Good Riddance, Stepbrother

At our Thanksgiving family dinner, my stepbrother brought his beautiful girlfriend to meet the family for the first time.

She held up her wine glass and flashed me a malicious smirk. “I heard you had a first love you can’t forget, Summer.”

I kept my head low and focused on my food, unsure how to respond.

After all, my first love… was her boyfriend.

When I was seventeen, my stepbrother Ethan Cole tricked me into crossing the line we should never have crossed, while our parents were blissfully unaware.

Even right now, under the table, his foot was rubbing mine sensually. He did not bother holding back.

On the table, he held his girlfriend’s hand tenderly as he mocked me with a smirk, “You’re twenty-seven, sis. Your shelf life is running out, and you’re such a plain Jane. Who would ever want you?”

I stood up abruptly and looked at him, my tone calm and resolute.

“I’m married, Ethan.”

I did not like Thanksgiving, and I never wanted to go home for it.

However, my mother called me crying and lied that she had late-stage cancer, insisting that I make a trip home.

Over dinner, she criticized me like there was no tomorrow. “I wouldn’t even get to see you if I didn’t tell you I was lying! It’s been years since you came home. Do you still consider us your family?”

Ethan Cole looked up lazily from his food. The smirk on his lips made my hair stand on end.

“I bet you did something so terrible that you can’t even face us anymore. Am I right?” he said purposely, his voice laced with insinuations.

Everyone knew we did not get along. We became stepsiblings after my mother’s remarriage.

At her wedding, Ethan had cut up my dress to embarrass me. His father punished him harshly for it, but that did not stop him. In fact, it only made things worse.

Whenever the adults’ backs were turned, he would torture me with pranks, mockery, and taunting. He had a tight grip on my weaknesses.

I was too weak to fight back. Besides, it was not easy for my mother to marry a man with a good income, so I did not want to disrupt her marriage.

I tolerated everything. For years, I lived in this house, walking on eggshells the entire time.

It was only after a certain… incident that I dared to defy Ethan.

“Shut up,” I said coolly. “Don’t ruin everyone’s appetites.”

I did not care about protecting his pride anymore.

My stepfather shot Ethan a warning look. “Would it kill you to shut your mouth for once?”

Credit where it was due, my mother was unreliable, bad at finances, and sometimes infuriatingly naive… but she was beautiful. Furthermore, she had a good eye for men who loved her deeply.

My biological father and my current stepfather were both good men — steady breadwinners, loyal, and gentle.

The atmosphere at the dinner table turned tense until Ethan’s