After my car accident, the brother who always hated me came to visit. His eyes were cold as he asked, "Do you remember who I am?" I didn't have amnesia, but I lied to him anyway. "I remember. You're my husband, aren't you?" His dark eyes shifted away. After a few seconds, he replied almost inaudibly, "Yeah." 01 Today was my birthday. But the first thing my brother said when he saw me was, "What are you pretending for?" When I didn't answer, he kicked my hospital bed. "Speak. What kind of trick is this now?" He had blocked me. If the hospital hadn't called him, he wouldn't be here. Outside, a nurse called out to him. "Family member, please sign here." He was broad-shouldered with a sharp jawline, looking striking as he stood by the door. The police arrived. "Are you Ryan Carter?" He paused, pen in hand, and nodded. The police explained the cause of the accident. Some thugs Ryan had crossed paths with heard he had a girlfriend he treasured. They wanted to kidnap her for revenge. "Your sister and your girlfriend look too much alike." The police said they got the wrong person. While fleeing with a sprained ankle, I was hit by a car. That's how I ended up in the hospital. Ryan's pen hovered in the air. He didn't move for a long time. "Is it really that serious?" he asked. "They had knives. "Any slower, and you'd be signing for a body in the morgue. "She had a severe head injury when she was brought in," the nurse asked him. "Why wasn't your phone connecting?" He was with his girlfriend, Chloe. Today was their one-year anniversary. Chloe had purposely chosen my birthday to get together with him. Just so that, year after year on my birthday, Ryan would only be with her, not me. Back then, Chloe stood at my bedroom door wearing his shirt and asked me: "Did you know, Mia? "Everything he wouldn't do with you, he did with me." Ryan signed the papers. He sat by my bed, silent. I reached out for a drink of water. He grabbed my arm and pushed my sleeve up. Shocking, dark bruises and scabs, varying in depth, were exposed. He stared at them intently. Almost instinctively, he started unbuttoning my hospital gown. The red marks spreading from my collarbone. I clutched the fabric at my chest to stop him from going further. His gaze paused on my bra strap. Only then did he calm down. He let go, sat back in his chair, and stared darkly at my rumpled collar. "Where else?" I shook my head. His phone rang. It was Chloe. He glanced at it, then silenced it. He got up and went outside to call her back. He couldn't bear to ignore her call; he couldn't let her suffer even the slightest grievance. Through the glass, I watched the annoyance on his face gradually smooth out. He said, "I'll be back soon." He was still going back to her, even though I was lying in a hospital bed. With no one to care for me. Ryan returned to the room. His eyes were cold as he asked, "Do you remember who I am?" I didn't have amnesia, but I lied to him anyway. "I remember. You're my husband, aren't you?" A dead silence filled the room. His dark eyes shifted away. After a few seconds, he replied almost inaudibly, "Yeah." It wasn't that I loved him to death. I was disgusted by him. In two weeks, I would completely leave this place. Right when he was most invested. I would vanish from the face of the earth. And he had no idea. 02 Ryan and I were from a blended family. He and his mom moved into the house I shared with my dad. A massive fire. It blackened the afternoon of July 24th. The teacher sent us both home. My dad died on the spot. His mom held on in the hospital until winter, draining all the money we had. Before she passed, she held Ryan's hand and made him swear. "You must protect your sister and be good to her." "I swear," he said. When we returned to school, we only had each other. He had perfect scores in math. He topped the class for three years in middle school, but then he changed. He started skipping class. He'd vanish into internet cafes, impossible to find. When the principal came for a home visit, he only found me gnawing on stale bread, unable to even offer a cup of hot water. "I'm sorry, Mr. Davis. I couldn't pay the gas bill." Mr. Davis opened his wallet and left several crisp bills on the coffee table. He never visited again. The next year, I got into a top high school but couldn't afford the tuition. Relatives urged me to drop out and work in a factory. "What's the point of a girl studying so much?" Ryan kicked the door open and coldly chased them away. He had been constantly playing games for others online, working all night to make money. He was so thin and pale. He gave all the money to me. He said he would make money to support me. "You keep studying. Go as far as you can." I lived in the dorms during high school and rarely saw him. But rumors about him were everywhere. He grew more attractive as he got older. Tall, smoking, fighting, with a cold, rebellious vibe. I heard many girls chased after him, but he never cared. Our only interaction was my meal card. Topped up right on time every month. One Friday night during sophomore year, a senior who was pursuing me followed me all the way to my front door. He bumped