Chapter 127 Big Brother
Catherine had a panic attack at school. Full breakdown. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Maya called Aiden, he was the emergency contact.
He arrived in fifteen minutes. Found Catherine hyperventilating in the nurse’s office.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Catherine. Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
“Okay. That’s okay. Just listen to my voice. Breathe with me.” He demonstrated. Slow inhales. Slower exhales. “That’s it. Match my breathing. In. Out. In. Out.”
Gradually, Catherine’s breathing steadied.
“What happened?” he asked gently.
“Someone someone said my mom abandoned me. That she cared more about hiding than about being my mom. And I just…I couldn’t…” She was crying now. “What if they’re right? What if she didn’t love me enough to stay?”
Aiden sat beside her. “She loved you enough to give up everything. Her name. Her family. Her whole life. That’s not abandonment. That’s sacrifice.”
“It feels the same.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” He was quiet for a moment. “My mom left me too. Chose to disappear rather than fight. For years I was angry. Felt abandoned. But now, now I have you, Lily, Elena and Ethan. And I realize she didn’t abandon us. She gave us the chance to survive. To build this.” He gestured around. “This messy, complicated, beautiful thing we call family.”
“You really think that?”
“I’m trying to. Some days I believe it. Some days I’m still angry. But I’m trying.”
Catherine leaned against him. This brother she barely knew. Who’d been distant for months.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For coming. For…for trying.”
“That’s what family does. We try. We fail. We try again.”
He drove her home. Stayed with her while she calmed down completely. Made her tea badly, he wasn’t good at domestic things and let her exist in silence until she was ready to talk.
That night, at dinner, he announced: “Catherine needs her own room. Actually her own space. Lily, you’ve been amazing sharing, but it’s not sustainable.”
“We can’t afford another apartment…” Ariella started.
“We can afford to renovate the attic. Make it a proper bedroom. Catherine’s space. Where she can process everything without an audience.”
Catherine stared at him. “You don’t have to…”
“Yes, I do. You’re my sister. You deserve your own space. Your own privacy. Your own life. Not just fitting into the gaps we make for you.”
Tears streaming down her face now. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just exist. Messily. Imperfectly. Like the rest of us.”
The renovation took six weeks.
Aiden worked on it personally. Insulation. Drywall. Paint. Built her a window seat overlooking the street.
“So you can see the city,” he explained. “Feel part of it without being overwhelmed by it.”
Catherine watched him work. This man who’d lost his mother twice. Who’d been forced into a contract marriage. Who’d survived assassination attempts and network conspiracies and still somehow found space to care about a sister he’d never known existed.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked one day.
“Because you deserve better than the scraps of our lives. You deserve your own life. Built intentionally. With people who choose you.” He hammered a nail. “And because…because I wish someone had done this for me. When my mom died the first time. When my dad was dying. When everything was falling apart. I wish someone had built me a space where I could just be.”
“You’re building yourself the room you needed.”
“I’m building you the room I wish I’d had. Close enough.”
The attic bedroom was finished on a Saturday.
Catherine stood in the doorway. Her space. Windows overlooking Brooklyn. Bookshelves Aiden had built by hand. A desk. A bed. Soft lighting.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“It’s yours,” Aiden corrected. “Do whatever you want with it. Paint it. Destroy it. Make it yours.”
She hugged him. Tight. This brother who’d been a stranger four months ago.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For letting me stay. For for choosing me even though you didn’t have to.”
“Catherine.” He pulled back, looked at her seriously. “You’re family. That’s not a choice anymore. That’s just fact. Permanent. You’re stuck with us.”
“Good,” she said. “I don’t want unstuck.”
That night, Catherine slept in her own room for the first time since Montana.
Safe. Home. Belonging.
Finally.
Downstairs, Ariella found Aiden in the kitchen.
“That was good,” she said. “What you did. The room. The acceptance.”
“I’m trying to be better. Better than my dad was. Better than the fear that makes you push people away.”
“You’re already better.”
“I’m a work in progress.”
“Aren’t we all?”
He pulled her close. Five years of marriage. Five years of choosing each other through chaos.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For making this family feel possible. For teaching me that broken people can build whole things if they try hard enough.”
“We’re all still pretty broken.”
“Yeah. But we’re broken together. That’s something.”
Upstairs, Catherine unpacked her last box.
In Montana, she’d been alone.
In New York, she was family.
Messy. Complicated. Traumatized.
But family.
And for the first time since Anna died, Catherine felt like maybe…maybe…she’d be okay.
Not immediately.
Not perfectly.
But eventually.
Like everyone else in this impossible family.
One day at a time.
Together.