“Lighten up! I want the primary bedroom redone the moment we move into your new luxury house,” Brandon announced at Sunday brunch, tapping her fork against her glass like she was making a toast. She didn’t smile. She didn’t wink. She said it the way you order something you fully expect to receive.
Liam, her boyfriend, leaned in with that practiced grin he wears for cameras and strangers. “It’s only fair,” he said. “We’ll be living there long-term.”
A couple people laughed, like entitlement is harmless when it’s served with eggs and a mimosa tower. My mom did her nervous giggle—her please-don’t-fight laugh. My aunt made a low sound into her coffee, the kind that means she wants to disappear into the mug. Even the server smiled politely, like she’d heard families say worse things over syrup.
I stared at my plate and felt my mouth do the thing it does when I’m about to draw a line and everyone is about to pretend the line isn’t there.
“I’m not planning to have roommates,” I said. Quiet. Firm.
Brandon’s sunglasses hid her eyes, but I saw the tilt of her chin. The tiny pause before she decided how she’d spin it later. Liam rolled his eyes like I’d just announced I hated puppies.
“We’re family,” he said, like those two words erase boundaries the way a hand wipes fog off glass.
Everyone laughed again, softer this time, like laughter could patch over a crack. My mom reached across the table and rubbed my wrist. That touch wasn’t comfort. It was pressure. It was her way of asking me to be the person who makes it smooth.
“We’ll talk,” she whispered.
We always “talk.” It usually means I’m the one who gives.
Twenty-four hours later, my mom called me, breathless and panicked. “Oh my God, Catherine… what is she reading to the camera?!”
I was in my car outside the grocery store, sitting in the parking lot with the engine running because I’d promised myself I’d buy vegetables like a stable adult. The air inside the car smelled like my iced coffee and the wintergreen gum I only chew when I’m trying not to spiral.
“Who?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Brandon,” Mom said. “She’s live. She’s reading… numbers. She’s saying things about your new place and your budget. People are commenting. Catherine, it’s—” Her voice cracked. “It’s your stuff.”
My grip tightened on the steering wheel. The word stuff sounded small. Like paper doesn’t matter. Like privacy is a luxury. Like my life can be held up to a ring light and laughed at for likes.
I opened the app.
The screen loaded, and there she was: Brandon in a hoodie, sitting cross-legged on someone’s couch like she was about to tell a ghost story. A bright ring light made her skin look smooth and holy. Liam sat off to the side, half in frame, half out, like a producer pretending not to be the producer.
Brandon held up a printout. Not a vague page. Not something generic. A page I recognized the way you recognize your own handwriting across a room.
My tracking sheet. The one with the stupid label at the top: HOUSE.
I felt cold move through me—clean, sharp cold, like I’d swallowed a mint and it went straight to my spine.
“This is what she thinks she can afford,” Brandon said to the chat, laughing. “Look at this line. Furniture: zero dollars for now. Babe, what is this? The depression.”
Liam cackled, loud enough to be heard. “She budgeted for paper towels but not for living,” he said, like it was a joke he’d practiced.
He wasn’t wrong about one thing: I had a line for paper towels. I have lines for everything. When you grow up in a house where you never know what’s going to break next, you learn to write it down. You learn to count it so it can’t sneak up behind you.
The comments scrolled fast. Hearts. Fire emojis. People I’ve never met telling me to loosen up, stop being stingy, share with family. Strangers calling my sister iconic for “exposing the rich one.” Someone said, “Drop the address, we need a house tour.” Someone else wrote, “If you don’t let them move in you’re selfish.”
My throat went tight like it was trying to close. My hands didn’t feel like mine. They felt slow, like they belonged to someone older, someone tired.
I muted the livestream. The silence was worse because I could still see Brandon’s mouth moving, still see her laughing, still see her finger tapping the page as if the numbers were a punchline.
I could also see, very clearly, the small corner of the page where I’d made a note in my own shorthand. A private note. A note that wasn’t meant for anyone, much less for the internet.
My mom’s voice came back through the phone, small now. “I didn’t think she’d do that,” she whispered, like she was talking about a storm that hit our house. Like my sister was weather.
“How did she get it?” I asked.
