POV: Jasmine
"What about me?"
Leo's voice cuts through the barn, and my stomach drops. He stands in the doorway, backlit by sun, his jaw tight. He'd heard everything. Every word about leaving. Every choice I'd made without him.
Fuck.
This is the reckoning I've been avoiding since we arrived at Martha and Frank's farm. Time of pretending we could exist in this peaceful bubble forever, of dancing around the truth while Leo worked with the horses and I tried to figure out how to tell him I was choosing them.
"Leo." I force his name out, my throat closing around it. "Let me explain."
"Explain what?" He steps into the barn, boots heavy on wooden planks, each footfall an accusation. The golden afternoon light catches the fury on his face, and I barely recognize my baby brother beneath it. "You're planning your whole life with them. And I'm just supposed to be cool with it?"
I feel Liam go tense beside me, feel Asher's anger radiating outward like heat from a furnace, feel Finn holding himself back with visible effort. But I raise my hand, stopping them before they can intervene. This is mine to handle. Leo is mine to face.
"This isn't about—" I start, but he talks over me, months of suppressed rage finally breaking free.
"Not about me?" His laugh comes out sharp and bitter, a sound I've never heard from him before. "You're my SISTER. The only family I've got left. And you're leaving for three dudes who turned your life into a fucking joke."
"They didn't—"
"Are you serious right now?" Leo's voice cracks, and beneath the anger I hear the boy I raised, the kid who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms. "Your face was everywhere, Jas. Every newsfeed, every goddamn meme. People said shit about you that made me want to break things. And now you're just going back to them?"
I want to explain. I want to make him understand how the brothers put me back together when I'd been shattered into a thousand pieces on that stage. How Liam held me while I broke apart. How Asher showed love through action when words weren't enough. How Finn saw through my sunshine to the darkness underneath and didn't run. But the words stick in my throat because part of me knows he's right to be angry.
"Like I mean nothing to you?" He takes another step closer, and I can see his hands shaking. "You're ditching me for them? After everything we survived together?"
"Leo, I—" The words catch. What can I say that won't sound like betrayal? "I know it sounds insane. I know it's fast. But I need to try this. They make me feel like I'm choosing something for myself instead of just surviving."
"Choosing something for yourself?" He shakes his head, and the disappointment in his eyes cuts deeper than any anger could. "Jas, you don't even know them. Not really. A year isn't enough time to throw your whole life away for three men who couldn't even protect you from one jealous ex-girlfriend."
Behind me, Liam starts forward. "That's enough—"
"Nah, man. Don't." Leo whirls on him with contempt that makes me flinch. Then he turns to Asher. "You screamed at her in your office over nothing." And to Finn. "And you literally climbed through her window like some creep." His eyes find mine again, his voice breaking. "And you think that's healthy? You think that's love?"
Something inside me snaps. All the fear I've been swallowing, all the guilt about choosing them, comes roaring up from some deep place I'd tried to bury. "What was I supposed to do?" I'm yelling now, my voice echoing off the barn walls, startling the horses in their stalls. "You got in debt to loan sharks because of Mom and Dad. And I sold myself to save your life."
Leo flinches as though I'd struck him. His face goes pale, the anger draining away to reveal something worse underneath—horror, guilt, the dawning realization of what I'd done for him.
"And the only good thing that came out of that nightmare is them." Tears stream down my face, hot and unstoppable. "They're the only ones who made me feel like I wasn't just broken. Like I was worth something beyond what I could sacrifice for everyone else."
The silence that follows is suffocating. Leo stares at me, and I watch something shift in his expression. Pain. Understanding. And then, worst of all, resignation.
"So I didn't make you feel like you mattered?" His voice comes out quieter now, wounded in a way that guts me. "All those years when it was just us. When I was the one holding your hand through the foster homes, through Mom and Dad's bullshit. That wasn't enough?"
"Leo, that's not what I meant—"
"I'm not good enough to be your family anymore?"
"That's not fair." I choke on the words, reaching for him. "Leo, please—"
"Don't." He holds up his hand, and the gesture stops me cold. "Just don't."
"Come with us," I say desperately, grasping for anything that might bridge this chasm opening between us. "You have a job waiting, an apartment in the city. We can figure this out together, Leo. We always figure it out together."
"I know what I have." His jaw sets with that stubborn determination I recognize from childhood, from every time he'd decided something and refused to budge. "And I'm giving it up."
The world tilts beneath my feet. "What?"
"Martha and Frank offered me a place here. Work on the farm." He looks past me, past the brothers, toward the farmhouse visible through the barn doors. His voice drops, quiet and final. "I want to stay."