Chapter 54

A few people in the chat had caught Fin's tiny smile.

[I SAW THAT! He smiled!]

[I saw it too. You're not imagining things!]

[Did he finally read the chat? Is that why?]

[I didn't record it. What a tragedy.]

[Someone must have a clip. Name your price.]

[Maybe it was the hundred Super Rockets.]

[Are you trying to trick me into sending one? Because I can't prove it.]

[It's worth a shot. What if he smiles again?]

[I'm doing it!]

More Super Rockets lit up the screen. One viewer sent over a dozen. Everyone waited for a reaction, but Fin's mouth didn't so much as twitch. He parked his character in a corner, pulled out his phone, and began typing.

[???]

[You lied to me about the smiling!]

[He doesn't even see us. He's playing on his phone. I'm laughing and crying at the same time.]

The comments were moving too quickly for Elise to read them all. In the little camera window, she saw Theo looking down at his phone. Before she could wonder what he was doing, hers vibrated.

Theo: Got too much allowance?

Elise stared at the message. She'd even made up a random username so he wouldn't recognize her. How had he guessed?

Elise: How did you know it was me?

A little later he sent her a screenshot of her profile. Alongside her gender and other details was her date of birth. She'd entered her real birthday without thinking.

Elise: !!!

Theo could picture her surprise. He hadn't paid much attention to the first gift. A hundred had made him curious enough to check the unfamiliar account. It was less than an hour old, and the birthday matched his sister's exactly. He'd sent the message to test his guess. Her reply confirmed it.

Then he thought back over their conversation at dinner and understood. She believed he really was short of money and had tried to help him this way.

His expression softened as he looked at his phone.

[Please, someone tell me who Fin is texting!]

[I want to be his phone. Is it too late?]

[The way he looks at his phone is so gentle. This is why I love him.]

Elise left the stream and looked miserably at their conversation. One careless mistake, and her brother had found her out. He was probably laughing at her already. The next time they met, he would tease her all over again.

Another message arrived: a transfer for $28,000.

Her finger hovered over it. Why was he sending the money back? Wasn't he broke?

When she didn't accept it, he wrote again.

Theo: Be good.

Theo: You think I'd really take your money?

[Fin, do you remember you're streaming?]

[We're all turning green with envy over here.]

[Look at me, Fin. I'm your phone!]

Elise pressed her lips together. All right. Her brother had his pride; he didn't want her helping him out. She understood, but having her gesture returned still hurt a little.

Elise: That's too much. You wouldn't have received all of it.

She knew enough about livestream platforms to realize they took a cut. Theo couldn't have received the full $28,000 she'd spent on the hundred rockets. Yet that was the amount he was sending back. Instead of helping him, she'd end up taking his money.

Theo raised his eyebrows. She knew about that too? The platform had indeed kept a share. He would receive only half.

Apparently fooling his sister was going to get harder.

Theo: Keep the extra as spending money.

Spending money? She had plenty left over every month already. Why would she need his? And why was a man who claimed to be poor being so generous?

She typed furiously.

Elise: You lied to me! You aren't broke!

Theo: ?

He leaned back in his chair, phone in his right hand, and typed as if it were perfectly obvious.

Theo: Of course I am.

Theo: But even if I starve, I can't let my little sister lose money.

The next morning, Elise came out of her room with her schoolbag and saw Julian and Adrian coming downstairs one behind the other. Both wore workout clothes. Julian spent much of his time in an office but kept himself fit; Adrian, a performer, exercised regularly too. Adrian's silver hair was damp, and he followed Julian with the loose-limbed air of someone who had just finished a workout. Both had sweat at their necks.

The house had a gym on the fourth floor. The brothers stopped when they saw her.

“Morning, Ellie,” Julian said gently. “You're up?”

“Mm-hm.”

Something seemed odd. Then she realized what it was: Julian and Adrian had worked out together?

By breakfast, both had showered and changed. Miles arrived only after the food had been brought out, yawning all the way downstairs.

Elise caught sight of his bloodshot eyes. “Were you up late again?”

Ever since he'd deceived her about the notes, he'd become a different person, studying whenever he had the chance. Lately he was always yawning in the morning.

Miles rubbed his eyes. “It's nothing.”

After the lie, he'd promised her he would study properly and bring her a passing paper. Then he'd gone further and boasted that he would do it on the monthly assessments. If he succeeded, perhaps she would praise him.

Elise worried when he didn't study, but she worried when he stayed up half the night doing it, too.

“When are the assessments?” Julian asked.

“The day after tomorrow.”

Elise straightened. The time had come to see what her work since being reborn had amounted to. She had already lived through college entrance tests once and spent four years at university. Looking back at high school material now, she found it less difficult than before. She had devoted almost all her attention to studying, and she wanted to know how well she could do.

Julian had seen how hard she worked. “Are you confident, Ellie?”

“Yes.”

“You'll do well,” Adrian said lightly. “The most important thing is to relax.”

He had watched her study too. He didn't know whether she'd worked as hard in their previous life, when she'd ended up at a less selective university. He had no intention of discouraging her now. He only wanted her to be happy.