Mom hesitated. I heard her swallow. “You showed it to me,” she said. “When you were explaining how you were making it all work. You left it on my coffee table because I was crying and I said I wanted to look again. I didn’t think she’d—”
I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t have words. Because I had too many.
I watched Brandon highlight a section with her finger like she was teaching a class on how to judge your sister’s life.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t comment. I didn’t text her. I didn’t do my usual thing, which is fix it fast so no one has to feel uncomfortable.
I sat in that car in that parking lot, the grocery store sign glowing behind my windshield, and I measured something I hadn’t measured in a long time: the distance between who my family expects me to be and who I can be without breaking.
My name is Catherine. I’m 32. Oldest daughter. Default solver. The one who makes sure birthdays don’t get missed and appointments don’t get forgotten. The one who can tell you which drawer has the extra batteries and which closet has the spare towels. I work in project management, which is mostly herding people who swear they never said the deadline was Wednesday until Wednesday arrives and suddenly it’s my fault.
My life looks calm from the outside. Packed lunch. Neat calendar. Clean inbox. A small emergency fund tucked away like a secret.
That calm was built on years of noise.
My mom raised us after the divorce. She’s sweet and anxious and prepared for disaster in the way some people collect cute mugs. She keeps a drawer full of birthday candles “just in case.” She has a habit of saying we when she means you. She loves hard, but her love comes with a fear of conflict so deep it turned into a family language. The language is: don’t rock the boat, Catherine will handle it.
Brandon is my younger sister. My mom named her Brandon because my dad wanted a boy name, and by the time my dad left, my mom was too tired to change anything that didn’t absolutely have to be changed. Brandon grew up with a name that made people pause, and she learned early how to turn pauses into attention. She is magnetic. People want to believe her. People want to help her. She has a talent for making the world feel like it owes her something.
She started posting videos as a teenager. Makeup tutorials. “Day in my life.” Little speeches about mindset. She calls it her brand. Liam calls himself her manager, which mostly means he films her from across the couch and tells her to “push the energy.” He’s charming in a way that slides. He says big words with confidence and convinces people they’re hearing wisdom.
I saved for eight years. I took night classes. I picked up extra projects. I said no to vacations and yes to overtime. Over time, I kept a glass jar on my counter because it made me feel grounded to put something aside, even when it was just a little. I stuck a label on it that said HOUSE, like writing it down could force the universe to cooperate.
In March, my offer on a new build went through. A little place in a suburb where the streets curve the same way and the mailboxes line up like soldiers. The realtor said “luxury” because there’s an island in the kitchen and the ceilings are higher than mine ever were in any apartment I rented. The closets are so big they feel like rooms pretending to be closets.
I told maybe three people.
My mom cried when I told her. She cried harder when I said I’d still be close. “You’re not moving across the country,” she said, like she needed to hear it out loud. “You’ll still come for Sunday dinners.”
“I’m not moving to the moon,” I said.
She held my face the way she did when I was little, when she was checking for a fever. “You did this,” she whispered. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”
Then she turned around and texted Brandon because that’s what she does when she’s overwhelmed by joy. She shares it like a reflex.
Brandon’s first response was a string of screaming emojis and the word YESS. Her second was, “We need to film a house hunt series.” Her third was, “Don’t be weird, I can make it cute.”
I told her no.
She called me controlling. She called me gatekeeping. She told me I had “main character energy” like it was a sin. Liam sent me links to minimalist furniture and said, “Neutral masculine primary suite vibes are trending.”
I didn’t answer.
I should have known the moment my mom shared the news, my house stopped being my house in their minds. It became content. It became a set. It became a way out.
Sunday brunch was my first real confirmation.
Mom said low-key. It was not low-key. The place was full of people in sweaters and sunglasses, like everyone was auditioning for a fall catalog. The menu had words like artisan and elevated. Maple syrup cost extra. A server carried a tower of mimosas past our table like a centerpiece.
Mom invited my aunt, my cousin, and a family friend I hadn’t seen in years. She wanted it to feel like a celebration. She wanted a moment where we were all smiling at once.
Brandon arrived late, of course, in sunglasses even though we were inside. Liam followed with a tote bag that looked suspiciously like camera equipment.
Brandon ordered three entrées because she said she wanted “options for the shot.” She took a picture of her plate before she took a bite. Liam angled his phone like he was filming without filming.
I planned to eat eggs and survive.
