My Blood Is Not Your Salvation

Every single year, my birthday wish was the same: I hope the real son comes home soon.

When I smiled at my sister, shed sneer and call me a sycophant. When I finally won the gold medal at the national piano competition, my parents didnt celebrate; they smashed the piano to pieces, claiming I was drinking the blood of the son who was actually theirs.

The entire family lived in a state of constant vigilance. They were terrified of being too kind to me, afraid theyd whet my appetite for a life that wasn't mine. They didn't want me to grow bold enough to challenge the "real" boy for his place in their hearts once he returned.

So, when the true heir finally came back, I wasnt jealous. I was ecstatic.

That joy lasted until the first mock exam. The "real" son failed, sobbing that no matter how hard he tried, he could never measure up to me. He made a grand spectacle of a suicide attempt, nicking his wrist just enough to bleed.

To "repay" me for stealing his life, my parents reported me for cheating during the SATs, weaving a web of lies that landed me in a juvenile detention center, and eventually, prison. They called it the price for living in a nest that didn't belong to me.

But the joke was on me. It turns out, I am their biological son.

They had kept it a secret because they were afraid that if their lost, adopted son ever returned, seeing a "replacement" child would break his heart. Now that the eldest has finally "accepted" me, theyve come to fetch me for a happy family reunion.

I look down at the jagged, centipede-like scars crawling up my arms and lower my eyes. The prison doctor said my psychological damage is too severethat perhaps only the warmth of my "real" family could save me now.

But it was all a lie. Every bit of it.

And I think its finally time for me to go.

1.

The day I was released, the sky was a bruised grey, and a brutal wind whipped through the city, biting deep into the marrow of my bones.

The guard handed me a tattered old coat. "Nate, youre free. From today on... don't be stupid. Don't come back here." His eyes flickered to my tightly clenched sleeves, and his voice softened. "And tell your family to... take you to see someone. A professional."

My eyes remained vacant. I nodded, pulling my sleeves down further.

Right. My penance was served. I could go find my real family now.

I hadn't walked ten paces before a black Rolls-Royce, hazard lights blinking, pulled to the curb. The window slid down, revealing a face as familiar as it was beautiful.

Becca. The "real" sons older sister.

Her gaze was exactly as I remembered: cold, devoid of even a flicker of warmth. "Nate. Get in the car. Were going home."

I didn't look at her. I walked straight toward the bus stop.

Just as I was about to step onto the bus, a violent force yanked me backward. My spine slammed against the cold, metal frame of the car. Becca towered over me, her eyes filled with that practiced, familiar disdain.

"What is this? Are you trying to pull the same stunt Jordan did? Trying to make us feel guilty?" She scoffed. "Two years in a cell and this is the only trick youve learned?"

Since I went inside, my brain had felt like it was rusting. It turned slowly, laboriously. I stared at her blankly, taking a long time to process her words. Finally, I shook my head. I pulled a crumpled, softened scrap of paper from my pocketsomething I had smoothed out a thousand times in the darkand held it out to her.

"No," I said, my voice sounding like dry leaves. "Jordan came to see me last time. He said he found my real parents. Look. The address is here. Im going to my own home."

She froze. Then, her face went deathly pale. She snatched the paper, tore it into a dozen pieces, and threw them into the rushing traffic of the boulevard.

"Stop acting crazy." She grabbed my arm, her grip bruising. "Mom and Dad are waiting. Get in the"

Before she could finish, a short, sharp scream escaped my throat. I tore myself away from her and, ignoring the screech of tires, lunged into the street.

"Home... I have to go home..." I dropped to my knees on the freezing asphalt, frantically clawing at the scraps of white paper.

The world exploded into a cacophony of blaring horns and muffled curses.

"Jesus! You want to die?! Get out of the road!"

Becca turned white as a sheet. She lunged forward, using her body to shield me from the oncoming cars, shouting apologies to the angry drivers as she practically dragged me back to the curb.

"Nate!" Her chest heaved, fear flickering in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by that suffocating annoyance. "If you really want to die, do it somewhere I don't have to watch! Using these pathetic tactics to get attention... the Beaumonts really wasted their years raising you."

Her shouting left me dazed. My sluggish mind churned for a moment before I looked up at her, my expression one of genuine, quiet confusion.

