Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother

My heart sank.

"So... you stopped because it was her idea?"

He looked back at me, and there was something cracked in his gaze stopped because there's nothing wrong with me, Kasmine. I'm not some broken, messed

case. I didn't need help. I don't need help."

I swallowed the ache in my throat. "Kes..."

"All I ever needed and would ever need is you," he whispered, "Can't you see what you're doing to me? How much you've already changed me? You're the only help I'll ever need."

My throat tightened.

This wasn't a man in denial. No, This was a man gripping tightly to the only thing that's kept him afloat me. It broke something in me. It made my next words tremble on my tongue, but I had to say them.

"No, Kester," I said softly, You're not fine. You're not okay."

His face darkened, but he didn't interrupt me.

"You have severe anger issues and emotional wounds you won't even let me near," I continued. "Whatever happened to you when you were younger... the things you won't talk about... they've shaped you more than you realize."

Silence.

"I've known you almost all my life," I said, barely containing my emotion, "And I know you better than you know yourself. You can lie to the world, Kes. But don't lie to me."

He tensed beside me, and I saw his eyes glaze over as if he wasn't here anymore. As if a part of him had slipped behind the walls he'd spent years building.

His breathing changed, becoming shorter and shallower.

"Kester?" I whispered.

He still wouldn't look at me.

I touched his arm. His skin was cold and tight.

"What are you thinking about?"

There was a long pause. Then he spoke.noveldrama

"My mother..." he rasped, barely audible.

I froze. This was like a golden moment. Was he going to talk about his mother?

I knew that part of his life must have played a vital role in whatever he was going

through at the moment. But he always made sure

never to talk about it.

I remember the last time I saw her," he said, eyes fixed ahead, "She was at her vanity. Doing her makeup like nothing was wrong. Lipstick too red, eyes too tired... She wouldn't even look at me."

He swallowed.

"I asked if she'd drop me at school. She didn't even pause-just said to. I stood there thinking maybe she'd look at me... maybe she'd change her mind. But she didn'

He glanced at me then. His face was ghostlike and hollowed out.

"I shouldn't have left for school that day... I should have stayed back, Maybe I could have stopped her from leaving me... Maybe if she had seen my face or seen how sad it would make me... She would have changed her mind..."

Tears burned behind my eyes as he continued.,

"Because, by the time I got home, it was too late. She was gone."

I couldn't tell if he was mixing up his words because he was emotional or if he was clinging to something I didn't yet understand. But the way he kept saying 'gone" and "leave,” almost like she had packed a bag and had chosen to disappear, unsettled me.

She hadn't left. She had died.

And yet... he never said the word. Not even once.

"It's okay, Kes... She must be in a better place now, watching over you..." Before

my words even left my mouth, he tensed, and I saw something snapping behind

his eyes.

"My mother is not dead, Kasmine. She's alive."

The silence after that sentence wasn't empty. It was fully alive and had a heartbeat.