into Ryan, who was taking out his keys to unlock the door. Ryan had a cut on his brow, smoke rings curling around his lazy eyes, shrouded in mist. The senior froze. Ryan reached out, hooked his arm around my neck, opened the door, and closed it. Without a single word, he left the guy outside. "Ryan." I turned around, wanting to explain. He pointed at the table. A cake. Stars hanging from the curtains. He had fixed the camcorder my dad left me, which had a video of my dad singing me happy birthday. "Ryan," I asked him, "will you always celebrate my birthday with me?" He rested his forehead against mine. "Duh." He chuckled softly, "If not me, who else do you want to celebrate it with?" After that, he waited for me at the school gate every Friday. In the sea of people, he could always spot me instantly. This continued until right before summer vacation, when I borrowed his computer for research. I saw a chat window he hadn't closed. His friend asked him: [You're not even going to LA for the tournament? [Do you really want to be dragged down by her your whole life? [You're not even blood-related, you'll separate eventually.] He only replied with one sentence. [Yeah, waiting until she graduates.] I only had him. Driven by some inexplicable impulse, I clicked on the search bar and typed: [Is it illegal to marry a stepbrother with no blood relation?] Hundreds of pages of results. I was so engrossed I didn't realize Ryan had entered the room and was standing behind me. I looked at the webpage. He looked at me. Neither of us said a word. When I realized it, I slammed the laptop shut, so tense and ashamed I couldn't speak. He grabbed his jacket that night and left. He didn't come back all night. He didn't come back for the entire summer I was home. Until I needed to pay for my prep classes. He paid for them. Hands in his pockets, wearing a black hoodie, he waited for me at the end of the alley after class. Drawing the attention of many girls. As soon as I arrived, he saw me. This was where we met Chloe. Wearing a white dress, a face as small as a palm, delicate features. Tears in her eyes, she bypassed me and gently tugged at Ryan's shirt. "Ryan." She asked him. "Can I walk with you guys for a bit?" Someone was following her. At that moment, Ryan just looked at her. Just a brief glance. So brief, yet my premonition beat as strongly as my heart. He couldn't refuse Chloe. 03 Chloe had dropped out of school a long time ago. She lived with her grandmother, who had passed away a few months prior. Ryan was also raised by his grandmother when he was little. We walked her all the way to her door. Only to find out the landlord had changed the locks because she was behind on rent. She looked at Ryan, helpless and frantic. Ryan didn't say anything. But he brought her home. Our apartment only had two bedrooms: mine and Ryan's. Chloe looked at me, then peeked into my room. She wanted to share a room with me. "You take the couch," Ryan threw a blanket at her. "Don't bother my sister, she has exams. You're leaving tomorrow." She obediently curled up on the couch. Wrapped in the blanket, a small ball, coughing all night. In the morning, she made a whole table of food for Ryan. She didn't say a word, didn't fight for anything. And left on her own. Ryan didn't ask her to stay. He stood outside the door watching her go. The early winter wind scattered the smoke from his cigarette. The next day, I went back to school. When the following Friday rolled around, I was glad class didn't run late. Full of anticipation, I squeezed through the crowd, looking for Ryan at the school gate. He was still there. I waved at him, then saw Chloe standing next to him. They came together. Chloe was afraid of the cold and was even wearing Ryan's jacket. In less than a week. My room was adorned with Chloe's pink bead curtains, and her makeup crowded my things off the desk. Her clothes were piled on my messy bed. "You're rarely home," she explained. "I'm just crashing here for a bit. You don't mind, right?" I walked in. And yanked her curtain down. Along with all her stuff, I threw it all out the door. "Who said you could touch my things?" She crouched down, her eyes red as she looked at the curtain. "I'm sorry," she said. "Mia, I made this for you myself. It's all my fault." Ryan leaned against the wall, his eyes cold. "It is her room," he told Chloe. "You sleep on the couch." Chloe was very obedient. Before going to sleep, she apologized to me again and again in front of Ryan. She curled up on the couch. Whenever the wind rattled Ryan's door, she would cough. It made your heart clench. In the middle of the night. I was woken up by her faint breathing. She was standing outside my door, saying to Ryan, "The living room window is drafty. Can I sleep on your floor?" The wind kept blowing the door open and shut. I knew he let her in. The next morning, as dawn was just breaking. Neither of them was awake yet. I braved the biting wind and went back to school. 