Part 1The Diary Dare That Changed Everything

I was annoyed and entirely speechless, so I vengefully wrote him into my diary:

"I'm a bad girl. How could I have these kinds of feelings for my own brother?"

"They say having a brother complex is a sickness. It's not right; I shouldn't be like this."

"But I really can't control myself..."

From that day on, my brother looked at me like he'd seen a ghost every time we crossed paths.

I held back my laughter and doubled down on scaring him in the diary entries.

I completely failed to notice that his look of avoidance and panic was gradually morphing into painful, desperate suppression.

Until a month later.

A wealthy couple, the Sterlings, showed up with a DNA test in hand. Without a word, they hugged my brother and tearfully called him their son.

Me: ?

* * *

Since my earliest memories, my brother, Liam Bennett, was always by my side.

When I first learned to talk, the first word I said was his name. My dad said I was so fluent it was like I was born knowing how to say it.

At my first birthday party, when a crowd of relatives reached out to hold me, I bypassed them all and grabbed his finger in a death grip.

And as a brother, Liam never let anyone down.

When I was six, I secretly drank orange-scented dish soap and was rushed to the ER. Liam stayed by my hospital bed for two days and nights, refusing to eat or drink, making himself look like a ghost.

When I was eight, I tried to give our elderly neighbor a piggyback ride across the street and got chased by my dad with a rolled-up magazine. Liam shielded me like a mother hen, taking the hits and refusing to move an inch.

When I was ten, blowing out my birthday candles, I solemnly made a wish: "I want to be with Liam forever."

Liam looked at me and shielded the candle's glow with his hand.

I looked up at him in the dim light, hearing him say, word by word:

"Harper, you don't need to wish for that."

When I was fourteen, Liam watched a TV show where a couple eloped to get a marriage license. He frowned and asked Dad:

"Why do they need a license?"

Dad laughed and explained:

"Because they want to get married. Getting married means they become a legal family."

Liam was almost six feet tall by then. Handsome, broad-shouldered, the guy all the girls at school sneaked peeks at.

He listened to Dad's words and suddenly understood.

"I get it now. Then Harper and I should just get married. We've been a legal family since we were kids."

Dad almost dropped his coffee mug. He grabbed a broom from the corner and chased after him.

Liam dodged, turning back to ask me earnestly:

"Harper, don't you think I'm right?"

I didn't even think about it and nodded. "Of course Liam is right."

Dad froze, then silently traded the broom for a snow shovel, chasing him even harder.