Chapter156 She's not you, Chloe

Chapter156 She's not you, Chloe
Chloe

Julian pulled me closer. "You told her the truth. That's all you could do."

"But what if the truth destroys them both? What if she can never look at him without wondering if he's seeing me instead, or what if Ethan can't move past his feelings, or what if—"

"Chloe." Julian's voice was firm. "You can't control how this plays out. You can only control your part in it."

I knew he was right, but that didn't make the fear any easier to bear. Kim would be lying awake down the hall, probably wondering if every moment with Ethan would be shadowed by his feelings for me.

And I'd put that doubt in her mind based on assumptions that suddenly felt less solid than they had hours ago.

There was something else gnawing at me, something I'd been trying to ignore all evening.

"Julian," I said quietly into the darkness. "I need to talk to Ethan."

"About Kim?"

"About everything." I turned to face him, even though I could barely make out his features in the dim light. "I just told Kim that Ethan's still in love with me, but what if I'm wrong? What if he's actually moving on and I just sabotaged his chance at happiness?"

Julian was quiet for a moment. "You think his feelings might have changed?"

"I don't know." The admission felt heavy. "Tonight, when he was talking to Kim... there was something different about him. Something lighter. But I've been so focused on protecting everyone that I never actually asked him where he stands now."

"So you're going to ask him?"

I nodded against his shoulder. "I have to. Kim deserves to know what she's really dealing with, and Ethan deserves the chance to speak for himself. Before this goes any further, I need to know if I just told Kim the truth or if I told her about a past that doesn't exist anymore."

----

The morning after my late-night conversation with Julian, I found myself unable to shake the weight of what I'd told Kim. As I watched Julian leave for the office, handling some urgent matter that couldn't wait, I knew I couldn't let this uncertainty fester any longer.

I waited until I heard Kim's car pull out of the driveway—she'd mentioned over breakfast that she had meetings at the community center all morning. The timing was perfect, or maybe I'd subconsciously been waiting for this moment when I could have this conversation without risking her overhearing something that might hurt her even more.

I picked up my phone and dialed Ethan's number.

"Chloe?" His voice carried a note of surprise, probably because I rarely called him directly anymore. "Is everything okay?"

"Can you come over? I need to talk to you about something important."

There was a pause, and I could practically hear him processing the request. "About Kim?"

"Among other things." I kept my voice steady, professional almost. "It's better if we discuss this face to face."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

After hanging up, I gathered Kim's work files from the coffee table and carried them out to the private terrace behind the house. Julian had mentioned he might come back early today to check on me—something about rearranging his afternoon meetings—which meant we needed to have this conversation sooner rather than later.

When Ethan arrived, I could see traces of last night's lightness still lingering in his expression. There was something different about his posture, a looseness to his shoulders that I hadn't seen in years.

"Thanks for coming," I said, gesturing for him to sit across from me at the wrought iron table. Kim's files were spread between us like a buffer, though I wasn't sure if they were protecting him from me or me from him.

"You look tired," he observed, settling into his chair with that careful attention he'd always paid to my moods. "Rough night?"

I almost laughed at the understatement. "You could say that. Ethan, I need to tell you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me about how you feel."

His expression grew more serious, the easy warmth from last night fading into something more guarded. "Okay."

I took a breath, organizing Kim's papers with unnecessarily precise movements as I spoke. "Last night, after you left, Kim asked me about your relationship status. She wanted to know if you were seeing anyone."

Ethan went very still. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her the truth." The words felt heavy in my mouth, each one a small betrayal of the careful balance we'd all been maintaining. "I told her that you've been in love with me for years. Not as a sister, but as something more."

The silence that followed was deafening. Ethan's face went through a series of expressions—shock, embarrassment, something that might have been relief. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"You told her about that?"

"I had to." I leaned forward, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. "Ethan, she's developing feelings for you. Real feelings. And I couldn't let her walk into something without knowing the full picture."

He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at his hands. When he looked up, there was a vulnerability in his eyes that reminded me painfully of the teenager he'd been when this all started.

"I suppose I should thank you," he said finally. "For being honest with her. I know that couldn't have been easy."

"That's not why I asked you here." I forced myself to meet his gaze directly. "I need to know—and I need you to be completely truthful—are your feelings for Kim genuine? Or are they..." I struggled for the right words. "Are they influenced by how much she looks like me?"

The question hung between us like a blade. Ethan's face flushed, and for a moment I thought he might not answer at all.

"That's what you think?" His voice carried a note of hurt. "That I'm using her as some kind of substitute?"

He stood up abruptly, pacing to the edge of the terrace, his hands clenched at his sides. The silence stretched between us, heavy with years of unspoken truths and carefully maintained boundaries.

"You know what's funny?" he said finally, not turning around. "All these years, I've been waiting for you to actually acknowledge what was between us. To stop pretending it was just brotherly affection gone slightly wrong."

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "And now, when I might actually have found someone who could care about me back, you want to dissect my feelings like they're some kind of psychological experiment."

"Ethan—"

"No, let me finish." He turned back to face me, and I could see the accumulated pain of years in his expression. "You want to know if my feelings for Kim are real? If they're not just some twisted projection of what I feel for you?"

He returned to his chair slowly, sitting down with deliberate control. "The truth is, when I first saw her, yes, the resemblance was... startling. For about thirty seconds, I felt like I was looking at you."

He paused, running a hand through his hair. "But then she started talking, and everything changed."

"How?"

"She's not you, Chloe." His voice grew stronger, more certain.