It’s my soul.
My brother is alive. And not just alive. Here. On this island.
I feel the tears rising before I even realize it’s happening. One slides down the side of my face. Then another. But that’s it. No more water.
Darby notices. Her eyes soften. “You’re safe now,” she says gently.
I almost laugh. But it would come out sounding like a scream.
Safe?
I’ve never been safe.
But maybe I could have been. Maybe, if my birth mother had kept me, my big brother would have kept me safe.
“Jake,” I whisper. “Jake is my half-brother.”
A beat of silence. The room seems to still around us.
“I didn’t even know he existed until recently. Then they told me he was dead.”
Darby says nothing. She just places her hand gently on my shoulder.
“They all said he was dead. But he’s not. He’s here. He didn’t know about me.”
Darby doesn’t speak. She just waits, her touch steady on my shoulder, like she knows this is one of those moments where the silence matters more than any words.
“I saw his face,” I whisper. “He looked right at me, and…nothing. Not even a flicker.” My throat burns, but it’s not from dehydration this time. “He doesn’t know he has a sister. But how could he not see it? The resemblance between us?”
“If he doesn’t know, he probably wouldn’t be thinking in those terms,” she says gently. “Your pulse is still a little elevated. I need you to try to relax, Misty. You’re hyperventilating. That’s why it’s so difficult to get your breath.”
“I don’t know what Jake’s doing here,” I say, voice trembling. “Or why he pretended he was dead all that time. But I know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He looked straight through me,” I whisper. “Like I was no one. Like I didn’t even exist.”
Darby studies me for a moment. “What do you want from him?”
I blink at her.
“What would you want Jake to say to you? If he knew?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Because I don’t know.
Do I want an apology? A hug? Some big-brotherly vow to make up for the years I lost?
Or do I want to scream in his face for having the life I was denied?
Then again…his life couldn’t have been all that great either, if he let his friends believe he was dead.
I’m back at square one.
Where I always am.
I don’t fucking know what I want.
