I’ve always done whatever my brother Leo says. So when the new scholarship kid stole his spotlight, and Leo told me to put him in his place, I gave him my best loyal-puppy nod. The new kid, Ethan, looked like he was starving, so I deliberately shoved a tray loaded with greasy food in front of him, forcing him. "Eat it." Ethan was always cold, so in the dead of winter, I’d make him warm my hands, just to feel him shiver. I even cornered him in the library, and knowing he was a total neat freak, I threw my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest. "How's that?" I whispered maliciously. "Feeling sick to your stomach yet?" That's when a series of glitched-out captions flashed in front of my eyes. 【Dumbass side character, you're picking on the wrong guy! That’s the real heir to the Harrison fortune, your future adoptive brother.】 【But don't worry. With your pathetic little schemes, you've already got him hooked, line, and sinker.】 A second later, Ethan slowly turned his head, his face bright red. "Thank you," he stammered. "I… I really like it." Leo and I were both from the system. When the Harrisons came to the group home to pick a kid, they chose Leo in a heartbeat. Everyone was jealous. He’d hit the jackpot, on his way to the good life. But Leo just clung to the doorframe and refused to let go. He wailed that I was his best friend and he wouldn't leave without me. His crying was so loud it turned the director's face a pale shade of green. The director hesitated. "Perhaps I could show you some of the other children?" But the Harrisons said they admired Leo’s loyalty. So, just like that, they took us both. Overnight, our lives were flipped upside down. We went from being two nobodies in a group home to the prince and princess of New York’s elite. We were a big deal wherever we went. Of course, Leo was the real star. He was handsome, a straight-A student, and the star quarterback. The undisputed king of Northwood Preparatory Academy. But when Ethan Cole showed up on a scholarship, Leo’s throne started to wobble. At the Homecoming King election, Leo lost to Ethan by a single vote. To make it worse, the girl Leo had a massive crush on, Maya, had cast that deciding vote for Ethan. That day, Leo came to me, looking like his world had ended. He said Ethan was making his life miserable. Ever since we were little, I knew my cushy life was all thanks to Leo refusing to leave me behind. So, I snapped into loyal-sister mode. "Leo, just tell me. What do you need me to do?" He wanted me to teach Ethan a lesson, make him back off so he'd stop trying to steal my future sister-in-law. I agreed instantly. Messing with us was the biggest mistake he’d ever make. The Harrisons had raised me to be bold and fearless. Ruining someone’s day? I was an expert. I watched Ethan for a whole week. He wore the same faded, washed-out hoodie every day, and he was so thin he looked like a strong gust of wind could snap him in two. I’d heard rumors he had some kind of eating disorder. So, during lunch, I grabbed my tray and slammed it down on the table right across from him. His lunch was a cup of watery soup and a few sad-looking lettuce leaves. Pathetic. I swiped his container off the table and pushed mine forward. It was loaded with a double bacon cheeseburger, a mountain of chili cheese fries, and a thick chocolate milkshake. A full-on calorie bomb I’d picked out just for him. Ethan just stared at me, completely baffled. I slapped the table, jutted out my chin, and looked down my nose at him. "Eat it." This stuff was the complete opposite of his rabbit food. He had to be disgusted. Sure enough, he just sat there, holding his fork, not moving. I glared. "You're going to eat every last bite of what's in front of you. You hear me?" I leaned in, my voice dropping to a growl. "If you don't, I'll get creative." Ethan looked at me, and then he finally moved. He cautiously picked up the burger and took a tiny bite. He chewed so slowly, like he was trying to make one bite last an hour. A whole tray of this stuff would take him forever. Leo was supposed to meet me on the bleachers later. I didn't have time for this. I grabbed the spoon, scooped up a huge glob of chili cheese fries, and shoved it towards his mouth. "Open up. Let's go." I'm stronger than I look. I just kept pushing the spoon towards him until he had no choice but to open his mouth and eat everything I fed him. All while he kept stealing glances at me. He had to be cursing my name in his head. As I was silently congratulating myself, those weird captions flashed in front of my eyes again. 【Is this how you bully someone? Seriously?】 【Ethan doesn't have an eating disorder, you idiot. He's broke. He can't afford to buy decent food, that's why he eats like that.】 【If it weren't for you, he wouldn't even have a chance to eat a burger.】 I froze. I looked at Ethan, who was now methodically working his way through the fries, looking almost… happy. