I Let Them Take My Brother Chapter 1

I saw my newborn brother get switched at birth, and I did nothing.

Because in my last life, I fought tooth and nail to keep him. The man who tried to take him destroyed my face for it.

And for what? So my brother could grow up to fall in love with the charity case our family sponsored. So he could mow me down with his car to make sure she got the one scholarship spot at our dream school.

As I lay dying, he stood over me, his face twisted with malice. “Don’t blame me, Sadie,” he’d said. “Blame yourself for being so stingy. You should have just given the nomination to Jade.”

He’d even laughed. “You’re a monster, and you deserve every ugly thing that’s ever happened to you.”

So this time, reborn in that hospital room, I chose to be a spectator. I watched, with cold, clear eyes, as my brother’s fate was swapped for another’s.

* * *

The sound of a baby’s cry pulled me from the darkness.

I opened my eyes and found myself curled on a cot, my small body stiff. Next to me, in the hospital bed, my mother slept the exhausted sleep of a woman who had just given birth.

It took me a second, but then the realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. I was back. Back on the day the man came to switch my brother.

To prove it to myself, I forced my gaze toward the sound of the crying.

And there he was. The man, Rick, was prying the little gold bracelet from my brother’s wrist and forcing it onto his own son’s. The movement was rough, and it made my brother wail, his tiny face screwed up in pain.

Rick’s face soured with impatience. He slapped my brother—my real brother—across the face. The cry cut off into a choked silence.

Then, as if sensing he was being watched, his head snapped in my direction.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart hammering against my ribs, and forced my breathing to even out, mimicking the deep rhythm of sleep.

It was so different from the last time. Last time, all of three years old, I’d launched myself at the man’s leg, clinging on for dear life to stop him from taking my brother. He’d kicked me away like a dog, sending me crashing into the wall. I heard the crack of my own bones.

But I’d screamed through the pain, a raw, desperate sound that finally brought a nurse running.

The man, furious that I’d ruined his plan, had pulled a knife. “You stopped my boy from having a good life,” he’d snarled, dragging the blade across my face. “So you won’t have one either.”

From that day on, my face was a ruin of scar tissue. I spent years in and out of hospitals. I was nine years old by the time I was well enough to start first grade alongside my brother.

School was a special kind of hell. My looks made me a target for ridicule and cruelty. Even my own parents, and Liam, the boy I’d saved, looked at me with a thinly veiled disgust. My existence was an embarrassment to them.

So I buried myself in books. My only goal was to get into a good college, find a good job, and get as far away from my family as I possibly could.

I never imagined that in my senior year of high school, after I’d finally secured the sole nomination for the Harrison Scholarship, my own brother would murder me for it. All for a girl he’d fallen in love with.

As I bled out on the asphalt, his final words echoed what he’d told me before. “You’re a monster… you deserve this.”

But I was only a monster because I had tried to save him.

The deepest cut, though, came after. When my parents found out what Liam had done, they didn’t blame him. Not for a second. They helped him cover it up. Helped him dispose of my body.

It was then, in the fading moments of my life, that I made a vow.

If I ever got a second chance, I would respect my brother’s destiny. I would not interfere.

And so, here and now, I listened as the footsteps faded down the hall and the door clicked softly shut.

When I opened my eyes again, the man was gone. My brother was gone with him.

My mother stirred, her voice groggy. “Sadie? Was the baby crying just now?”

I tilted my head, summoning the most innocent smile a three-year-old could manage. “Was he? I didn’t hear anything.”

She frowned, confused. “Oh. Maybe I was dreaming.”

A week later, my mother and my new, counterfeit brother, Liam, were discharged from the hospital.

I was sent to preschool.

This time, the teachers were kind. The other children didn’t shy away from me. There were no whispers, no pointing, no horrified stares.

For the first time in two lives, I finally had the quiet, ordinary existence I had always craved.