Chapter 10 - Ethan Comes to Beg
Ethan arrived at my apartment three nights later.
Not the mansion.
My apartment.
A third-floor walk-up with cracked paint, a noisy radiator, and a kitchen table I had bought secondhand for twenty dollars.
The same apartment my family called embarrassing.
He stood outside my door wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, as if the world cared enough to disguise him.
When I opened the door, he looked past me.
“You live here?”
I almost closed the door.
“What do you want?”
He swallowed.
His arrogance was gone, but desperation had not made him humble. It had only made him nervous.
“Dad’s lawyers said the university is opening a formal review.”
“As they should.”
“They might revoke my admission to the graduate program.”
“You plagiarized research.”
His jaw tightened.
“I made a mistake.”
“No,” I said. “A mistake is sending an email to the wrong person. You stole two years of my work.”
He looked down the hallway.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
That single word stunned him.
Ethan Bennett had entered every space in my life without permission. My room. My computer. My memories. My achievements.
Now he could not cross a doorway.
His voice lowered.
“Emily, please. Mom is falling apart.”
“She should call a therapist.”
“She says you’re killing her.”
I laughed once.
It sounded colder than I expected.
“She survived lying to me for twenty-two years. I think she’ll survive consequences.”
Ethan’s eyes watered.
I hated that a small part of me still reacted to it.
That was the cruelest thing about family. Even after they cut you, some part of you remembers when you wanted them to love you.
“I don’t know how to be nobody,” he whispered.
For the first time, he sounded honest.
I studied him.
All his life, Ethan had been given a role- golden son, future heir, protected child. Maybe he had never learned who he was without stolen praise.
But that did not make him innocent.
“That’s the difference between us,” I said. “I was treated like nobody my whole life. So I learned how to become someone without permission.”
He wiped his face angrily.
“So that’s it? You’re just done with us?”
“No,” I said. “I’m done saving you.”
He looked as if I had slapped him.
I didn’t.
I didn’t need to.
Before leaving, he pulled a small envelope from his pocket.
“Mom wanted me to give you this.”
I did not take it.
“What is it?”
“An apology.”
I looked at the envelope.
Cream paper. Elegant handwriting. Probably tear-stained in all the right places.
“Tell her apologies don’t need messengers. And they don’t come sealed like evidence.”
Ethan stared at me a moment longer.
Then he walked away.
May you like
For years, he had watched me stand alone.
That night, I watched him do the same.
