Virgin Dot Com Novel

[Jasmine's POV] I called Leo three hours after my mother's voice had crawled through the phone line. Three hours of pacing and spiraling and trying to convince myself that reaching out wouldn't result in more rejection. Turned out I was an optimist. A fucking idiot optimist. He answered on the fourth ring. "Yeah?" Not "Hey Jas." Not "What's up." Just yeah. Like I was a telemarketer. "How are you?" My voice came out too bright. Too desperate. "Fine." One word. Flat. Giving me nothing. The silence that followed cut sharp. I could hear him breathing.

Could picture him standing on that farm, surrounded by the life he'd chosen over me. Over us. "Leo, we need to talk." "Nothing to talk about, Jas." Then the line went dead. Just silence. I stood there holding the phone, and the walls started closing in. The brothers had lost their father to his own cruelty and impossible demands. And now I was losing Leo to distance and resentment and choices he couldn't forgive. The pregnancy hormones made everything sharper. More visceral. Like someone had stripped away the protective layer between my emotions and my nervous system.

I felt the sob building before it reached my throat. And when it broke, it was catastrophic. I don't remember sinking to the kitchen floor. Don't remember how I ended up there clutching the phone. But that's where Liam found me. Curled on cold tile, sobbing so hard I couldn't breathe. "He hates me." The words came out between gasps. "My brother hates me." Liam was on the floor instantly. Pulling me against his chest. Solid and warm and present in a way Leo wasn't. "He doesn't hate you." His voice was steady. Grounding. "He's scared." But my fear went deeper. "What if he never accepts this?

What if the baby grows up without an uncle?" My voice broke. "Leo was my only family. The only person who was there from the beginning. And now-" I couldn't finish. Couldn't articulate the devastating realization that I might have to choose between the men I loved and the brother I'd raised. Liam held me while I broke apart. His hands in my hair. His heart steady against my ear. Just being present while I fell apart. When I finally stopped crying enough to breathe, I pulled out my phone with shaking hands. Please come Saturday. We need to talk urgently. Something happened with Mom and Dad.

I hit send before I could second-guess. Saturday came with the kind of dread that lived in your bones. Leo texted he'd stay at our old apartment. Not with me at the villa. Not with us. The distinction was deliberate. I met him there with bags of Chinese food. His favorite. Kung pao chicken extra spicy and vegetable lo mein and egg rolls he used to steal off my plate when we were kids. He opened the door, and I barely recognized him. The farm had transformed my little brother. He'd lost weight but gained muscle. His skin was tanned from outdoor work. His hands looked different. Calloused.

Capable. He looked like a man instead of the boy I'd been protecting my whole life. "Hey." I held up the food bags like an offering. "Hey." He stepped aside to let me in but didn't smile. Didn't hug me. Just moved out of the way like I was a guest. The apartment felt wrong. Too empty. Our things still here but gathering dust. We sat at the kitchen table. The same table where we'd done homework and eaten microwave dinners and planned how to survive. Now it was just furniture. "You look good," I tried. "Healthy." "Farm work." He opened his container without looking at me.

"Lots of manual labor." The conversation was agony. Stilted and formal like we were strangers instead of siblings who'd survived hell together. I pushed food around my plate, stomach churning with morning sickness and anxiety. "Just tell me already." Leo's voice cut through the pretense. "What happened with Mom and Dad?" No preamble. No easing into it. Just that cold demand. I put down my fork. "Dad's dead. Has been for two years." The words felt clinical. "Mom called me. She's been clean since he died." Leo's face didn't change. No shock. No grief. Just that same careful blankness.

"She wants to see us," I continued. "Both of us. She says it's important." "Why?" Flat. Emotionless. "Because she's dying." The words tasted like ash. "Stage three breast cancer. Six months, maybe less. The money you borrowed-the thirty-seven thousand-that was for chemotherapy. She didn't want to tell you. Thought she could beat it and then come back clean and healthy." Silence. Leo stared at his food. "She wants to ask for forgiveness." I forced myself to keep talking. "Before it's too late. And she says there are things we need to know. About Dad.

About family stuff." "So she's dying and suddenly wants to play mother?" His voice was ice. "Wants us to absolve her before she goes so she can die feeling better about abandoning us?" "Maybe." I couldn't argue. "Probably. But Leo, she's still our mother. And if there's something about Dad, about our family-don't we deserve to know?" He looked at me then. Really looked. And I saw it. The anger. The hurt. The betrayal that had been building since I'd chosen the brothers over him. "You mean don't you deserve to know?

So you can add it to all the other drama you're collecting?" His words were precise. Surgical. "The Blackwood brothers. The pregnancy. Now dying parents. What's next, Jas? What other chaos are you going to drag me into?" The cruelty landed like physical blows. But underneath was pain. "I'm pregnant." The words came out before I could stop them. Desperate. "About seven weeks. And I don't know which one is the father." Leo's face went carefully blank. "Congratulations." Not really congratulations. The word stripped of all warmth and meaning.

"Leo, please-" "I'll think about seeing Mom." He stood. Conversation over. "Let me know when you're leaving." I sat there at our old table surrounded by Chinese food neither of us had really eaten, watching my brother close himself off completely. The little boy I'd raised. The teenager I'd protected. The man who'd gone into debt for our mother. Now looking at me like I was a stranger whose problems he was done solving. I'd chosen the brothers. Chosen to be wanted over being needed. Chosen my own happiness over his approval. And this was the price. This cold distance.

This polite stranger wearing my brother's face. I left the apartment and stood on the sidewalk, hand pressed against my still-flat stomach. Against the life growing inside me that Leo might never acknowledge. My phone buzzed. Text from Liam: How did it go? I stared at those four words and didn't know how to answer. How did I explain that I'd gained three men who loved me but lost the one person who'd been there from the beginning? He'll think about seeing Mom. Give him time. I sent it and knew I was lying to myself. Time wouldn't fix this.

Time wouldn't make Leo understand that I could love them without loving him less. Time was just the space where I'd learn to live with the loss of my brother while building a family that would never quite fill the hole he'd left behind. Virgin Dot Com