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I remembered my first year in the group home. We got two wilted pieces of spinach for dinner, and meat was a once-a-month holiday miracle. Kids would get into fistfights over a single piece of chicken. Suddenly, I felt a pang of pity for Ethan. But I squashed that ridiculous thought immediately. He made my brother miserable. He deserved whatever was coming to him. "Ethan!" I yelled, slapping the table again. He looked up, a fry hanging out of his mouth. "From now on, I'm in charge of your lunch. Got it?" I’d made up my mind. I was going to make Ethan eat greasy, heavy food every single day. I'd make him eat until he puked, until he got fat, until he ballooned into a 300-pound linebacker. Let's see him compete with my brother for Homecoming King then. Fearing he might misunderstand my intentions, I quickly added, "It's just that this stuff is so greasy it makes me sick to look at. I don't want it, so I'm giving it to you." But in that moment, Ethan's usually gloomy eyes suddenly lit up. They sparkled like distant stars. "Okay," he said. My plan backfired. Spectacularly. After a month of eating my "leftovers," Ethan did gain weight. But only about fifteen pounds. He just looked less skeletal and more… solid. Healthier. It only made more girls crush on him. During the championship basketball game, both Ethan and Leo were playing. The crowd used to be a sea of cheers for Leo. But this time, the chants for "Ethan! Ethan!" were way louder. And then, the final nail in the coffin: Maya, the girl Leo was crazy about, ran onto the court to give Ethan a bottle of water. After the game, Leo was glumly sipping the water I gave him. "Paige, I thought you were gonna handle him. Is this what 'handling him' looks like?" He sighed dramatically. "It's fine. I lose the title, I lose the girl… I guess I was just born to lose." He looked up at me with those kicked-puppy eyes. "Don't worry about me, sis. I'll survive." Leo's always been kind of a softie. When things got tough, he always relied on me. I couldn't stand seeing him so down. I patted his shoulder firmly. "Leo, I swear, this time I'm going to properly humiliate him. Just you wait." Ethan was a guy, and guys have fragile egos. I came up with the perfect way to crush his. I cornered him after school as he was getting on his beat-up bicycle. "What's the rush?" Ethan held the handlebars, answering me seriously. "My mom's in the hospital. I'm going to see her." "Oh, well then you should—" I stopped myself, remembering my promise to Leo. I grabbed his collar. "Hold on, you're not going anywhere!" I pulled a black debit card from my purse, holding it between two fingers like it was something dirty. I tilted my chin up, my voice dripping with condescension. "There's ten grand on this. A little gift from me." I expected a scholarship kid to have some pride. I thought he'd be furious at the insult. But he just looked at me, his eyes swirling with some unreadable emotion, and reached for the card. "Paige… thank you." The pop-up captions appeared again, frantic this time. 【Ethan's mom is seriously ill. She needs surgery, and it costs ten thousand dollars.】 【He's been trying to borrow money from everyone but couldn't get it. He's been stressing about it for weeks.】 【Paige, honey, giving him this money right now is like sending a lifeboat to a drowning man. How is this supposed to be humiliating?】 【If this is humiliation, please, humiliate me like this every day!】 I froze. Just as his fingers were about to touch the card, I snatched it back. I threw it on the grimy pavement and stepped on it with my pristine white sneaker. "You think it's that easy?" "Ethan, my shoe is dirty. Clean it." He stared at the ground, not saying a word. The veins on the back of his hand popped out. He had to be feeling utterly humiliated. I thought about how he’d smiled and talked with Maya on the court, leaving my brother to sulk on the sidelines. My anger flared up again. I sat down on a nearby bench, stuck my foot out, and commanded, "Hurry up." He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a clean napkin. He knelt. His warm hand suddenly wrapped around my ankle, and the unexpected touch made me flinch. "What are you doing?" I snapped. He didn't answer. He just placed my foot on his knee and began to carefully wipe away the tiny smudge on my shoe. His eyelashes were long and curved, casting little shadows on his cheeks. I had to admit, the guy wasn't hard to look at. He kept wiping, over and over, probably because he was so angry and humiliated he couldn't think straight. Even his ears were turning red. Satisfied with the sight of my shoe print on his jeans, I finally pulled my foot back. "Fine. The money's yours. Take it." I added one last jab. "And stay away from other girls from now on. Don't you know about personal space?" He seemed furious, his whole face flushed, but he just nodded silently. I was satisfied. Finally, I'd completed the mission Leo gave me. But I never expected Ethan to be so untrustworthy. It only took two days for him to break his promise. Leo was going to confess to Maya. He’d set the stage on the school rooftop. He filled it with pink balloons and had a huge bouquet of roses ready. It was just supposed to be a few sentences, but Leo was so nervous he practiced it over and over, checking his watch while he waited for her. The agreed-upon time came and went. No Maya. Fifteen more minutes passed. Still no Maya. Leo couldn’t take it anymore. He sent a friend to find out what was going on, only to learn that Ethan had intercepted Maya and taken her somewhere. After hearing the news, Leo just sat there, a lonely figure in a sea of pink balloons, sighing into the wind. His empty gaze fell on me. "Paige…" Before he could even finish, I jumped in. "Don't worry, Leo. I'll humiliate him again tomorrow." "No, that's not it. I was wondering… can you make Maya