04 A lot of guys chased Chloe; she was very likable. Ryan knew that too. Because of this, he got into quite a few fights for her. Starting my senior year, I barely went home. When it was time to pay tuition, I used the money I had earned from working. "Here, paying you back." I went to the internet cafe and found Ryan. I returned the tuition money he had paid for me. At the time, he was running a fever from a recent fight, but was still playing games for clients. "What, my money isn't good enough for you?" The corners of his eyes and brows looked increasingly decadent and feral. His words were ice cold. "I saved up enough myself. Take care of your injuries and stop fighting—" "None of your business." He impatiently snatched the money and threw it on the desk. "I can't even get you to live at home, and you want to tell me what to do?" He knew exactly why I didn't want to go home. He said if I didn't want his money, plenty of others did. He used the tuition money to buy Chloe a dress that cost over a thousand dollars. Winter break during senior year was very short. I only stayed home for a week. But Chloe couldn't even tolerate me for that one week. Her tactics weren't very sophisticated. She claimed I took her dress. I scoffed and immediately tore my room apart. "Open your damn eyes and look. Where is your dress?" Ryan walked in just as I said that. He looked at me flatly. Like I was a stranger. "Give it back to her." "I didn't take it." I was desperate, my mind racing for any way to prove my innocence. But I met the eyes of Chloe standing behind him. Why did I have to prove myself, but she didn't? A sour ache welled up in my throat. The dress was eventually found in the dumpster downstairs, cut to shreds. Ryan demanded I apologize. I refused. I confronted him: "You believe her, but not me?" Chloe pulled his arm: "Forget it, it's fine." Ryan picked up the seashell keychain on my desk to threaten me. We made it together the first time our whole family went to the beach. "Mia, if you don't apologize, I'll smash this." He knew what I cared about most. I only felt a creeping chill rise from my feet. I reached out, smacked the seashell keychain from his hand, and watched it shatter on the floor. He stared blankly at the broken pieces. Then looked at me in disbelief. "I don't want it anymore," I said, enunciating every word. He gathered his expression, gave a cold scoff, and asked: "Do you know why I don't believe you? "You don't care about the dress. You just can't stand me buying things for her. "You know exactly what kind of filthy thoughts are in your head." He laid my feelings bare over the shattered pieces on the floor. Without leaving a shred of dignity. I turned around and left the apartment. It was New Year's Eve, and it was snowing outside. No one came looking for me. It was too cold. I stayed at the public bathhouse until it closed, nowhere else to go. I still ended up back at the apartment. Only Chloe was inside. She said she was hungry, so Ryan went out to buy New Year's dinner. At that time, Chloe stood at my bedroom door, wearing his shirt, and asked me: "Did you know, Mia? "In the few hours you were gone. "Everything he wouldn't do with you, he did with me." I never went home again until after the college entrance exams. I ranked first in the entire school. I could go to the best university in the state capital. Ryan went to LA for a gaming tournament. It wasn't until July 24th, when I went to the mountains to visit my dad's grave. He called me from the hospital. Anxious and terrified, I pedaled my bike as fast as I could. All the way there, holding back tears, praying to God. He was my only family left. But when I arrived, he was sitting in the emergency room waiting area. He wasn't the one hurt. Some thugs he had trouble with targeted Chloe while he was away. He grabbed my wrist, bombarding me with questions. "Chloe said she called you for help. Why did you ignore her? "You better pray she's okay." He gripped me so hard it hurt. "I didn't know. There's no signal in the mountains." He suddenly remembered what day it was. He let go. Silence. He watched the people coming and going in the ER. And only said one thing to me: "Leave. "Go to college and don't come back." I walked out of the hospital doors and couldn't find my beat-up bike for a long time. I was in such a rush earlier, I didn't know where I parked it. I turned around and saw Chloe coming out. Superficial injuries. A band-aid on her hand. Crying uncontrollably in Ryan's arms. Ryan thought I only applied to universities in the state capital. Not too far away. He could see me with a two-hour drive. He just never expected I would apply to an Ivy League school on the East Coast. Thousands of miles away from him. I never went back once. Never made a single phone call. During the summer of my sophomore year, I was tutoring. While I was in the bathroom, my high school student answered my phone as a prank. "He said he's your brother." The student handed the phone to me with a mischievous grin. "I told him I'm your boyfriend." I took the phone: "Hello?" Ryan was silent on the other end for a long time. Finally, through gritted teeth, he forced out a laugh and said two words. "Very capable." He hung up and blocked me. We never contacted each other again.
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