Chapter 34 : I earned My Place
HAYDEN’S POV:
The room was dark except for the thin strip of moonlight cutting through the blinds.
My heartbeat had finally slowed.
Lilian lay beside me, sheets tangled around her waist, her head resting against my shoulder. The air still felt warm, heavy with the aftermath of skin against skin and everything we hadn’t said out loud.
She traced a lazy line down my chest with her fingertip.
“You’re quiet,” she murmured.
“I’m tired.”
“That’s not it.”
I exhaled slowly through my nose. She knew me well enough not to accept the easy answer.
We’d just finished having sex, but the heat had already drained out of it for me. The physical release never lasted long. It never fixed anything.it just dulled the noise for a few minutes.
Lilian shifted, propping herself up on one elbow so she could look at me properly.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
I already knew what it was going to be about. “You’re going to anyway,” I replied.
Her mouth twitched faintly. “What’s actually going on between you and Stephen?”
I stared at the ceiling. “Nothing.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I didn’t respond.
She studied me for a moment, then continued, softer this time. “Especially since you were the one who slept with his girlfriend. And you’re the one who told half the school he’s gay.”
There it was. It was laid out between us.
I felt my jaw tighten automatically. “But he is.”
“That’s not the point.” My fingers curled slightly into the sheets. “You humiliated him,” she said carefully. “Publicly.”
The words didn’t hit the way they probably should have. Or maybe they did and I just refused to let them sink in.
“It wasn’t about Ella,” she added. “And you know it.”
No. It wasn’t. Ella had just been… convenient and a way to get under his skin.
I dragged a hand down my face. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Try me.”
Silence filled the room again. The room was quiet. “It didn’t start with her,” I said finally.
Lilian waited.
“He’s not my actual brother,” I continued. “Not by blood.”
She frowned slightly. “I know.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know what it was like.”
The memories surfaced whether I wanted them to or not.
“My mom died when I was eight,” I said. My voice stayed even, but my chest tightened anyway. “ She had cancer. It grew fast and ugly. One day she was driving me to school. A year later, she was gone.”
Lilian’s hand slid over mine.
“I didn’t have anyone else,” I continued. “No dad and no grandparents who wanted to deal with me. So his mom took me in.”
“You were lucky,” she said softly.
“I know.”
And I did. That was the worst part.
“She gave me a room, clothes, and a place at the dinner table. She called me her son.” I swallowed. “But it was his house first.”
The words felt bitter.
“He had the pictures on the walls. The routines, the inside jokes, and the history. I was just… inserted.”
Lilian’s fingers squeezed mine gently. “You were eight.”
“Yeah. And he was nine. Old enough to understand that suddenly he had to share everything.”
I turned my head toward her slightly.
“At first, it was fine. We played. We fought as kids do. But then people started comparing us.”
She didn’t interrupt.
“Teachers, coaches, and parents at games. ‘Which one’s better?’ ‘Who’s faster?’ ‘Who’s smarter?’” I huffed quietly. “Like we were some kind of experiment.”
“And?”
“And I couldn’t lose.” The admission felt raw. “If I lost, I wasn’t just losing a race or a test. I was proving I didn’t belong there.”
Lilian’s brows knit together.
“I had to earn my place,” I said. “Every day.”
The first time I beat him in a school race, I remember the look on his face. He had a shocked and hurt look on his face. Something cracked there and something twisted inside me too.
“Then football happened,” I continued. “And we both turned out to be good with the same position and the same scouts watching.”
“Of course,” she muttered.
I gave a humorless half-smile. “You know what it’s like living with someone who mirrors you?” I asked. “Same build, same training, and the same fucking opportunities. Every win feels stolen. Every loss feels personal.”
Lilian brushed her thumb over my knuckles. “So you slept with his girlfriend because… what? You needed to win something?”
My jaw tightened again. “It wasn’t planned.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I stared at the ceiling. “She came to me,” I said. “After one of our fights. Said he was distant and he didn’t touch her anymore.”
Lilian’s expression shifted slightly, but she didn’t comment. “And you wanted to prove something,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” There it was. It was ugly and simple. “I wanted to prove I could take something from him.”
The confession hung heavy in the air.
“And outing him?” she pressed.
That one sat deeper. I let out a slow breath. “He told me,” I said. “A year ago.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “He trusted you with that?”
I nodded once. “He said he thought he might be gay, or bi. He didn’t know. He just… needed someone to say it out loud to.”
Lilian went very still. “And when he pissed you off, you used it.”
The words weren’t accusing. They were true. “Yes.”
Silence swallowed the room.
For a moment, I could hear my own pulse in my ears.
“I didn’t think it would blow up like that,” I muttered."I just… wanted him off balance.”
“You wanted him exposed,” she corrected softly.
I didn’t argue because she was right. The worst part?
When the whispers started spreading through school, when the looks shifted, when he walked into practice with his shoulders locked and his jaw set like stone…part of me felt satisfied and part of me felt sick.
“Why?” Lilian asked again.
I closed my eyes briefly. “Because when he wins, I disappear,” I said quietly.
The words surprised even me and Lilian frowned.
“When he scores the goal, when the coach praises him, when my mom looks proud….. I feel like that eight-year-old kid again. The one who doesn’t actually belong there.”
“You do belong there,” she said immediately.
“Yeah. I know that logically.” I let out a humorless breath. “But logic doesn’t fix the feeling.”
She shifted closer, her bare shoulder brushing mine. “You don’t hate him,” she said.
“No.” The answer came too fast to deny. “I don’t.”
I thought about him bleeding in the locker room. About the way he still checks if I made it home after late practice. About how we move around each other in the kitchen like magnets that repel but never fully detach.
“I just don’t know how to exist without competing,” I admitted.
Lilian rested her chin lightly on my chest. We went quiet after that with no one knowing what to say to the other.