Mom couldn’t help herself. “Catherine got the house,” she announced, squeezing my wrist like she needed something solid in the room.
People clapped. Someone said congratulations. Mom did her nervous giggle. I tried to smile like I wasn’t already bracing.
Brandon leaned back, smirk loaded. “Lighten up,” she said, tapping her fork against her glass. Then she claimed my bedroom.
Not guest room. Not couch. Not “we’ll visit sometimes.” My bedroom.
The table laughed like it was a bit. Like this is what quirky sisters do. Like my sister wasn’t handing out roles in my life as if she owned the casting.
When I said I wasn’t planning to have roommates, the air shifted.
Mom whispered we’ll talk. Brandon winked like it was all harmless. Liam said we’re family and smiled like he’d won.
I left brunch with a tightness in my jaw that felt like a headache waiting to happen. I drove home with the radio off, letting the silence thicken. In my apartment, I washed a mug that was already clean because I needed to do something with my hands.
Then the livestream happened.
The livestream wasn’t just mean. It was calculated. Brandon wasn’t mad about my boundary. She was using it. She was turning it into a story where she was the fun one and I was the villain. She was handing the internet my private details like party favors.
In the parking lot, after my mom’s call, I watched for another full minute. Not because I wanted to. Because I needed to know what they had.
Brandon held up a second page. Liam leaned in and pointed to a section with his finger like he was a commentator.
“Look at this,” he said. “She even wrote a cap for ‘family help.’ Like she’s budgeted for being a decent person.”
Brandon laughed. “It’s giving corporate,” she said. “It’s giving cold.”
The chat loved that. People love a villain they can boo. Especially if the villain is a woman with a spreadsheet.
I closed the app. I sat there until my iced coffee melted into something watery. I stared at the grocery store doors opening and closing. People walked out carrying bags and toddlers and bouquets like life was normal.
I called my mom back. “Tell her to stop,” I said, my voice steady in a way that surprised me.
“I tried,” Mom whispered. “She blocked me from the live. She said I was killing the vibe.”
The vibe. My private life reduced to a vibe.
“Okay,” I said. “I need you to listen. Don’t argue with her. Don’t beg. Don’t try to explain. Just… don’t feed it.”
Mom sniffed. “What are you going to do?”
There it was. The old question. The question that means: please fix this so I don’t have to choose sides.
I stared at my own hands on the steering wheel. I thought about all the times I’d swallowed anger to keep peace. All the times I’d paid for peace.
“I’m going to protect myself,” I said.
Mom went quiet. “That sounds… harsh,” she whispered.
“It’s not harsh,” I said. “It’s new.”
I went into the grocery store anyway because I refused to let Brandon’s livestream control whether I bought broccoli. I walked the aisles like a person in a dream. I grabbed a bag of spinach, a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread I didn’t even want. My phone buzzed with notifications the entire time.
By the time I got home, I had twenty-seven messages. Three were from friends. The rest were from family group chats and random people who’d found me through Brandon’s tags and decided they had an opinion about my morality.
I ignored them all.
That night, I didn’t do my usual thing. I didn’t write a long text explaining my feelings. I didn’t craft a perfect message with just the right mix of firm and kind. I didn’t call Brandon to plead my case like a lawyer begging a jury to see my humanity.
I went to bed.
I slept badly.
When I woke up, the first thing I felt was the weight in my chest, like someone had left a stone there overnight. My second feeling was clarity. Not peace. Clarity.
If you want to understand how clarity arrived so fast, you have to understand the pattern.
I was the helper kid.
Mom had me at twenty-one. She worked long shifts. She did her best, but her best came with exhaustion. When my dad left, the house turned into a small storm that never fully cleared. Mom cried in the bathroom sometimes, quietly, so we wouldn’t hear. But kids hear anyway.
I learned to heat frozen dinners. I learned to fold laundry without being asked. I learned to make myself useful so there’d be less to cry about. I learned that love in our house looked like labor.
Brandon learned something else. Brandon learned how to be charming.
At twelve, she convinced a neighbor to buy her a skateboard “for a project.” At fifteen, she convinced Mom to help her get a camera “for school,” and when Mom couldn’t, Brandon turned to me with those big eyes and palms up like she was offering evidence.
“It’ll pay for itself,” she said.
