29
A loud explosion pulled me out of my thoughts.
Was there some kind of festival today?
Fireworks lit up the sky, bright and fleeting, casting their glow on everyone’s faces.
The flashing lights of police cars mingled with the bursts of color, painting the night in
chaos.
Liam.
He was standing not far away, handcuffed, with a police officer at his side.
Our house was halfway demolished, the jagged remains looming behind him.
Officers moved back and forth, snapping photos and collecting evidence.
Did Liam see me?
I wasn’t sure.
But he always seemed to find me in a crowd–like that time at the tutoring house, or at my graduation ceremony.
I took a few steps forward, the neon lights casting their glow on my face.
Liam had the kind of eyes I could never forget, no matter how much I tried.
He was insane. His love for me was twisted, absessive, and dark.
This was the same man who once tried to lock me away, who had felt things for me that no twelve–year–old should ever feel.
Go back, I told myself.
Forget the nights he held me, the whispers in the dark, the kisses we shouldn’t have
shared.
Forget it all. Let it go.
But why–why do I love him so much?
I started walking faster.
Then running.
I sprinted through the layers of neon light, past the falling sparks of the fireworks.
Voices shouted around me, muffled and distant.
The summer wind whipped through the air.
Liam stood on a raised platform, his hands bound in front of him.
I ran to him.
I kissed him.
- us.
My lips crashed against his, clumsy and desperate, as the fireworks rained down around
Because, in truth, I had always been trapped in an endless darkness.
And Liam was my only star.
You have to let me kiss him at the end.
Because he is my only star.
A group of officers rushed forward, pulling us apart.
Liam lowered his eyes, refusing to look at me
He didn’t say a word, treating me like I was just some stranger who’d grabbed him out of nowhere.
“He doesn’t want you to be charged as an accomplice,” Officer Walker said, lighting a cigarette beside me.
I stared at the fading fireworks in the sky and spoke softly.
“My foster father almost raped me.”
“My foster mother tried to force me to snort cocaine.”
“So what? They didn’t deserve to die?”
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“But my brother does, right? Is that it? My brother deserves to die?”
1 turned to him, my voice trembling with anger.
“Why didn’t you go after them, huh? Was it because you weren’t capable, Officer Walker?”
He ignored my outburst, his expression calm and steady.
“Murder is a crime,” he said. “That’s the law.”
“I regret not being able to put those two monsters in prison. But deciding whether they
deserved to die or not–that’s for the law to decide.”
“Well, isn’t that nice,” I said, propping my chin on my hand as I stared out the window.
The fireworks illuminated the dark night, fleeting and cold.
“The law.”
“Why doesn’t the law ever protect brothers who protect their sisters?”
No one answered me.
I lowered my eyes, letting the silence settle.
After a while, I turned to Officer Walker again.
“My brother,” I said quietly, “he’s kind of crazy, isn’t he?”
“Can that get his sentence reduced?”
11
I couldn’t help but notice how much thinner Liam looked.
It had only been three days since I brought him home from prison, but something about him had changed.
Maybe it was the buzz cut–they made him look colder, sharper, like the warmth he used
23:41 Mon, Apr
to carry had been stripped away.
At 6 a.m., as always, Liam woke up on time.
I had to set an alarm to wake up that early, afraid he might try to leave without a word.
I rushed to serve him a bowl of porridge.
“Thanks,” he said..
Liam actually said “thank you.”
Even at the coldest point in our relationship, he had never thanked me before.
I froze, watching as he methodically ate his food, his movements stiff and formal.
Then my biological mom came down the stairs.
“Liam,” she said gently, “are you comfortable in the room we set up for you?”
200
Oh, right. I’d found birth
my
parents.
Liam had been sentenced to seven years for aggravated assault.
But when the DNA results and crime scene analysis came back, it was revealed that the cause of death for my foster parents wasn’t the axe wounds.
My foster mother had overdosed on narcotics, triggering a violent reaction.
The fatal wounds on my foster father had been caused by broken beer bottle shards, and the DNA collected from the scene matched my foster mother’s.
In short, she’d killed him, then taken her own life.
As for Liam and me, the horrifying scene had left us with fragmented, unreliable memories. The trauma had blurred the truth.