"So... when Jordan cut his wrists," I asked softly, "was he just... doing it for attention too?"

"That doesn't seem right..."

Beccas entire body went rigid. Her voice died in her throat. For the first time in my life, she looked away, unable to meet my eyes.

See? Even she knew it.

"Jordan." Since the day I could remember, that name was a curse etched into my skin. I was the fake. I was the parasite. I was the usurper.

That was why my father fired the nanny who dared to serve me dessert first. That was why my mother smashed the piano I won the gold with. That was why Becca stood by and watched as they took the stray puppy Id found and abandoned it in the woods.

With every choice, they proved it: they would never allow the boy who grew up in their home to take even a fraction of the love meant for their "lost pearl." Their hearts were tilted toward him long before he ever stepped foot back in the house.

But I still didn't understand. If he had all the loveif the world was his for the takingwhy?

Why, just because I beat him on one stupid test, did he have to open his veins?

Jordan. What were you so afraid of?

2.

Becca rubbed her temples, her frustration radiating off her in waves. "You know its not the same! Jordan is different from you!"

"Do you have any idea how much he suffered out there? He didn't even get to finish school! And you? You were brought into this family and given everythingthe best tutors, the best life!"

"You just had to be number one every single time, didn't you? You did it to hurt him. To make him feel hopeless!"

I didn't really hear her. I was too busy with my shaking hands, trying to piece together the sodden scraps of paper.

When I finished, three pieces were missing.

"Its gone," I whispered, my voice trembling uncontrollably. "Its gone... my home is gone!"

I started to lunge for the road again.

Slap!

The blow was sharp and stinging, ringing in my ears. Becca dragged me by the collar to the edge of a dirty, half-frozen drainage ditch filled with stagnant water.

"You want to die so bad, Nate?" She let go, pointing at the dark, frigid sludge. Her voice was like shards of ice. "Go ahead. Jump! Stop the theatrics!"

With a violent flick of her wrist, she knocked the remaining scraps of paper out of my hand. They fluttered like dying leaves, landing on the grey, frozen surface of the puddle.

I looked up at her. Her eyes held nothing but that familiar, condescending contempt.

I remembered Jordans first birthday back with us. He had cried, saying the watch Becca gave him was missing, and that hed seen me sneaking into his room.

At first, I tried to fight. "I didn't steal it! There are cameras in the hallway"

Before I could finish, Becca took a baseball bat and smashed the camera right in front of me. I went silent instantly. She was teaching me a lesson: my truth meant nothing compared to Jordans tears.

The watch wasn't in my room. It had been cut into pieces, the strap scattered at the bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool. Everyone in the family knew I had nearly drowned as a child. I had a crippling phobia of water; even drinking from a full glass could make me feel like I was suffocating.

But that winter, Becca had me thrown into the icy pool. "Get it," she had said. "Every single piece."

My parents watched as Jordan sobbed into their shoulders, their silence a blessing for my torment. I passed out in that water more than once, only to be revived by even colder means until my frozen, numb fingers found the last bit of the watch.

Since then, my phobia was so bad that even a reflection on a wet surface could trigger a panic attack.

So Becca was certain. I was terrified of water. I was terrified of death.

She didn't know that in prison, when I used a sharpened piece of plastic to open my skin over and over, all I felt was... relief.

The prison doctor had shaken his head at the guards. He has a profound desire for self-destruction. If he has a family to love and support him, maybe theres hope...

Becca looked at my empty, hollow eyes and smirked, her voice dripping with mockery. "Can't do it, can you? You don't even have the courage to look at it. Think about how much pain Jordan must have been in to actually"

She didn't finish the sentence.

I threw myself forward, plunging headfirst into the foul, freezing water of the ditch.

The slush filled my nose and mouth instantly. Getting back to my real family... that was my last reason to live. And if that was gone, I was done.

But a second later, a pair of arms hooked around my waist and hauled me out, slamming me onto the muddy grass. I coughed violently, retching up the filthy water. Through blurred vision, I saw Becca, drenched and shivering.

She was kneeling in the mud, her hands still reaching for me. Her pupils were blown wide, fixed on me with a look Id never seen before. It wasn't coldness. It wasn't disdain.

It was pure, unadulterated terror.

I didn't understand. What was she afraid of?

The "fake" was finally gone. Isn't that what she... what everyone wanted?

3.