I bought the cheaper camera and told her to pay me back twenty dollars a week. She paid twice. Then she called me obsessed with money. Then she filmed a video joking about my “saving samurai” habits, and when I asked her to take it down, she did—until her views dipped, and then it quietly returned.
Small things stack.
When Brandon was nineteen, a guy she collaborated with stole her login. She called me sobbing like her life was over. I stayed on hold with support for hours. I helped her get the account back. She thanked me by posting a story: “Shout out to my sis!” It tagged a random account. She said she was keeping me private, like privacy was a gift she could grant or take away.
My mom was always the referee and the amplifier. “Family helps family,” she’d say, eyes wet because she wanted it to be true.
In our house, it translated into: Catherine handles it.
When Brandon’s rent was late, she called at midnight. “Can you just cover it?” she’d whisper, like the word cover meant temporary. Like money returns on its own if you don’t look too hard.
She returned fifty dollars once, in the form of a grocery store gift card, like I should be grateful she remembered I eat.
Two years ago, Mom’s apartment flooded and Brandon asked if she and Liam could “crash with me for a few days.” I said yes, because I always said yes back then. They arrived with six bags, two ring lights, a dog, and an air fryer.
Days became weeks.
They filmed late at night. The dog chewed my internet cable. Liam claimed my bedroom like it was normal. When I asked Brandon to contribute something toward the extra costs, she said, “You’re petty if you need money from family.”
Liam called me a landlord like it was an insult.
They stayed fifty-three days.
I know the number because I wrote it down. I wrote it down because when you live with people who blur lines, the only way to keep your sanity is to draw a line somewhere solid. For me, solid has always been numbers.
When Mom’s car needed repairs, I paid for them and sent her the confirmation like I was sending proof to a judge. Brandon saw it and texted me, “Real sisters don’t keep receipts.”
I didn’t reply because I was trying to be a real sister, whatever that meant.
That’s how you get used. You keep trying to earn a title someone already decided you don’t deserve.
When I finally started looking at houses, I didn’t tell anyone. I ran numbers like it was a private hobby. I drove to open houses alone and took pictures like a creep. I went to builder showrooms and nodded at countertops like I was auditioning for adulthood. I sat at my kitchen table in my apartment, late at night, and wrote down every cost I could think of because I refused to be surprised by my own life.
In December, I told Mom. She cried and held my face and whispered, “You don’t owe anyone anything.”
Then she told Brandon because joy makes Mom share, and fear makes Mom share too, and she doesn’t always know which is which.
So when Brandon claimed my primary bedroom at brunch, it wasn’t random. It was a continuation. It was a test to see if I’d fold like I always used to.
I didn’t fold.
That’s why the livestream happened.
By lunchtime on Monday, Brandon texted me like nothing was wrong.
“Don’t be mad,” she wrote. “It’s just content. Also we need to talk about rooms. Our lease ends next month and moving in with you would save us like $2k. Win-win.”
I stared at the message until my eyes felt dry.
Then I called her.
She answered on the second ring, too cheerful. “Hey sis!”
“Take it down,” I said.
“You can’t delete live,” she said, like she was explaining gravity. “That’s the point. It’s authentic.”
“Stop sharing my private information,” I said. “Stop talking about my house like it belongs to you.”
There was a pause, and then her voice sharpened. “You’re making this weird.”
“It was weird when you held my numbers up to a camera,” I said.
She sighed like I was exhausting. “You’re buying a luxury house while your family hustles.”
“I hustled too,” I said.
“You have main character energy,” she said. “Let us ride. Liam already found an interior designer. We can make the primary suite insane. It’ll be so good.”
“No,” I said.
She laughed, and it wasn’t sweet. “Sis, you have to let go of control.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m letting go of being your safety net.”
She went quiet. Then she snapped, “Fine,” and hung up like she was punishing me with absence.
My phone buzzed a second later.
It was Liam: Lighten up. You’re making people uncomfortable by being uncomfortable.
I didn’t reply.
Instead, I opened my laptop and started making a different kind of list.
Not a list of costs. Not a list of furniture.
A list of boundaries.
I texted a friend from college who’d gone into law. Not because I wanted drama. Because I wanted clarity.
She called me that night and listened without interrupting. When I finished, she exhaled and said, “Okay. You don’t have to fight online. You just have to stop giving them access.”