Liam had been released two years early for good behavior.
Mon, Ap
During those five years, Officer Walker had helped me track down my biological parents.
Both of them were university professors, and for decades, they had never stopped searching for me.
The first time my mother saw me, she pulled me into her arms and sobbed uncontrollably.
That’s when I realized that the broken, discarded version of myself had always been
someone’s most precious treasure.
My parents were wonderful.
They gave me everything I could ever want.
For the first time, I lived in a house with a staircase.
For the first time, I used a bathroom with a bathtub.
And when they learned about Liam and me, they didn’t try to separate us.
I thought Liam and I had finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
On the day I picked him up from prison, I couldn’t stop talking.
“I found my real parents!”
“I have a family now!”
“Liam, I got my teaching certification! I’m starting as a teacher next month!”
But in the three days he’d been home, Liam had only spoken four words to me:
“Oh.”
“Mm.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
I was about to explode.
This wasn’t the brother I knew.
The Liam I knew would smile at me, tease me whisper sweet things to me.
Now, he couldn’t even say “I missed you.”
That night, there was a knock at my bedroom door.
It was Liảm.
补零72%圖
For a moment, I thought he’d come to make up with me, to finally say something meaningful.
But when I opened the door, he was wearing a black jacket and carrying a bag over his
shoulder.
He looked like he was about to leave.
“Lila,” he said, his voice distant. “Tell your parents I’m leaving. I won’t bother you anymore.”
He was serious.
He was really going to leave.
1 felt like someone had reached into my chest and twisted my heart until it hurt.
“Where are you going?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Home,” he said, without meeting my eyes.
“No,” I said firmly. “This is your home now!”
Mon, Apr
I grabbed his arm.
He lowered his gaze.
“Now that you’ve found your real parents,” he said coldly, “stop calling me your brother.”
His words cut through me like a knife.
“You’re… not my-”
I choked on the words.
“Then I’m at least still your girlfriend, right?” I asked desperately, clutching at his sleeve.
Surely he couldn’t deny that, not after everything we’d been through. This was the same
man who once went crazy just because I called him my boyfriend.
But he froze, silent for a long moment, before gently prying my hand away.
“I’ve been gone for five years,” he said quietly. “We haven’t been in contact for five What kind of girlfriend is that?”
I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.
“Are you serious? Liam, what’s wrong with you?”
I was angry, yes, but I was also scared–terrified, even.
“You’ve been acting weird ever since you came back. You-”
Before I could finish, he pushed me away.
years.
It wasn’t violent or harsh–just a firm motion to move me aside–but I lost my balance and
stumbled against the doorframe.
The edge of the wood had a small splinter sticking out, and my arm scraped against it, leaving a long, bloody scratch.
The sight of blood made him flinch.
2342 Mon, Apr 7
For a moment, he reached out like he wanted to help me, but I slapped his hand away.
“Get out!” I shouted.
“You don’t want me anymore, do you, Liam?”
He froze, staring at me.
“You’ve had five years to think about it, huh? Decided your useless little sister isn’t worth it anymore?”
“Fine, go! I don’t want you either!”
“Get as far away from me as possible! I never want to see you again! I hate you!”
But that wasn’t true.
I missed him so much.
He wasn’t useless.
And I could never hate him.
I always used harsh words to test if Liam still cared about me.
But this time, he didn’t say anything.
He just looked at me for a moment, his eyes flickering with something I couldn’t read.
Then he turned and walked away.
He really left.
He really didn’t want me anymore.
I sank to the floor, tears streaming down my face.
I couldn’t understand why he was acting like this.
I couldn’t understand why he was acting like this.
Why had he changed so much?
No one else could make me cry like this.
Only Liam.
On the fourth day after Liam’s release, we cut off contact.
“Where’s Liam?” my mom asked over lunch. “He didn’t come back last night.”
The warm afternoon sunlight poured through the windows, but the mention of his name made my chest tighten.
“He doesn’t want me anymore,” I said quietly, resting my chin on my knees.
“Guess he decided in prison that I’m not worth it.”
My mom reached out and gently rubbed my back.
“I don’t think that’s it,” she said softly.
