Brotherly Secrets

The woman left my parents and I to discuss a few brief moments before we came to a conclusion that Ethan's brother would most definitely be coming with us.

“It is a mouth more to feed, but we do not wish to separate blood siblings after all,” my dad said meaningfully.

A smile formed upon Ethan's face, he did not look overly happy, but rather to be more at ease; certainly not what I was expecting. I looked over at my angel through my tinted window, my heart started beating faster. This male, was going to live with us and his brother. Could I ask for more? Never. Never in the world would I have ever even known about my parents wanting to adopt another teenager, or kid in general. Apparently it had been several years that they had been trying, but only now was the time someone had actually properly viewed their application. My parents were thrilled, and so was I.

My mother got out of the car and helped Ethan put his luggage in the back of the jeep, meanwhile Ethan signaled his brother to come along with his own. As he approached, I squealed slightly, causing my father to look at me funny, I masked my smile with a towel that had been lying on the floor and turned around to look at my mother.

“Ethan, I am thrilled to finally meet you, oh and your brother too of course,” she said warmly as Ethan's brother appeared at her side.

“Now, what is your name, sweetie?” she questioned Ethan's brother, showing her pearly whites.

“Marik, I was named after an old Egyptian friend of my mom's before she-,”

“Before she left us,”Ethan cut off, looking angrily at his brother.

I had a feeling like there was something wrong about his statement, maybe their mom had died instead and he just tried not to bring it up. Either way, they were living with us now, they would be fed properly, go to school again, well at least Ethan would be. Wait, Ethan would be going to school, oh no, the school he would be going to was hell. I remember my sophomore year more than anything, watching all my friends get bullied pointlessly. I could never do anything about it, and apparently, neither could the principal, the lousy old fart. Shaking the thought from my head, I helped my mother strap down their luggage to the small space behind our seats in the jeep.

Moments later Marik was sitting between me and his brother, seeming very distracted by something. Surely he was just a tad shy and had nothing to say to me, it only hit me moments later that he was indeed talking to me after all this time.

“So your my new sister, huh?” Marik asked.

I cringed at the word sister, there was the downfall, he was handsome, but he was also technically related to me now, so I had to stop thinking about having a crush on him. He was my brother. Okay, it was in my head now, I would attempt to act natural.

“Yeah, I'm Briar,” I replied casually. I felt like singing what I had just said, but I didn't want him to change his mind about coming.

“Nice to meet you, so which school is my brother going to go to?” he asked.

“Varsadael, and you will too, unless you've already graduated?” I said, wondering what he meant by my brother, and not stating both of them.

“Oh, I'm nineteen, I already graduated, technically. I had a few courses available at the orphanage,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, laughing at my own stupidity, so I had been a year off of his actual age, so what?

“It's alright, everyone says I look younger than I am,” he said, blushing slightly.

“Well, I get the same here, I suppose. Believe or not, but... I'm twenty,” I whispered softly, as if being twenty was a big number.

I saw my dad glance into the rear view mirror, laughing slightly like he used to when I talked in weird ways to Sachi. I had honestly said nothing stupid this time, maybe my whispering was what had triggered his laugh, or maybe it was simply something he saw, but immediately after, my mother shot him a warning glance and his expression went cold once again.

“So is our new house big?” Ethan said, randomly deciding to barge in the conversation.

Drats, there went my conversation with Marik down the drain, but there would be other times, surely.

“Average I suppose,” I answered his casually.

“Our other house was tiny, so I'm sure either way it will look humongous in comparison, Ethan,” Marik said, swiping his hand through his brother's hair.

“Well see for yourself,” my mother replied, pointing at our house as we pulled in the driveway.

“Wow, that is big!” Marik and Ethan exclaimed in unison.

I kept wondering to myself how small their house had been before, considering our house was just an ordinary house. It had a main floor and an upstairs, but the kitchen and living room took most of the place on the main floor, so technically it was the same space as any other house for miles where we lived. We had a big lot, where my mother liked to put multiple flower beds and flower boxes under the windows, but that was the only difference I saw in comparison to all the other houses around mine.

As we got out of the car, unloaded the luggage from the jeep, I could not help but imagine the reaction on their faces when we walked inside our house. I was starting to believe they would think our house was paradise.