Chapter 1 - A Boy Who Never FlinchedI was seven years old the first time I truly understood my sister was different in a way the world would apparently punish her for. Annie was six, exactly one year behind me. Her whole face lit up whenever anyone said her name kindly. Most children, I quickly learned, didn't actually say it kindly at all. They pointed at her openly, laughed cruelly, teased her until she cried.
I used to stand in front of her like some tiny human wall, both fists balled tight at my sides.
Levi, my best friend, was the one single boy who never once flinched around her. "Rosie — Annie, you'll always have Levi and me," I told her, over and over, until she genuinely believed it herself. He picked her first for kickball, every single time, even while the other team captains rolled their eyes openly at the choice.
In fourth grade, he crouched down right in front of her and made a promise I never once forgot afterward. "Annie, when we're older, I'm taking you to prom. That's an actual promise."
Annie clapped both hands together, beaming at him. "You heard him," she said, breathless with excitement, turning to me. "Levi said it out loud."
I nodded, my whole chest warming with something I couldn't quite name yet.
The years folded steadily into each other, the way genuinely happy years always seem to. Levi rode his bike over to our house nearly every single afternoon. My mother merely tolerated his constant presence. My father barely glanced up from his newspaper whenever Levi walked through the door. But Annie always waited by the front window, listening for the exact sound of his bicycle tires.
By the time I turned seventeen, I'd already started quietly imagining an entire future built around Levi. Never out loud, though. Just soft, private daydreams — the three of us, our lives happily woven together, while I did homework or brushed my hair before bed each night. I genuinely thought he saw the same future too. The way he lingered on our porch steps. The way he laughed at things Annie said that only I would otherwise find genuinely funny.
Then, one particular Sunday, when I was twenty-two, Levi knocked at our door. He held a small velvet box cupped in his open palm. My own heart lifted so fast I felt genuinely dizzy for a second.
"Can I talk with Annie?" he asked me directly.
I blinked, confused. "Annie?"
"Yeah. Is she out in the garden?"
I stepped aside without answering him at all. I watched from our kitchen window as he knelt down in front of my sister, right there among the tomato vines. I watched both her hands fly up to cover her mouth. I watched her nod so hard her curls bounced wildly around her face.
I cried into my own pillow that night, quietly, so nobody else could hear me through the wall.
Ugly thoughts ran through my head that particular night, thoughts that made me genuinely hate myself afterward. Levi couldn't possibly find her more attractive than me. Levi had to be marrying her for some hidden reason entirely. Looking back now, it genuinely hurts to realize exactly how close to the actual truth I'd unknowingly landed.
The next morning, I smiled through it and helped Annie assemble an entire wedding inspiration board on Pinterest. "You'll be my maid of honor," she told me firmly. "Promise me that."
"I promise, Annie."
Part of me kept quietly waiting for our parents to finally intervene somehow. Instead they simply smiled and assured everyone that Levi would take genuinely good care of her.
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Their wedding turned out small. Levi wore a plain grey suit and openly cried the instant he saw her walking down the aisle toward him. My parents stood there smiling the whole time. "You chose well," Dad said to Levi, clapping him warmly on the shoulder.
That particular comment stung more than I expected it to. I watched Levi slide the ring onto Annie's finger, and found myself genuinely wondering whether I truly knew the man I'd always called my best friend.