I stared at the pulp in my handsthe ink-smeared, waterlogged mess that used to be my hope. A sense of crushing weight, a weariness that seeped from my bones, drowned me again.

I was so tired. If I had a blade right now, could I just sleep forever?

Becca, having seen the absolute lack of hesitation in my eyes when I dove into that water, spoke for the first time with a voice that was... soft.

"Nate... how could you...?" Her voice cracked. "You weren't like this when we were kids. Since when do you take my words so seriously?"

She was right. Since I could remember, she told me: Nate, youre just a placeholder. Know your place. Jordan is my only brother.

Back then, Id just smile and hold out my arms for a hug.

Later, I worked until my hands were blistered to bake her favorite desserts, only for her to sneer: Nate, why are you so pathetic? Jordan would never beg for a scrap of attention like you do.

Id still smile, holding the plate out to her. No matter how cruel she was, the little version of me followed her like a shadow. I was convinced she was just moody, not that she actually hated me.

Until Jordan came back.

Then I saw what she was like when she actually loved someone. She was tender. She was protective.

When Jordan and I were cornered by older kids at school, she charged in and pulled him behind her. She didn't even look at me. She just turned and walked away with him.

Her friend had pointed at me, bruised in the dirt. "Becca? What about the other brother?"

"He isn't my brother."

I watched her walk away, shielding Jordan, leaving me to face the insults and the shoves alone.

I struggled to sit up, my mind trying to piece together the half-remembered words from the paper, but they were fading.

"Nate, come home with me. Stop this," Becca said, her voice carrying that sickening, patronizing tone of comfort. "Mom, Dad, and Jordan are all waiting for New Year's dinner."

She reached for my wrist. Her fingers brushed the tender skin over my scars, and a bolt of lightning-fast pain shot through me. The dam finally broke.

Slap!

I swung with everything I had, my palm connecting with her cheek.

"Becca! You aren't my sister! You don't get to tell me what to do!" I screamed, my voice raw and hysterical. "I just want to go home! To my real family! To people who actually want me!"

Beccas head snapped to the side. She froze. But her eyes weren't on my face; they were on my wrist, where the sleeve had ridden up to reveal a roadmap of old and new scars, crisscrossing in a jagged mess.

Her pupils shrank. Her eyes brimmed with tears instantly.

"Nate... your arm..." Her voice was a ghostly tremble. "Did... did someone hurt you in there? I thought... I told them to make sure you were looked after..."

For the first time, she looked at me with grief. With heartbreak.

It was absurd. I had finally stopped calling her "sister." I had finally stopped clinging to her. Why was she the one who looked devastated?

A wave of nausea rolled over me. "Becca," I said, my voice as cold as the wind. "What kind of sick game are you playing now?"

She didn't seem to hear me. She grabbed my arm and shoved me into the car, clicking the seatbelt shut with trembling fingers.

"Were going to the hospital," she said, her voice tight as she gunned the engine.

"Im not going to a hospital! Im going home! Let me out!" I threw myself at her, clawing at her coat, my nails leaving long, bloody furrows across her face.

Blood leaked down her cheek, but she just gritted her teeth, knuckles white on the steering wheel, and didn't say a word.

That silencethat suffocating, unresponsive walldragged me right back to the solitary confinement cell. My head throbbed. The last memory of the address on that paper vanished.

I let go. I went limp.

She glanced at me, misinterpreting my silence. She forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. "Nate... you... you still care about me, don't you? You stopped."

I smiled back at her. Then, with every ounce of strength I had left, I lunged for the steering wheel and jerked it hard to the right.

If I cant go home... then we can both just go to hell.

Screeeech!

The tires screamed against the pavement. The car spun out of control, slamming into the guardrail with a deafening metallic crunch.

The airbags exploded. Becca sat there, gasping for air, blood trickling from her forehead, her eyes wide with the shock of being alive. She turned to me, seeing the pure, unadulterated disappointment on my face, and her voice shook.

"Nate... you... you really want to die that badly?"

"How did you become this...?"

I raised my dead, hollow eyes to hers. She flinched, then tried to soften her voice, using a tone you'd use to coax a stray dog. "Okay. Okay... no hospital. Well go home. Please. Just... come home."

I lowered my eyes and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

Seeing me return to this "obedient" state, Beccas shoulders finally slumped. She let out a long, shuddering breath. She thought I was finally "listening."

