“I don’t know what I am.” “You don’t have to do anything tonight. We can just dance. Or we can turn around. Whatever you want.” I looked at him. “Why are you being so kind to me, Theo?” He stared at the road for a long moment. “We can just dance.” “Because you were kind to me when there was nothing in it for you. That matters more than people think.” When we walked into the gym, the whispers started instantly. Phones came up. Someone laughed loud enough to echo off the bleachers. I felt my cheeks burn. I almost turned around. The whispers started instantly.
But Theo offered his trembling hand. “One dance. Then we leave if you want.” I took it. The music was slow. Theo’s hands settled on my waist like he was afraid of breaking me. “I practiced this for a month,” he whispered against my ear. “I didn’t want to step on your dress.” “One dance.
Then we leave if you want.” Something inside my chest cracked wide open. “Theo, you don’t have to be nervous. It’s just me.” “It’s never just you, Eliza. It hasn’t been since seventh grade.” My phone buzzed again in my clutch. Then again. I pulled it out just enough to glance down. “Theo, you don’t have to be nervous. It’s just me.” Seventeen messages from Marcus.
The last one read: I’m coming to get you. You have no idea what you’ve done.
I tried to swallow my panic, but Theo must have seen it on my face.
“He’s coming, isn’t he?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Then I need to do this now,” he murmured. “Before he gets here. Eliza, there’s something you have to see.”
I’m coming to get you. You have no idea what you’ve done.
He swallowed hard, squeezed my hand once, and walked toward the stage.
I stood frozen on the dance floor, surrounded by glittering dresses and tuxedos.
Chloe appeared beside me, her eyes wide.
“Eliza, what is he doing? People are still filming.”
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
Theo climbed the three small steps and tapped the microphone.
He walked toward the stage.
The feedback screeched, and every conversation in the gym died at once.
Two hundred faces turned toward him.
I felt my cheeks burn.
“Excuse me,” Theo said. “I won’t be long.”
A boy near the punch table snickered.
Someone else groaned.
But Theo wasn’t looking at them.
He was looking at me.
Every conversation in the gym died at once.
“Eliza, you said yes to me on Monday when nobody else would have. You think you saved me by agreeing to dance with me tonight.”
His voice cracked, but he kept going.
“But actually, I’m saving you too. From your brother. Please. Look inside.”
He stepped down off the stage and walked straight toward me.
From inside his jacket, he pulled a red folder and pressed it into my trembling hands.
“You think you saved me.”
“What is this?” I whispered.
“Open it. Before he gets here.”
“Before who gets here?”
Theo’s eyes flicked toward the gym doors. “Marcus.”
My fingers fumbled with the folder.
Chloe leaned over my shoulder.
“Open it. Before he gets here.”
The first page was a photocopy of a bank transfer authorization.
My name was at the bottom.
My signature.
Except I had never signed it.
“That isn’t my handwriting,” I breathed.
“Keep going,” Theo urged.
I flipped to the next page.
My name was at the bottom.
A printout of an email from a law firm, addressed to Marcus.
It confirmed the closure of a trust fund the week before my eighteenth birthday.
The next page showed an offshore account number.
Routing details.
Numbers with too many zeros.
My college fund.
Marcus was planning to take my parents’ final gift to me.
“How,” I whispered. “How did you get this?”
The next page showed an offshore account number.
“I work in the principal’s office during fifth period,” Theo said quietly. “Filing. Faxes. Three weeks ago a packet came through addressed to your brother by mistake. The lawyer had used the old contact information from when Marcus was a student here.”
I stared at him.
“I almost handed it over,” he continued. “Then I saw your name, and I thought… I thought this didn’t seem right.”
The gym doors slammed open so hard they bounced against the brick wall.
“The lawyer had used the old contact information from when Marcus was a student here.”
Marcus stood in the doorway.
His eyes locked on me.
Then on the folder.
“Eliza!” he roared. “Give that to me right now!”
The room gasped.
Phones lifted into the air.
He stormed across the dance floor, weaving past stunned classmates.
“Give that to me right now!”
“Marcus, stay back,” I said.
“That folder is not yours to read. That little freak stole confidential documents. Give it to me, and we’ll handle this at home.”
“Confidential to whom?” I asked. “To you?”
“You don’t know what you’re looking at,” he hissed. “Those are tax planning documents. Boring stuff. Theo doesn’t understand finance.”
“Confidential to whom?”
“He doesn’t need to understand anything. I do, and I know my signature was forged.”
“Eliza…” His voice dropped low.
Theo stepped slightly in front of me.
Skinny, shaking Theo, in his thrift-store suit.
“She doesn’t need your permission to read what belongs to her,” he said.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed at him with pure venom.
Theo stepped slightly in front of me.
“You don’t get to speak to me, kid. You don’t even exist.”
“He exists more than you do right now,” I said.
The crowd had formed a loose circle around us.
Cameras everywhere.
Mr. Donovan, the principal, was pushing through the back of the gym.
Marcus lunged forward, hand outstretched for the folder.
The crowd had formed a loose circle around us.
I stepped back. “Don’t touch me!”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m your brother. I’ve taken care of you since Mom and Dad died.”
“What’s going on here?”
The principal pushed through the crowd to where we stood.
“Sir, my brother has been stealing from my college fund. Theo found the proof. Please, could you call the police?”
Marcus lunged, but two teachers caught his arms.
“Please, could you call the police?”
“Eliza, please. I had debts. I was going to put it back.”
“You were going to leave me with nothing.”
He sagged between the teachers, all his fury gone.
The principal led him out a side door, already dialling 911 on his phone.
I turned to Theo.
His glasses were crooked, his tie undone, his hands still trembling.
The principal led him out a side door, already dialling 911 on his phone.
“You saved me.”
“You saved me first.”
I took his hand and walked through the crowd, head high, the gym doors swinging open into the cool night air.
***
Three months later Marcus was facing fraud charges and every dollar had been frozen pending investigation.
“You saved me first.”
For the first time in years, I felt the weight lift off my chest, and I knew exactly where I was going next.
Law school.
