He Spent Ten Years Being My “Brother”—Then Said He Didn’t Want Me Anymore

Chapter 1

When I was seven, the Harrison family brought me home from St. Anne’s Orphanage.

For ten years, I called Ethan my bro.

Then I heard him outside The Copper Fox, laughing with his friends.

“Mia Carter, she’s an idiot. Who’d want to be her bro.”

So that was it. The perfect doting-brother act was never real.

I clenched my fists and turned away, then a stranger pulled me into his arms in the middle of a rainstorm.

At 2 a.m., my phone buzzed on the pillow beside me.

It was a message from Ethan.

I was still under my desk lamp, wrestling with English vocab. My textbook lay open on a wrinkled bedsheet.

I was never the kind of person who could memorize things at a glance. One page of words could keep me up until midnight before any of it finally stuck.

Still, I wasn’t hopeless. On dictation quizzes, I usually got more than half right.

Ethan used to say I was the hardest-working little snail.

Compared to someone like him, a genius type, I was always going to be the one trying to catch up.

I rubbed my sore eyes and opened the message, thinking a straight-A kid like him probably never stayed up for vocab the way I did.

[Mimi, you in the dorm?]

[I am, Ethan.]

I replied, nice and obedient, my fingers picking at a loose thread in the bedsheet without thinking.

[Is your roommate asleep?]

His voice message sounded rough, like he’d had too much to drink.

He probably had. I remembered it was someone’s birthday from his class today.

I glanced at the dorm room. The curtains on the other three beds were drawn tight.

[Yeah. They’re asleep.]

[Then come get me. I’ve been drinking. I can’t drive.]

I tossed my vocab book aside, grabbed my jacket, and hurried out, already worrying he’d wander off.

[Stay where you are, okay. Don’t go anywhere.]

[Okay.]

I thought I heard a soft chuckle, then he hung up.

I stared at my dark screen, my stomach doing that uneasy flip it always did.

After Ethan started college, he got into drinking. When he drank, he called me to pick him up.

I hated it. Drinking was bad for him.

Once, I told him seriously. He was staring at his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Drinking’s bad for you,” I said, louder the second time.

“Ethan, are you even listening.”

He turned, smiled, and ruffled my hair.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it. Mimi worries about me more than anyone.”

My face went warm. I didn’t want him to notice, so I forced a glare like I was annoyed.

“If you keep drinking, I’m not coming next time.”

He just laughed and called me Little Bossy Boots.

I pressed my lips together and didn’t say anything, but something sweet still rose in my chest.

I’d heard Ben and Rachel talking before, affectionate and casual, and Ben had called her Little Bossy Boots in that same tone.

It sounded like something you only said to someone you were close to.

So why did Ethan say it to me.

I couldn’t figure it out, and I didn’t want to.

That was how I always dealt with things I didn’t understand. I set them aside.

The problem was, there were too many things I didn’t understand.

I knew why. I wasn’t smart. Not the way other people were, the kind who got it the first time.

My biological parents thought I was slow. That was why they left me at St. Anne’s Orphanage.

The doctor said my brain developed a little later than other kids, so I could seem spaced out sometimes.

At Westbridge Academy, classmates called me stupid.

Ethan was the only one who told me Mimi was the hardest-working kid he’d ever met.

By the time I got to The Copper Fox, a thin rain had started. I stood by the entrance and stomped the water off my shoes.

Ethan sent me the room number.

I stopped at the door. It was half closed, a sliver of light spilling out.

I was about to push it open, then I heard my name.

“Man, Mia really takes care of you,” someone said.

“Yeah, every time you get wasted, she’s the one who comes for you.”

“Whoever bet she wouldn’t show up, pay up.”

“Hey, Ethan, I heard Mia isn’t even your real sister.”

Through the crack, I saw the red glow of a cigarette at Ethan’s mouth.

My grip tightened on the handle, almost pleased with myself.

He was smoking. I could tell Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.

“So if she’s not really family, then that means…”

“Ethan, Liam was asking me for Mia’s number the other day. He wouldn’t let it go.”

The room erupted in laughter.

I didn’t understand what was so funny.

My legs were starting to ache from standing there.

I finally made up my mind to go in, and that was when I heard Ethan’s voice, low and hoarse.

“Mia Carter, she’s a dumbass. Who’d want to be her bro.”

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