She didn't know. I just remembered something.

Jordan knows where my real home is. Im going to go ask him myself.

4.

The house was draped in festive lights, glowing with a warmth that felt like a mockery.

Inside, Jordan was dressed in a pristine new sweater, his cheeks rosy, leaning against his mothers shoulder.

"Mom, Dad, Im only back for a few days for break. You didn't have to go to all this trouble."

Mr. Beaumont sat nearby, patiently peeling shrimp for him, his eyes full of fatherly pride. "Your advisor called, Jordan. Another award? We have to celebrate. Our boy is doing so well."

It was a picture of domestic bliss. A perfect family.

Becca tightened her jaw and cleared her throat. "Mom, Dad. I brought Nate back."

The laughter died instantly.

Three sets of eyes swung toward us. First to me, then to Beccas soaked clothes and the bloody scratches on her face. My parents brows furrowed in unison.

Jordan was the first to stand. He walked toward me, his voice laced with the practiced authority of a golden child lecturing a wayward sibling.

"Nate, Becca went out in a blizzard to get you, and this is how you treat her?" He sighed, sounding disappointed. "Youre college-aged now. Cant you be a little more mature? Stop making everyone worry about you."

My fathers face darkened. "Nate, youre getting out of hand. Your sister just recovered from a cold."

My mother sneered, falling into her old rhythm. "He was always a troublemaker. Fighting in high school, coming home covered in bruises. I suppose you spent your time inside with the same kind of lowlifes"

"Thats enough."

Beccas voice wasn't loud, but it had a sharp, metallic edge that cut her mother off. She frowned. "I was clumsy. It had nothing to do with Nate."

She paused, then looked at Jordan, her voice uncharacteristically stern. "And Jordan, Nate didn't go to college. Maybe think before you speak next time?"

The silence in the room was absolute. They stared at her, stunned. No one expected Becca to snap at her "precious" brother for the sake of the "fake" one.

Jordans eyes welled up instantly. His lip trembled, and his voice took on that pathetic, wounded quality. "Fine! Hes the brother you grew up with, I get it! Im the outsider! I don't deserve to speak to him! Is that it?"

Beccas expression flickered with guilt, and she looked away.

My mother, heartbroken for her darling, rushed to pull Jordan into her arms. "Becca! How could you talk to your brother like that?!" Then she turned her venom on me. "And you, Nate! You walk in the door and immediately cause trouble. Why can't you just be grateful?"

I looked at this womanthis elegant, bejeweled stranger who looked at me with nothing but exhaustion and hate. The word "Mom" died in my throat. She wasn't my mother. This was just how the world worked.

"Lets just eat," my father sighed, trying to diffuse the tension. "Becca made us wait for you, Nate. Jordan is starving."

I looked up. "Did I ask him to wait?" My voice was dry and flat. "Becca made that choice. What does it have to do with me?"

Jordan gasped. "Nate! Have you lost your mind? How can you speak to Becca like that?"

"She isn't my sister," I said, each word clear and cold. "Shes yours."

In the middle of their shocked silence, I continued. "And I didn't come here to eat." I turned to Jordan, locking my eyes onto his. "I came for the address."

"Give it to me, and Ill leave. I won't ruin your little family reunion."

The color drained from his face. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

My father frowned. "What are you talking about? This is your home."

"Im talking about my real home. My biological parents." I kept my eyes on Jordan. "In prison, you told me you found them. You gave me an address. I lost it. Write it down again."

The air in the room turned to lead. My parents looked at Jordan, their expressions shifting to something dark and unreadable.

Jordan stammered, "Isn't... isn't this family good enough? Why do you have to look for"

"I have to!" I was shaking now, my voice rising to a raw howl. "I want my home! I want my parents! I want to go back!"

Becca, watching me unravel, finally snapped. She turned to her parents, her voice vibrating with suppressed rage.

"Just tell him! The truth! Didn't we agree? We were going to give him the 'surprise' when he got out!"

I looked at her, confused. She wouldn't meet my gaze; she just stared them down.

The eldest daughter's word still held weight in this house. My parents exchanged a look. Finally, my father sighed. He looked at me, his voice suddenly artificial, coated in a layer of forced "warmth."

"Nate... the truth is... you are our biological son."