Lily’s POV
The night is cool and I'm not paying attention.
Earbuds in, phone in hand, I'm scrolling through texts from Maya while composing an argument in my head about whether the new season of that show was actually good or just riding nostalgia.
The streetlights cast familiar pools of orange across the pavement, and my feet know this route so well they don't need my brain's involvement.
I look up to check for traffic and my whole world stops.
Gordon. And Simon. On our porch.
Simon's hands are cupped around my brother's face, the way you hold something precious, something you're afraid might shatter.
Their mouths are pressed together—not a quick peck, not a friendly greeting, but the kind of kiss that means everything.
Gordon's fists are twisted in the front of Simon's jacket like he's drowning and Simon is the only solid thing left in the world.
My foot hovers above the pavement, suspended in a moment that stretches into eternity. I can't breathe. Can't move. Can't do anything but stare at the image that will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.
No. No, no, no, this isn't… he can't—
Gordon's eyes open.
Our gazes lock across the distance, and for one split second, I see everything in my brother's face.
The terror—he knows I'm watching, knows exactly what this looks like, knows the secret he's been guarding for years is now blazing in the open.
The guilt—a flash of it, there and gone, the acknowledgment that this will hurt me. And underneath it all, underneath everything, a desperate, defiant joy that I've never seen him wear before.
He knows. He sees me standing here, frozen on the sidewalk, watching my worst fear materialize in real time. And he doesn't stop.
His eyes close again, his hands tighten on Simon's jacket, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. He chooses, right there in front of me, and I am not what he chooses.
I run, my feet carry me past the house, around the corner, down the block. The earbuds fall out somewhere, dangling against my chest, forgotten.
I don't know where I'm going. I just know I can't be there, can't watch, can't stand on that sidewalk for one more second while my brother takes the thing I've wanted for two years and claims it as his own.
The elementary school parking lot appears out of the darkness. I stop, gasping, hands on my knees, lungs burning from a sprint I don't remember deciding to make.
The swings hang motionless in the shadows, the slide gleams dull silver under the moon. I used to play here as a child, back when the world was simple and Mom was alive and I didn't know yet how much loving someone could hurt.
I sink onto a swing, the chains creak under my weight, a sound that belongs to a different lifetime.
I'm shaking. I can't stop shaking.
The feelings come in waves, each one hitting before I've recovered from the last. Jealousy first—hot and corrosive, eating through my chest like acid. Simon chose Gordon.
Simon, who I've watched from across rooms for two years. Simon, who I've laughed too loud at his jokes for, who I've found excuses to touch, who I've imagined kissing in exactly the way I just watched him kiss my brother.
Simon chose Gordon.
Betrayal hits next—cold and sharp, the opposite of jealousy but somehow just as devastating. Gordon knew. He knew how I felt, knew I was pining for the same person he was, and he never told me.
Even after I discovered the truth about Kira, even after the blackmail and the ultimatums, he never once said, "Lily, I'm in love with him too." He let me think I had a chance, he let me make a fool of myself.
And then humiliation, washing over me in a wave so powerful I actually hunch forward on the swing, arms wrapped around my stomach.
Two years. Two years of hoping, of reading signals that were never there, of convincing myself that if I just waited long enough, Simon would finally see me.
He was never going to see me. He was always going to see Gordon.
The worst part—the part that makes me want to scream—is the memory of Gordon's eyes meeting mine. That split second of connection before he made his choice.
He looked at me, and then he looked away, and in that fraction of a moment he decided that whatever I was feeling, whatever this would do to me, wasn't enough to make him stop.
I wasn't worth stopping for.
The tears come hot and fast, spilling down my cheeks before I can stop them. I cry on a swing set in the dark, eighteen years old, alone in a playground that used to feel like the whole world.
What did I do wrong? The question circles my brain like a vulture. Why him and not me? What does he have that I don't?
But I know the answer. I've always known.
Gordon has three years of friendship with Simon. Three years of gym sessions and inside jokes and the kind of bone-deep understanding that doesn't develop overnight.
He has history, context, a foundation built from a thousand small moments I was never part of.
And now he has the one thing that should have disqualified him: the lie. Six months of deception, of manipulation, of making Simon fall in love with a fiction. Gordon did everything wrong, broke every rule, and somehow he still won.
I did nothing wrong. I waited, I hoped, I played fair. And I'm sitting alone on a swing set while my brother is in bed with the man I love.
The unfairness of it burns through me, so hot it almost replaces the grief. Why does Gordon get to be happy?
After everything he did—the catfishing, the months of lies, the betrayal of Simon's trust—why does he get to have what I couldn't even fight for?
I think about the blackmail, the ultimatums, the threats to tell Dad, to expose Gordon's secret, to destroy the only happiness he'd ever found.
I told myself I was protecting Simon. Told myself I was the good guy, the one who saw through Gordon's manipulation, the one brave enough to demand honesty.
But Gordon just looked at me while kissing the love of his life, and his expression wasn't guilty.
It was free.
He looked terrified and joyful and finally, finally unmasked—like a man who'd spent his whole life holding his breath and had finally remembered how to exhale.
The truth settles into my stomach like a stone: I was never protecting Simon. I was punishing Gordon for wanting what I couldn't have.
The realization should stop me. Should make me examine myself, reconsider, grow into someone better. I should go home, apologize, accept that I can't control who loves whom, that Gordon's happiness doesn't diminish my own.
Instead, the truth curdles into something uglier.
He doesn't deserve this.
The thought crystallizes, sharp and cold. Gordon lied for six months and gets rewarded with a kiss on the porch. I did nothing wrong and get to cry alone in the dark.
If this is how the universe works—if cheaters prosper while rule-followers suffer—then maybe I've been playing the wrong game.
Simon's ex-girlfriend. The name surfaces from somewhere in my memory, attached to photos Gordon showed me once, stories about the relationship that almost lasted.
Naomi—beautiful, confident, the kind of woman who walks into rooms like she owns them. She broke up with Simon because he couldn't give her what she needed.
But people change. Circumstances change.
I pull out my phone. The screen glows harsh against my tear-streaked face as I open Instagram, type in the name I remember.
Naomi Chen. The profile is public—curated photos of a life that looks effortlessly perfect. Recent posts show her at charity events, business dinners, the kind of social gatherings where connections are made and deals are sealed.
Her father runs Chen Capital. I google, read, piece together a picture. The Hales' gym has been struggling—Gordon mentioned it once, something about Simon worrying about his parents losing everything. Chen Capital specializes in small business investment.
The threads are there, waiting to be woven. I don't think about what I'm doing. If I think, I'll stop.
I create a new account—anonymous, untraceable, just another stranger in Naomi's flood of followers. I craft the message carefully, keeping it simple:
Thought you should know—Simon Hale seems to be going through something lately. Confused about what he wants. Might be a good time to reach out if you ever wanted to reconnect. His family's business could use a friend right now too.
My thumb hovers over send.
Somewhere behind me, in a house I can't see from here, my brother is in bed with the man I've wanted for two years. The man Gordon lied to, manipulated, deceived—and still somehow won.
The unfairness burns like acid in my chest.
I press send.
The message disappears into the digital void. I lower my phone, stare at the empty swings beside me, and wonder what kind of person I'm becoming.
The answer terrifies me almost as much as the silence.
I walk home slowly, wondering if destroying Gordon's happiness will feel like victory.
Or just another kind of loss.
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