“I already said no,” I said.
“And they heard it,” she said. “They just don’t accept it. There’s a difference.”
The next morning, I printed three pages: a simple written request that they stop using my private information, a one-page guest guideline that spelled out expectations in plain language, and a list titled WHAT I CAN AFFORD WITHOUT GOING UNDER.
When people treat you like a resource, you bring paper. Not because you want to be cold. Because you want to be understood.
That afternoon, my mom texted me. “Can we all sit down? I think we need to set expectations. Love you.”
She puts love you at the beginning when she thinks I’ll get mad.
I said yes. I picked a time.
We met at her apartment because Mom likes to feed tension with food. She made a casserole and set six spoons on the table like spoons are neutral. The TV was on mute, an old habit from when arguments were background music.
Brandon and Liam arrived ten minutes late with a tote bag and the ring light.
“No filming,” I said at the door.
Liam pouted. “You’re killing the channel.”
Mom shushed him with bread. “Let’s just talk,” she said, eyes pleading.
I sat down and placed my folder on the table. My hands were calm. My stomach wasn’t, but my hands were.
“Ground rules,” I said. “Short. Clear.”
Brandon leaned back like she was doing an interview. “Okay,” she said. “Go.”
I slid the first page forward.
“Stop sharing my private information,” I said. “Stop talking about my house publicly. Don’t hint at the neighborhood. Don’t show my pages. Don’t share numbers. Don’t make jokes about my budget.”
Liam smirked like he’d been waiting for this. “You can’t control speech,” he said.
“I can control access,” I said. “And I can report the use of private information. I don’t want to. Don’t make me.”
Mom winced like the words hurt her.
Brandon’s smile tightened. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Second,” I said, and slid the next page toward them, “no one is moving into my house. Not you. Not Liam. Not your dog. Not for a week. Not for a month. Not ‘just until you figure it out.’ No.”
Mom’s mouth opened.
“But—”
I cut her off gently. “I love you,” I said. “No.”
Brandon’s face shifted, and for a second I saw something real—anger, yes, but also embarrassment. Because she’d thought this would be easy. She’d thought my no was a performance, not a decision.
“You think you’re better than us,” she said softly, like she was trying to cut me without raising her voice.
“I think I worked for what I have,” I said. “And I think you’ve decided that makes me responsible for you.”
Liam leaned forward. “Be serious,” he said. “It’s practical. We’d save a ton. You won’t even feel it. You’re buying a luxury place.”
“Third,” I said, not looking at him, “if you need housing help, I can help you plan. I can help you look. I can help you make a budget. But you don’t get my house.”
Brandon laughed—sharp, itchy laughter. “You’re obsessed with paper,” she said. “You don’t care about people.”
“I care,” I said. “That’s why I’m doing this now instead of after I resent you.”
Mom sat very still, hands clasped like she was praying for peace.
“What about me?” she asked finally, voice small. “Can I stay sometimes? If I’m lonely?”
“Yes,” I said, and my voice softened. “You can visit. You’ll have a key code. But that’s different, Mom. You don’t film. You don’t take. You don’t turn my life into content.”
Brandon pointed at me. “So she gets a code and I don’t? Favoritism.”
“No,” I said. “Boundaries based on history.”
Liam scoffed. “History. Okay.”
“Fourth,” I said, and slid the guest guideline to Mom only, “anyone who stays signs this. It’s simple. It says things like: two nights max, no recording devices, and if you break it, you fix it. It’s not a trap. It’s a map.”
Mom touched the paper like it might bite. “This feels… official,” she whispered.
“I am official,” I said. “With my life.”
Brandon knocked the folder with the back of her hand and the pages fanned across the table like a deck of cards.
“You’re disgusting,” she said. “You act like we’re strangers.”
“You act like I’m a wallet,” I said.
Her chair scraped as she stood. “Everybody thinks you’re generous,” she snapped. “They don’t see you counting. I see you counting.”
“I count because no one counted for me,” I said. “And because you count on me not to count.”
Liam crossed his arms. “We don’t need your tiny little house,” he said.
“It’s not tiny,” I said. “It’s mine.”
Brandon grabbed her tote bag. “Don’t call me when you need content,” she said, like that was a threat.
“I never called you,” I said.
