Page 3 of Heartless Stepbrother
I looked around the cabin instead, searching for something ordinary enough to anchor me. The soft drone of the engines filled the air, steady and low, like a heartbeat too large to belong to any human thing.
A woman across the aisle slept with a silk mask over her face, her mouth slightly open, her hand curled around a rosary that glinted faintly in the dim light. A man a few rows ahead scrolled through photos of a family I would never meet, his smile soft and private. A flight attendant moved soundlessly down the aisle, her perfume a brief sweetness that vanished before it reached me. Everything was muted, cocooned, detached. Even the air felt unreal, manufactured calm meant to disguise how high we were suspended above everything that mattered.
I tried to breathe in that calm, but it slid right through me, useless and thin. There was no distraction big enough to drown the truth that pulsed beneath my skin: someone knew my name, my life, my destination. And no amount of pretending could make me believe that was a coincidence.
I stared out the window at the endless velvet black of the Pacific, the curve of the wing slicing through moonlight like a blade. Below us, an entire day had vanished as we crossed the international dateline. Stolen. Like so much else.
3:17 AM blinked on the seatback screen in soft, unfeeling digits. The kind of time where ghosts whispered and memories crept in too close. I pressed my fingertip to the cold window. The chill bit into my skin, but I welcomed it. It was honest. Unlike everything else.
Two weeks. That’s all I had before my life officially, irrevocably changed. A countdown with no escape route. New school. New people. New version of me, I supposed. Stripped of the old comforts, of the familiar cadence of Sydney’s surf-laced air and sun-drunk sidewalks, I was being repotted like some hothouse plant. Palo Alto, California. The name felt heavy in my mouth. Too many vowels, too much weight. It didn’t sound like home. It didn’t sound like anything except the beginning of something I didn’t ask for.
My stomach tightened as the truth slithered closer, uncoiling like something venomous. This wasn’t just a relocation. It was exile.
Senior year, my last chance to belong somewhere, would be spent with strangers. No more weekends at Bondi with Chiara and Sienna, no more lazy Sundays with Dad cross-legged on the floor, unrolling maps of ancient trade routes like he was revealing buried treasure. No more anything, really.
I bit down on the ache rising in my throat, trying to swallow it whole. It didn’t help. Nothing did. I wasn’t angry at Mum, not really. She had done her best, I knew that. She’d called every week, visited twice a year, and sent postcards that always smelled faintly of lavender and hope. She’d never stopped loving me. But love didn’t fix distance. And distance had become a chasm, swallowing years, swallowing everything that used to make sense.
No, it wasn’t her. The anger was formless, a shifting shadow I couldn’t pin down. It wasn’t even rage. More like grief disguised as resentment. A quiet fury at the way life moved on without asking permission.
And then there was Dad. Jack Carter. His name alone brought a sting behind my eyes. He was off chasing ancient gods and forgotten cities in the wild belly of Mongolia, so far removed from my world it felt like we belonged in different centuries. Sixmonths. That’s how long he’d be gone. Half a year of silence. Half a year of not smelling the dry old-book scent that clung to his clothes, of not hearing his laugh echo through our tiny terrace house, of not curling up beside him while he unraveled tales of Mesopotamian kings like bedtime stories. He was chasing history. I was being buried by it.
I pulled the thin airline blanket tighter around my shoulders and closed my eyes, but all I could see was the moment the front door clicked shut behind me, the echo of goodbye too loud in the emptiness that followed.
Somewhere, 30,000 feet below, my past unraveled like spooled thread. And ahead of me, waiting in the dark? A place I didn’t belong. A family I hadn’t chosen.
I closed my eyes and tried to conjure a picture of my dad.
Not the man he was now, half a world away, buried in ruins and relics and ancient dust, but the father I remembered. The crinkle at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, like sunbeams etched into skin. The sound of his laugh, deep and full, like thunder rolling through warm hills. The way his hand felt, rough, broad, callused from digging but always warm, when he ruffled my hair like I was still seven years old instead of seventeen.
My stomach twisted with the memories, a dull knot that refused to loosen.
No, I wasn’t angry at my mum for dragging me away from it all. Not really. She’d always been this beacon of fierce, unwavering love, even when the ocean between us stretched like a scar. Video calls. Birthday packages. Laughter over fuzzy Skype connections. She’d tried. She’d tried so hard.
And now she’d built something new. A life. A future.
With him.
Marcus Maddox. Even his name sounded like a headline, sharp, polished, self-made. A venture capitalist, Mum had said,her voice featherlight, almost shy.He’s good to me, Luna. He makes me laugh.
Wealthy beyond reason. Mansion in Palo Alto. And a son.
Riley Maddox.
My soon-to-be stepbrother.
I hadn’t met him. Hadn’t heard his voice, hadn’t even seen a photo.
So who were they?
Would they welcome me? Accept me? Or were they dangerous and that’s why someone was sending me those messages?
I exhaled, tightening the scratchy airline blanket around my body. My mind was too full, fractured with goodbye kisses and threats and the phantom taste of tears I hadn’t finished crying.
I grabbed my phone again.
The screen lit up, painting my face in shades of blue.
There we were. Me, Chiara, and Sienna. Grinning like idiots on the beach, our hair wind-whipped and soaked in salt. Bondi in the background, sun drunk and golden.
