Page 114 of Contested

“What the fuck?” Loren muttered, turning to stare at Sebastian.

His face was burning as his fists clenched at his sides, looking past Loren and into his room.

Marcos was standing next to the bed, only in his underwear, a trophy from Sebastian’s shelf in his hand as he was placing it back where it looked to have fallen. His shoulders were tense, his eyes too wide, and one hand came down in front of himself like that would somehow help when he was standing there in nothing but black underwear in Sebastian’s bedroom.

“Hi,” Marcos said quietly, an awkward smile on his face while he tried to cover himself.

“Loren, please,” Sebastian started, before his voice broke in English. “Please.”

“Bao, what is going on?” Loren asked, her voice softer.

Sebastian’s heart struck hard at the name. His pulse was heavy in his fingertips, and the ringing was loud in his ears as heat enveloped him.

He hadn’t heard Loren call him that for years. Usually, it was the name his grandparents used, mostly because they refused to call him by his English name. A name that belonged to kitchens, family arguments, birthdays when he was younger, and the version of himself who had learned how to split his life into pieces.

The name settled somewhere uncomfortable underneath his ribs, weighing heavily above his stomach, making it feel too compressed. Too tight. He started to pick at the skin next to his nails as his eyes flicked toward Marcos, then back to Loren.

“Can we please not do this here?” Sebastian asked, failing to keep his voice even.

Loren stared at Sebastian for a minute, breathing hard, jaw tensing. Then she stared at Marcos, her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t he an asshole? Aren’t you an asshole?”

Marcos shrugged and tilted his head, his mouth twitching upward before stopping himself.

“Please,” Sebastian repeated, and Loren huffed.

She huffed before walking back down the hall toward the living room.

Sebastian’s breath rattled out of him as his fingers picked harder, and he kept his eyes on Marcos, shaking his head, eyes glowering.

Marcos’ face dropped.

Sebastian couldn’t stay there long enough to fix what his face had done. He turned to follow his sister.

“Is that… Is this what I think it is?” Loren asked, spinning and pointing down the hall.

Sebastian stopped a few metres away from her.

His mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. He had spent years preparing for different versions of this. Every worst-case scenario his mind had built out of locker-room comments, crowd noise, family memory, and fear. He had imagined anger. Disgust. Questions he couldn’t answer. Silence that would go on too long.

He had not imagined his sister standing in his living room with tears still on her face, his father possibly dying, Marcos in his bedroom, and the first thing out of his own mouth being fear.

“Don’t—don’t tell anyone,” Sebastian said, his voice small and weak.

“Bao,” she whispered, watching a tear Sebastian had been determined to keep away slide down his face.

The softness in her voice broke something worse than the yelling had.

Loren stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him, and Sebastian let himself melt into her embrace. His face pushed into her shoulder as more tears escaped him, and his hands gripped the back of her shirt like he was just a kid again.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Sebastian repeated, and Loren shook her head against his.

“I’ve got you.”

That was it.

Everything narrowed to that. To those words, Loren’s arms around him, and the steady pressure of her hand on his back. Despite everything that had happened between them, despite the distance Sebastian had let grow and everything his sister was carrying now, it came down to those words.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Sebastian said through ragged breaths.