Chapter 2My Brother Stole My Life And My Bride

I’d wasted enough of my life on Nora Bennett. It was time to go.

Just as I was about to toss the empty container into the trash, a little girl, maybe six years old, popped out from behind a newsstand. She looked at the deli counter with wide, hungry eyes.

"Is that good, mister?" she asked.

I froze. I hadn’t expected my goodbye to Nora to mirror our first meeting so perfectly.

Nine years ago, I was crouching outside a convenience store near our high school, eating these same skewers. Seventeen-year-old Nora had walked past, then doubled back.

"Excuse me," she had said, her voice soft but curious. "Those smell amazing. Are they as good as they look?"

I hadn’t even looked up. I just pointed toward the deli. "Right there. Go try them yourself."

She had smiled, a bit shy, about to say something else when a group of students walked by, their laughter cutting like glass.

"What could Nora even afford in there?" one girl sneered. "She lives with that old guy who picks up scrap metal. Don't talk to her, Ethan. She probably smells like the junkyard."

I didn't smell a junkyard. I only smelled the spicy aroma of the broth. My mother always told me that good things were meant to be shared.

"I’ve got two of the best ones left," I said, standing up. "They're yours."

I shoved the container into Nora’s hands before turning to the girl who’d spoken. "I don't smell trash, but I definitely smell a bully. What’s your name and grade? I’m on the student council, and I’m sure the Dean would love to hear about your 'olfactory concerns.'"

Memory is a strange thing; it filters out the boring parts. I don't remember how the school handled that girl. I just remember turning back to Nora. She was painfully thin, her frame swallowed by a hand-me-down hoodie. She was beautiful, but there was a hollowness in her cheeks that spoke of missed meals.

She wasn't the polished, untouchable heiress she is now. But I loved that version of her. She had held her head high, her spine like iron, and said, "I can't take these."

I’d patted her shoulder. "I'm full. If you don't eat them, they go in the trash. Do me a favor?"

Only then did she blush and accept them.

That was the day those cheap deli skewers became her favorite food in the world.

Correction: they were her favorite food before the accident. Now that she’s a Bennett again, she wouldn't be caught dead eating five-dollar street food.

But I still loved them. And clearly, this little girl did too. I knelt down to tell her where the shop was, but she reached out a small, sticky hand and brushed my cheek.

"Why are you crying, mister? Did I say something bad?"

She hadn't. I was just realizing that I’d been living in the past for too long, and the air was getting thin.