My Brother's Secret Obsession

Lily's mother remarried, giving her an older stepbrother with no blood ties. Ethan was the campus hockey star, unapproachable and cold. By day, he barely looked at her—ten words at most. By night, he slipped into her room, believing she was asleep, and murmured her name while touching himself beside her bed. She only realized the pattern after a night she hadn't drunk the warm milk he brought her every evening. The one night she poured it away, she stayed awake, and at one in the morning, the doorknob turned. Ethan climbed into her bed, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and whispered against her neck that he missed her, that if she knew what he was doing she would hate him. His lips only brushed hers, barely pressing, and he repeated "just grow up a little more." For weeks she pretended to be unconscious, hiding her own long-buried feelings, while he left faint red marks on her back and kept his daytime distance because touching her, he had said, meant losing control.

Her best friend pushed her to test her feelings by spending time with Lucas, the football captain who openly liked her. At a bar that night, Lily stood too close to Lucas, and her phone lit up with ninety-nine messages and over thirty missed calls from Ethan. When she looked up, he was sitting in the corner of the bar, twirling a wine glass, blood dripping from his fingertips. He drove her home in silence and made her drink the milk in front of him. She swallowed it, then rushed to vomit it back up. She had already told her best friend that if Ethan tried to imprison her, she should call the police. Then she lay in bed, heart racing, and waited. He came faster than ever, yanked her into his arms, bit her earlobe, and demanded to know which hand Lucas had touched. "Dirty hands. Brother will help you wipe them clean." He called her name over and over while his fingers wandered. She tried to keep her breathing slow, but a muffled sound escaped her throat. His hand stopped. Ten seconds of silence. Then came a soft, slow laugh. "Oh no," he said. "We've been discovered."