Stepbrother Dearest

by Penelope Ward

Keep the change, or rather, change into these. I’m guessing your current ones are a little wet.

You’re the only girl in the entire world that’s forbidden, and fuck me if that doesn’t make me want you more than anything.”

“I know that despite my warning, you gave me a piece of your heart anyway last night. And even though I tried to stop it, I gave you a piece of mine. I know you could feel that happening this morning. I want you to keep it with you tucked away. And when you decide to give the rest of yours to another guy someday, please make sure it’s someone who deserves you.”

I still dream about your neck. I still think about you every day. For some reason, I just needed you to know that tonight. Please don’t write back.

I know I’m not supposed to care. But when it comes to you, what I’m supposed to be feeling has never seemed to matter.

“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope someday I can say you were one of the best, but for now, it’s only you.”

“The trick is to force yourself to open it even though it’s broken. A broken heart is still a beating one.

Thinking back, I’m pretty sure that was the moment I fell in love with her.

As I write this, what she definitely doesn’t know is that a few years later, I came back for her, but it was too late.

Later that night, he’d put his head on my tummy, and cleverly joked in typical Elec fashion about how we belonged in a reality TV show: he’d now officially become his brother’s bastard child who impregnated his stepsister.

Through death there was life. Through hate there was love. I looked down at my son. “In the end, there was you, and that made it all worth it.”