Chapter 2How Blessed I Am to Have You as My Brother

We lived in a small town where secrets were a foreign concept.

Everyone’s business was everyone else’s entertainment.

Soon, the whole town knew the story: Cole Anderson was back from prison. A murderer. Not only a degenerate but a bad omen who’d gotten his own parents killed. And his little sister, Anna, was now stuck with him.

When I went back to school, my homeroom teacher paused during roll call, her eyes lingering on me. “Anna, I know things are difficult at home. If you need anything, please talk to me.”

Every head in the classroom swiveled to stare at me.

During recess, a group of boys surrounded my desk, smirking.

“Hey Anna, did your brother really kill someone?”

“How’d he do it? With a knife or a rope?”

“Are you gonna kill someone too?”

I buried my head in my arms and pretended I couldn’t hear them.

On the way home, girls from the next class over pointed at me. “That’s her. The one whose brother was in jail.”

“Stay away from her. The sister of a killer can’t be any good.”

I ran home and threw my backpack on the floor.

Cole was in the kitchen, fumbling with an egg, wearing one of our mom’s old aprons.

“You’re back?” He turned, forcing a smile. “Dinner’s almost ready. I made your favorite, noodle soup with an egg.”

I stared at his face, which looked so much like our father’s, and something inside me snapped.

“Why did you come back?! Why didn’t you just die in there?! Do you have any idea what people are saying about me? They call me the murderer’s sister!”

The water in the pot boiled over, hissing on the stove. Steam blurred his face.

He turned off the heat, his back to me, his shoulders trembling slightly.

After a long time, he finally spoke.

“…I’m sorry.”

That night, I heard him crying in the living room. It was a suppressed, wounded sound, like an animal caught in a trap.

I didn’t go out.

I hugged my mother’s pillow and told myself: I hate him.

I owed him no understanding, no sympathy.

If it weren’t for him, my parents would be alive.

If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be the town freak.

He was the one who needed my blood to live, and this was how he repaid me, by dragging my life through the mud.

I was done with him.

I hated him.