework just so I wouldn’t have to ride with them to the game.

  My team nearly paid the price for my cowardice when I continued to drag about my house after they left, only truly moving when a glance at the clock sent me crashing down the stairs and out the door.