“Don't put too much pressure on yourself,” Julian added. “And avoid anything cold or raw around the exams. You don't want to feel unwell.”

The two of them went on offering advice. Standing nearby, Daniel glanced at Miles with sympathy. Elise wasn't the only one taking the assessments. Wasn't Miles in the same grade?

Yet Julian and Adrian seemed to have forgotten him entirely. Miles, for his part, noticed nothing strange. He ate his breakfast, nodded along, and even added a precaution or two, as though Elise were the only one facing an exam.

Daniel sighed.

Elise kept nodding. At last she bit the end of her utensil, a little helpless. It was only a monthly assessment. The way her brothers were carrying on, anyone would think she was going to war. They were making her nervous.

Adrian seemed to remember something. “I heard Theo's back. You two met?”

Julian's news had surprised him. Theo had come home, and he'd even met Elise. One by one, the people who had neglected her in their previous life were changing, beginning to treat her well. Adrian had suspected for some time that he might not be the only one given another life. What did it matter? He wanted to make up for what he owed his sister and become her favorite brother.

“Yes,” Elise said.

“Did he come looking for you?”

She thought about it. She'd gone to the match herself and hadn't expected to run into Theo there. That hardly counted as him seeking her out.

“No. I went to watch a match, and he happened to be playing.”

“I see.” Adrian considered that. So their meeting had been accidental.

Elise glanced at Julian. He'd already told her he would welcome Theo home, but she didn't know how Adrian and Miles felt.

“There's something I want to ask both of you.”

Everyone looked at her. Julian seemed to understand and continued eating. Adrian and Miles watched her in puzzlement.

“I want to persuade Theo to come home and live here. Julian says he doesn't mind. What about you two?”

Adrian and Miles exchanged a look.

“His room is still here,” Adrian said eventually. If Theo wanted to come back, was he supposed to drive him away?

“I don't mind,” Miles said. “I wouldn't shut the door in his face.”

They hadn't understood. Elise frowned. “I mean I want you both to get along with him. We're a family. We should all be together, always.”

Adrian stared at her. He had no objection to always being with Elise. The other three were another matter.

Miles looked equally uncomfortable. Even coming from their sister, the idea of one big family staying together forever sounded unbearably sentimental.

“Adrian?” Elise prompted.

He fell quiet. He'd been an adult when Theo left home. He had a rebellious streak himself, though he'd never acted on it, and at the time he'd thought Theo reckless for running away and dropping out of school to play esports.

Their parents had died later. Theo had arrived late, and after the funeral he'd kept his distance. Adrian knew the two things weren't necessarily connected, and he had blamed Theo, but a second life had made many of those feelings easier to let go. He still had his pride. If Theo deliberately stayed away because he didn't want Adrian as a brother, why should Adrian chase after him?

“Does he want to come back,” he asked, “or do you want him to?”

Elise was silent for a moment. “He hasn't said so, but I know he must want to come home.”

Adrian put several pieces of bacon into his mouth and chewed slowly, lost in thought. When he looked up and found her still watching him hopefully, he sighed.

“All right. Whatever you want.”

Miles took less time to decide. “I'm fine with it.”

He'd only been in middle school when Theo ran away. At first he'd thought his brother had gone mad from too much schoolwork; only after their parents died had he learned what had happened. He hadn't spent much time with Theo. If Elise wanted him home, that was fine.

Elise let out a breath. They couldn't become close overnight, but at least perhaps they could live together peacefully. Now it was up to Theo to make up his mind.

After breakfast Miles joined her in the car to school.

“Which subject are you most confident about?” she asked.

He had missed so much work that passing wouldn't be easy, and she was still worried.

Miles turned his head away. “English, I guess.”

The teacher had outlined the material for that assessment. He couldn't catch up in the other subjects quickly, but perhaps memorizing vocabulary and grammar would get him a pass. He'd been shut in his room studying them day and night. A passing grade might finally ease his guilt over lying to Elise about the notes.

He had another goal too. He'd asked his homeroom teacher about Elise's old grades. She'd been around the middle at her previous school; at that level she might rank in the lower middle of the grade here, though her hard work could bring her up to the middle. After the monthly assessments came the placement assessments, and he intended to do well enough to get into her course group.

The night before, he'd heard that a boy had confessed to Elise and been beaten up by a mysterious man. Nobody he'd asked knew who the man was. Still, Miles was certain it had to be another man interested in his sister. If he shared her class, he could protect her from boys like that all the time.

The thought made him grind his teeth. Those guys wanted to date his sister? They couldn't even beat him. No chance.

At school, Elise handed in the previous day's homework and opened her practice book. The assessments were close. Confident as she was, she wasn't about to relax her efforts.

She knew the material well, but her essay writing still troubled her. With Mr. Collins's help, she'd improved from the teens to around thirty-five or forty points out of sixty. That still left a substantial gap where other students could overtake her.

English came first. The teacher gave the class the period to review, and Elise opened a collection of model essays for juniors. She read page after page, so absorbed that she lost track of everything else.