give up on Ethan?" That was a tough one. I was good at bullying people. This whole relationship thing was way over my head. Seeing the look on my face, Leo sighed again. "Never mind. If you can't, just roughing him up a bit for me is fine too." It was the middle of winter, and Leo had been on the freezing rooftop for hours. As he spoke, he let out a huge sneeze. That's when I remembered an essay Ethan had written. It was passed around as a model for the whole grade. In it, he wrote that he was born with a poor constitution and had always been afraid of the cold. Heh. If I can't fatten you up, I'll freeze you to death. I intercepted Ethan again, this time hopping onto the back of his bicycle without an invitation. "Ethan, take me home." He froze, his long legs keeping the bike steady. "Paige, don't you have a driver who picks you up?" I shot him a glare. "What, I'm not allowed to ride your bike now?" "That's not what I meant," he explained hastily. "It's too cold in the winter. You should take the car." "Ethan," I said, staring at his scarf and giving it a tug. "Take off your scarf. Give it to me." "And the gloves. Take those off too." He obediently did as I said, wrapping his scarf snugly around my neck and placing his gloves in my lap. I was about to put them on when I saw Maya walking towards us from a distance. Remembering Leo's request, an idea sparked. "Ethan, my hands are freezing." I’ve always had poor circulation. My hands and feet turn to ice in the winter. Ethan pursed his lips. "I can help you put on the gloves?" "Ha. I'm not using your second-hand stuff." As Maya got closer, I held my hands out to him. "Use your hands to warm mine." Ethan looked at me, stunned. After a moment of intense internal struggle under my tyrannical gaze, his palm slowly came to rest on the back of my hand. My hand must have been like a block of ice, because his movements were incredibly hesitant. I stared at his face. "Ethan, your face is really red. Is it warm?" "Put my hands on your cheeks. Warm them up for me, you hear?" Ethan's face flushed an even deeper shade of crimson. The hand holding mine trembled slightly. "That's… not appropriate." "What's not appropriate? I'm just using your face for a little warmth." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maya getting closer. I had a pretty good guess why he was being so difficult. Maya was beautiful, with a gentle but strong personality. Half the guys at school were in love with her. I leaned in closer to Ethan. "Is it because you have a crush on someone?" He flinched and immediately denied it, his voice frantic. "N-no, I don't…" But his denial was weak, his eyes darting all over the place. A classic case of protesting too much. So he did like Maya. But Maya was my future sister-in-law. I couldn't let him have her. To make him give up, I grabbed his collar. "Right now, this instant, use your face to warm my hands, or you'll be sorry." I’d already decided. If he refused, I was putting wasabi in his lunch tomorrow. Ethan looked at me, then slowly lowered his head, bringing my hands closer to his face. Then, he tilted his head, and his cheek pressed silently against my palm. The skin under my hand was warm and soft, like the stray kitten I’d once rescued from a dumpster at the group home. That little cat loved to be cuddled. Whenever I scratched its chin, it would stretch out and look at me with the same innocent, harmless eyes. When I didn't say anything, Ethan gently rubbed his cheek against my palm. "Is that any warmer?" Maya was almost here. I just needed to hold this pose for ten more seconds. But right at that critical moment, I chickened out. "Um, my driver's almost here. I think I'll just take the car home after all." "Oh, right, here's your stuff back." I hastily unwrapped the scarf, hung it back on his neck, turned around, and bolted. The look in his eyes just now… it gave me this weird feeling of guilt. The thought that I’d taken his scarf and gloves, knowing how much he hated the cold, just to let the winter wind bite at him… it made me feel like a monster. I was running so fast I slammed right into Leo. He looked at me, confused. "Paige? What's wrong?" he asked. "Weren't you going to teach Ethan a lesson? Why do you look so freaked out? Did he do something to you?" I grabbed Leo's sleeve. "Leo, let's try a different approach." "Let's just leave Ethan alone. You like Maya, so I'll help you win her over. Let's not waste our energy on him." Leo thought about it for a moment and then nodded, agreeing it was a solid plan. "Leo, go write a love letter. I'll deliver it to Maya for you tomorrow." That night, Leo pulled an all-nighter, writing an eight-thousand-word epic. He poured every ounce of his literary talent into it, citing classic literature and building an irrefutable case around his central thesis: "I like you." While he was scribbling away, I was staring at the moon, lost in thought. When I wore Ethan's scarf today, I noticed a thread had come loose at the corner, leaving a thumb-sized hole. After bullying him for so long, my conscience was starting to bother me. I wanted to buy him a new scarf. What style should I get? Just then, Leo sealed his masterpiece in an envelope and presented it to me with both hands. I took it solemnly, promising to complete the mission. But the delivery went horribly wrong. The letter ended up in Ethan's hands.
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