“Willow…” She shakes her head at me, struggling to reveal what she’s kept secret for so long.

I wipe my burning eyes beneath my glasses. I shift my feet and accidentally step on a balloon. It pops loudly, and we both flinch.

My family tree has been set on fire, and I’m desperately trying to find one missing branch so I can make sense of myself again.

I need him.

Whoever he is. I need to know what he’s like. How old he is. A name. A place. Maybe he understands things that I don’t. Maybe he gets it.

“It was a long time ago,” she says. “I was a teenager, about your age, a little younger when I was pregnant.” She lets out a weak, broken laugh. “You can’t even imagine…”

I watch her lean against the sink and stare off at the half-eaten vanilla cake, lopsided on the counter. “Is he still alive? Does he know—”

“Loren Hale,” she says, her voice suddenly stoic and cold. “That’s your brother.”

My legs want to buckle, but I manage to stay upright, my mind whirling as pieces of a much larger puzzle fit in place. “He knew…” He came to our house about four years ago. She told me that she knew his father. And I realize, his visit wasn’t random. He came and he left so quickly. “Did you tell him not to tell me?” I wonder.

Her lips press in a line, and I take her silence as affirmation.

“Oh my God,” I mutter, my chin trembling again as I restrain a flood of tears. She kept him away from me. Why would she do that?

Loren Hale is my half-brother. All this time…we could’ve talked, had a relationship, been friends—seen each other. Instead there’s just this black hole of nothingness, hollow and empty.

I feel empty.

“Can you just forget about it?” my mom asks me.

I shake my head in a daze. “No…I want to meet him.” I need to tell him that I know the truth now. I want to regain this piece that I’ve lost.

“You can’t,” she says tiredly and brushes strands of her hair off her forehead. “The Hales are famous, Willow. The moment the media learns that Loren’s related to you, they’re going to harass our family. I’ve tried so hard to give you girls a normal life. You may decide to live in that world later on, but Ellie is young and she’s not going to. Okay?”

I try to process this as quickly as I can. Hale Co. is what elevated Jonathan Hale’s status to “wealthy billionaire” and his son to the heir. But their fame ultimately came through a salacious scandal that involved Lily Calloway, Loren’s fiancée.

Soon after, the Calloway sisters and their men became public interest and fodder. They’re all in at least three tabloids every day. Paparazzi follow them around Philadelphia, their hometown.

People love them and hate them.

I understand why my mom would want to protect us from that, but Loren Hale has only been this famous for a few years at most. She could’ve introduced me to him when he was just a rich kid in Philadelphia.