“When people see someone else’s happiness, they can’t help but compare it to their own.”
“You told me about Liam’s childhood. Maybe seeing you so happy reminded him of everything he didn’t have.”
“Maybe he feels like he doesn’t deserve you anymore.””
I looked up at her, startled.
“Liam loves you,” she said, her voice steady and sure. “But his love is filled with sadness.”
“Maybe, for him, loving you from a distance feels easier than staying by your side.”
I sat there, her words sinking in.
Then she patted my shoulder and handed me the car keys.
23.42 Mon, Apr 7
“Why don’t you go after him?” she said with a smile.
“Give him the courage he needs.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘deserving‘ or ‘not deserving! You’re important to him, and he’s important to you. That’s all that matters.”
Where could Liam go?
Where could his home be?
The fading sunlight painted the old apartment complex in hues of gold.
The only place he could return to was this home–the one we’d shared for over a decade.
I had a key.
When I opened the door, the smell of alcohol hit me immediately.
Liam was drinking?
As far as I could remember, he never drank much.
I slipped off my shoes, quietly stepping past the pile of scattered slippers. I came here
every month to clean, so the place wasn’t too messy.
Empty bottles were tipped over near the table
Liam sat slumped against it, his body heavy with drunkenness.
I walked over to him, my eyes falling on what he was clutching in his hands.
www
It was the photo album I had given him–the last birthday gift I’d ever given him.
I shook him gently.
“Get up.”
His half–lidded eyes opened. bleary and unforused I sat down in front of him and asked
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“Why don’t you want Lila anymore?”
His eyes immediately reddened.
“I didn’t leave her,” he slurred, his voice trembling. “I didn’t leave her. I…”
Drunk and disoriented, he looked lost, his empty gaze fixating on me.
“Then why did you leave her?”
“Because she doesn’t need her brother anymore,” he said softly, his voice thick with
emotion.
“She doesn’t need me.”
“If she stays with me, people will talk. They’ll ask why she’s with an ex–convict.”
“She can’t live like that. She shouldn’t live like that. She needs to be happy.”
“…Happy without me.”
I rested my head on the table, brushing his messy bangs aside.
“What if she doesn’t care?” I asked.
He lifted his heavy eyes to look at me.
“But other people care,” he whispered.
“I can’t let my sister be gossiped about, judged, or humiliated. I won’t let that happen to
her.”
I cupped his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me.
“Lila loves you.”
Liam let out a bitter laugh.
“And what does that even mean?” he asked
“She only loves me because, before, I was the only one who loved her. That’s all it was.”
“But now, she has her parents. She has a family. She has people who care about her.”
“There’s nothing special about my love anymore.”
I could see him breaking right in front of me.
Why didn’t the smell of alcohol bother me when it came from him?
Why did I still crave him, even now?
I stared into his eyes and said,
“But the only place that feels like home to me… is wherever you are.”
He smiled faintly.
“That’s not true.”
I lifted his chin and kissed him.
Our tongues tangled, and his eyes snapped open, suddenly clear for just a moment.
He stared at me.
“This is a dream,” he murmured.
“Yeah, it’s a dream,” I whispered back. “Do whatever you want to me, Liam.”
And he did.
He pinned me against the table and kissed me.
I heard him say everything I’d been aching to hear.
“I missed you so much.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I love you.”
“What do I do? I love you too much.”
In the quiet of the night, in this room where we’d spent so many restless, humid evenings together, Liam gave me all the words I’d ever wanted from him.
The summer breeze carried the darkness into the room, and for the first time in what felt like forever, my star began to shine again.
A faint, shimmering light broke through the night, pulling me into a sweet, gentle dream.
The next morning, Liam tried to leave again.
I played the voice recording from the night before–the one where he’d drunkenly confessed everything.
“Lila, I love you. Don’t leave me.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Liam, are you some kind of split personality? Daytime Liam and nighttime Liam aren’t the
same person, huh?”
He stared at me, his dark eyes unreadable.
Then, with a sigh, he tackled me onto the bed and wrapped me tightly in the blankets.
“Lila,” he said, his voice low but steady.
“From now on, even
if
you regret it, it’s too late.””
(The End)
10hours ago
