They Gave My Wedding to My Brother, Now They Need Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Video

Brooke comes to Miles's door at midnight to beg him to delete his proposal video and admits his mother told her he had agreed to give up the party; a bank alert shows $61,000 of his savings moved by the joint holder.

I got home at eleven and did not turn on the lights.

My apartment was on the third floor of a brick building in Grandview, with a view of a parking lot and a very good radiator.

I had signed the lease on it two years ago, because it was ten minutes from the clinic where Trevor had his dialysis.

I sat on the couch with my shirtsleeves rolled up and opened my banking app.

Mortgage payment to my parents, $2,300, scheduled for the first.

Clinic payment for Trevor, $4,100, scheduled for the first.

Hannah's tuition, due in three weeks.

I looked at all three for a long time and did not touch any of them yet.

At midnight someone knocked.

It was not a loud knock, just three soft raps.

I knew who it was before I opened the door.

Brooke stood in the hallway in her white dress with a hospital wristband still around her wrist, though it was not hers.

Her mascara had run down both sides of her face.

"Can I come in?"

"No."

"Miles. Please."

"You can say it from there."

She pressed her lips together. Then she nodded, because she had always been good at knowing when to stop.

"Trevor's stable," she said. "They think it was his potassium. They kept him overnight."

"I'm glad."

"Are you?"

"He's my brother, Brooke. Of course I'm glad."

She wiped under her eye with her knuckle. "Your mother said you'd be angry."

"My mother said what else?"

"That you'd agreed." Her voice dropped. "That you told her you wanted to give Trevor the party, because he's so sick and he might not get another one. She said you were too embarrassed to tell me yourself."

I looked at her.

The hallway light buzzed over her head.

"I didn't agree to anything," I said. "I found out when I walked in tonight."

Her face changed slowly.

First the confusion, then something under it, which was not quite surprise.

"She told me you'd said it out loud," Brooke whispered.

"She told you a lot of things."

"Your father said it too. They both said it."

"Did you call me and ask?"

She did not answer.

"Seven months, Brooke. You had my number."

"I was scared," she said. "Trevor was so sick this winter. I was at that clinic every night while you were at work, and he was so kind to me, and I didn't know how to tell you."

"So you let my mother tell me with a banner."

That landed. She flinched.

"I didn't know about the banner. I didn't know it would be tonight. I swear to you I thought you knew."

I believed her about that, and I hated that I did.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

She took a breath, and I watched her put away the crying and pick up what she had really come for.

"The video."

I almost laughed.

"Trevor's friends found it," she said. "They've been posting it all night with captions. People are saying he stole his brother's girl. Three of my brand partners emailed me before the ambulance even left the hall."

"That's a bad night."

"Miles, it has three million views. If you take it down, it all goes away."

"It's my video."

"It's your proposal. To me."

"It's my life, Brooke. Three minutes of it, with my face on it. I told the whole world I worked at fifteen and paid for my brother's medicine. That's not a proposal. That's just true."

Her eyes were wet again. "Please. For Trevor."

"Trevor stood on a stage tonight and called me the reason he has any of this."

"He meant it kindly."

"I know he did," I said. "That's what's wrong with it."

She stood very still.

Then she did something I did not expect. She reached into her purse and took out a small velvet box, and held it out through the doorway.

It was my ring, the little solitaire I had saved four months for.

"I wanted you to have it back," she said. "Before anyone said I took it."

I took the box and did not open it.

"Your mother's planning something," she said, much more quietly. "I don't know what. Last week she told me not to let Trevor talk to you alone. She said you'd upset him."

"Why would she say that?"

"I don't know. But Miles, he's sicker than she tells people. A lot sicker."

My phone buzzed against my hip.

Then it buzzed again.

Brooke looked at it, and so did I.

The first message was a bank alert. The second was a bank alert too.

Transfer completed. $61,000 from account ending 4471 to account ending 0928. Authorized by: joint holder.

That was every dollar I had saved in ten years.

I only had one joint holder.

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