At the door, she turned back. “You really think you’re the hero?”
“I think I’m tired,” I said. “And I’m done. This isn’t about revenge. It’s about closure.”
Something flickered across her face at that word. Then she walked out.
The door closed, and sound rushed back into my mom’s apartment like it had been waiting outside.
Mom sat down slowly, staring at the guest guideline. “I don’t like this,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said.
“It makes me feel like I raised you wrong.”
“You raised me to survive,” I said. “Survival looks like this.”
Mom nodded without looking up. “She’ll be mad,” she whispered.
“She already is,” I said.
Mom cleared her throat, and her voice went small again. “Can I still bring candles?”
It was ridiculous and perfect, and it made my eyes sting.
“Yes,” I said. “Please bring candles.”
The next morning, I sent Brandon a short message. Clear. No emotion bait. No arguing. Just the boundary in writing.
She replied with an emoji that said enough.
I didn’t respond.
Instead, I packed my kitchen. I wrapped dishes in towels. I taped boxes shut. I moved through my apartment like someone rehearsing a new life.
Closing day came fast. I drove to the title office in the kind of quiet that feels like determination. I sat at a table under fluorescent lights and wrote my name so many times my hand cramped. The pen was heavy, the kind of pen people use when they want you to feel the moment.
The agent smiled and said, “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said, and the word sounded strange, like it belonged to a version of me that hadn’t existed before.
The first week in the new house was noise followed by unusual quiet.
Movers in the driveway. The builder walking through, pointing at little things. A plumber turning a handle and saying it’s normal for the water to take a minute. The hum of an air conditioner that belonged to me.
Then the door closed, and it was just the house making house noises—wood settling, a faint creak from the stairs, the soft click of ice dropping into the freezer like tiny avalanches.
I slept on a mattress on the floor the first two nights because I hadn’t bought a bed frame yet. The kitchen island looked ridiculous without stools. I ate takeout on an upside-down paint bucket and laughed once, out loud, because it felt like the first honest laugh in days.
My mom texted me hearts. She texted proud of you, kid. She sent a candle emoji.
Brandon posted a video the next morning of herself holding paint swatches up to the camera. Caption: Choosing vibes for our new primary suite.
My mom commented, “Proud of you both,” and then texted me immediately. “Sorry, sorry, wrong account.”
I stared at the message until my jaw tightened.
Then I did something I’ve always been good at: I breathed through it.
I reported the replay of the livestream. I didn’t post about it. I didn’t announce it. I didn’t message Brandon to tell her she’d crossed a line. I simply used the tools available and let the platform handle what it handles.
Two days later, the replay disappeared.
Brandon called me ten times in a row.
I didn’t pick up until the eleventh.
“You really think you can censor me?” she snapped, voice sharp and loud like she was performing even though it was just me on the other end.
“I think I can protect my private information,” I said.
“You’re a snake,” she hissed.
“Mom is crying,” she said quickly, like that was the button she expected to work. “I saw her yesterday.”
“We ate soup,” I said. “She has a code to my door.”
There was a beat of silence, then Brandon’s voice turned ugly. “Wow. So I’m the villain and she’s your sister now.”
“I’m hanging up,” I said. “I’ll talk when you’re not performing.”
She was still talking when I did.
That afternoon, she posted a story of herself throwing paint swatches into a trash can, dramatic slow motion, sad music. Caption: When family blocks your creativity.
She tagged me.
I blocked her.
The relief that hit me was physical, like someone had taken off a backpack I didn’t realize I’d been carrying for years.
Mom visited on Sunday, like she always tries to do when she’s hoping routine can heal what words can’t. She arrived with lasagna and a bag of random things she thinks belong in every house: a first aid kit, duct tape, and three tea towels with lemons on them.
She walked through the rooms like she was in a museum where touching is allowed.
“It echoes,” she said, clapping once, like she could test happiness with sound.
“It’ll fill,” I said.
In the kitchen, she hung a tea towel on the oven handle, and my eyes stung again—not because of the towel, but because something soft could exist in a place I paid for without owing anyone else’s mood.
We set up her code on the keypad. She practiced twice, smiling a little when it beeped green.
“I’m not going to tell Brandon,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” I said.
She nodded hard, like she was making herself a promise.
Two days later, Brandon showed up anyway.
