From the heart.

Grace whistled, amazed. “Wow. Great timing.”

“Who’s going first?” Sarah asked.

“Are there even going to be enough slow songs for all of us?” Alice asked.

“We probably should’ve had this figured out before coming here…” Noelle noted.

“Hey, girls?” I blinked. I looked behind myself and the girls followed. Isabelle was there. “Really sorry to meddle, but… Can I ask you a big favor and borrow your boyfriend for the first dance?”

I was glad that the girls chuckled and took it really well. They shared a look and nodded and shrugged with easy smiles.

“That solves the problem of who goes first,” Sarah said.

“Go ahead, Isabelle,” Mila told her. “Just remember to bring him back when you’re done.”

“I promise,” Isabelle said with a thumbs up. She then grabbed my wrist and dragged me deeper towards the dance floor.

“So I don’t get a say in this?” I asked. “What is this?”

“Oh, shut up. Not man enough to dance with your sister?” she challenged. “I taught you how, remember?”

“It was a ten minute lesson at most,” I told her. Still… I smiled. “But fine. I’ll dance with you.”

“Thanks.”

Isabelle put her left hand on my shoulder, I held her right hand and put my left on her waist. We were close, but we kept a fair amount of distance. We moved slowly from left to right to the rhythm of the song and very little else.

Like I said, Isabelle gave me a ten-minute crash course on slow dances so I wouldn’t trip over myself. This was pretty much a last minute cramming session before the test. At least, that’s what I thought it was. To my sister, it was something else.

“Hey, Oliver,” she began, looking directly into my eyes.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry for everything. Sorry for the way I treated you these past years, sorry for being so antagonistic, sorry for pushing you away.”

“Hey, where’s this coming from?”

“I need to say it at some point, okay? Figured prom was a good time. I… I made choices without really understanding the consequences, then even doubled down further down the line. I don’t know what made me believe the opinions of others were more important than my brother, but I regret it all.” She kept looking at me, her face firm, her brow furrowed. “I thought you’d always be there. You’re my twin brother, dammit. I have no memories of anything you weren’t there for until after that stupid birthday party. I guess… I guess I started to believe it was annoying. And then when I was out with friends, you were still always in your room. It was like… like…” Her voice cracked. “Like I’d always have you there, even if I ignored you. Heh. Look at how wrong I was. Now we’re barely out of high school and you’ll already be moving out of the house.”

“Sis…”

“Quiet. Let me continue. I need to.” She sighed, took a deep breath and went on. “I feel like I screwed up. Nothing I did was worth the rift I created between us and I know I can’t go back and change anything. I doubt anything would’ve been worth it. That’s why… Thanks. Thanks for giving me the chance to fix things. I’m really glad that we’re able to talk like we used to again. Or at least… mostly like we used to. You’re not the same Oliver you used to be, and I say that as a good thing. You’re incredible, brother. I fucking mean it. I know it’ll sound silly and sappy, but… I really admire you. You may have spent a lot of time in your room, but when you decided to change you gave it everything you had. And I’m not even talking about this… friend of yours that’s probably listening to us right now. I bet you think she’s the one that changed you, but she wasn’t. Other people can’t **** you to change, no matter what they do. You have to do it yourself. And… You did just what I was trying and failed to do back then. I tried to change, to grow, to be better. I ended up becoming someone I didn’t want to be. Shallow, naive… impressionable and gullible. I wanted to please those around me. But you? You haven’t lost sight of what you want to be, and I hope you never do. You’re gonna go far, brother. I fucking know it. I don't know exactly WHERE you’re going, but it’s far. I know things aren’t exactly the same between us as they used to be, but I hope you’ll continue to let me be at least a small part of your life. I don’t want to lose my brother, Oliver.”

Damn. She was the one pouring her heart out, yet I felt like I was the one who was about to start crying.

“I’m… I’m sorry as well,” I told her, trying very hard to keep my voice from shaking. “I should’ve been able to handle it better, but I ended up being bitter about it even years after. I always understood why you did what you did, never really blamed you for it. But even so… I resented you for the longest time. You were doing what I wished I could do. Easily talking to people, having friends, having relationships… Made me feel like I was staying further and further behind. But instead of doing something about it, I just stayed back and hid myself until I couldn’t even talk to people. I felt pathetic. Frey gave me the chance to change things, and… I took it. It’s never felt fair, but…”

“Fuck fairness, brother,” Isabelle said firmly. “Do you know how many of those graduating here are going to top tier universities despite having piss-poor grades? How many of them have a high position waiting for them at their parents' companies no matter how bad they are at that job? A hell of a lot. So maybe you got lucky. Big deal. You grabbed that chance and didn’t let it go to waste. That’s what matters.”

“...”

“...”

The song ended before we knew it. We got all awkward when everyone stopped dancing and we were still so close. We let go slowly, both with solemn, downcast gazes.

“S-Sorry to drop this on you all of a sudden. Prom was supposed to be fun, but…”

“Sis? Thank you. I might be moving out, but I’m not going anywhere. Let’s keep working hard on our channel, okay? If you want to, that is.”

Isabelle grinned. “Yes, I do. Thanks, brother. And… I can visit you at your new house every so often, right?”

I snickered. “If everything goes well, I bet I won’t be able to kick you out. Sarah wants a pool.”

“Oh hell yeah!”

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