Prologue: The Photograph

Ben's thumb hovered over his phone screen, frozen mid-scroll through his mom's latest text barrage. The autumn sunlight streaming through his bedroom window felt too bright and way too cheerful for the dread pooling in his stomach like cold water.

You're going to LOVE Richard's beach house! Look at these photos!

His mom had been gushing about her new boyfriend for three months now. Richard this, Richard that. Richard takes me to the nicest restaurants. Richard is so generous. Richard wants to meet you properly soon. The last one Ben had been dodging with swim practice excuses and homework emergencies, buying himself time before he had to sit through an awkward dinner with some rich guy trying too hard to impress his girlfriend's kid.

But he couldn't avoid the photos.

Ben swiped through them with growing unease. The photos showed off pristine white sand, turquoise water, and gleaming, twinkling skies. It was a sprawling beach house that looked like it belonged in an architecture magazine, and his mom was standing smack in the middle of it in a sundress, tan and happy in a way he hadn't seen since before the divorce. And Richard - tall, distinguished and handsome though white peppered his hair at his temples- stood by her side with a content smile and a muscled arm around her waist. 

Everything about the photos screamed wealth. The kind of wealth that made Ben hyperaware of the worn carpet under his bare feet, the water stain on his ceiling that his mom kept saying she'd get fixed, and the scholarship paperwork spread across his desk because that was the only way he'd ever afford college.

Ben swiped once, swiped again and immediately went back to the previous image. Was that?!

No, it couldn’t be… He zoomed in, and set apart from the adult, standing with his arms crossed over his chest was the recognisable face of the only young man who would wear a full set of black clothes on vacation to a tropical island. He had his face angled away from the camera, but Ben would be a fool not know who he was, even with his dark hair falling over his face. That characteristic slouch of his that somehow managed to convey both boredom and hostility was enough of a tell on his identity.

It was Chris fucking Hartley.

Ben's hand tightened around his phone until his knuckles went white. No. No, no, no. This couldn't be happening.

He zoomed in on the photo, hoping desperately that he was wrong, that it was just someone who looked like Chris, that the universe wasn't actually this cruel. But there was no mistaking those thin shoulders, that deliberate isolation from the group, the way he stood like he was counting the seconds until he could leave.

Ben's mind raced, piecing together clues he'd been too distracted to notice. Chris's last name was Hartley. Richard's last name was... fuck, what was Richard's last name? His mom had mentioned it, he was sure, but Ben had been half-listening, too focused on his swimming times and maintaining his scholarship GPA to pay attention to his mom's dating life.

He scrolled back through her texts with shaking fingers, searching. There- three weeks ago, Richard Hartley took me to the symphony tonight. I felt like Cinderella!

Hartley.

Richard Hartley was Chris Hartley's father.

Ben's mom was dating Chris Hartley's dad.

The phone slipped from his numb fingers onto the bed. Ben stared at his bedroom wall, at the swim team photo from last year where he stood front and centre, captain's trophy in hand, surrounded by his teammates. All of them are grinning. All of them are on top of the world.

He thought about Chris shuffling through the hallways at school with his headphones on, eyes down, that weird goth-emo aesthetic that made him look dangerous despite being quiet as a ghost. He thought about the comfortable routine of their hostility- the verbal jabs in the cafeteria, the eye rolls and sneers that had become as natural as breathing over the past three years.

Chris Hartley, who never spoke more than five words to anyone, even when Ben has his head pressed against a wall, or his feet pressed up to his chest, locking him against the ground. The guy would only look at him like he was something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Why now, when Ben had made a hobby out of tormenting him, because that's what you do to weird loners who act too good for everyone else? Now the universe had come to fuck him in the ass, because why the fuck would he now become Chris’s potential stepbrother?

Ben's stomach lurched. He lunged for his trash can and dry-heaved, nothing coming up because he hadn't eaten since his protein shake that morning before practice. His hands gripped the plastic rim as his mind spiralled through the implications.

Living in the same house. Sharing meals. Family vacations. Having to be civil, having to pretend like they hadn't spent years locked in their own private cold war.

Worse - so much worse - was the part Ben didn't want to examine too closely. The part that recognised the beach house in those photos, understood what it meant that Richard Hartley could afford a property like that. The part that did the math on what dating Richard could mean for his mom, for their situation and for the constant stress lines around her eyes and the bills she thought Ben didn't know she was juggling.

The part that whispered to him that he couldn't mess this up for her, no matter what. Just then, his phone buzzed with another text.

Richard wants to have dinner with us this weekend! All four of us-you, me, him, and his son! Won't that be wonderful? We can finally all meet properly! I'm so excited, Ben. I really think this could be something special. :]

Ben grabbed his phone and stared at the message. His mom's happiness radiated through the screen, punctuated with emojis and exclamation points. When was the last time she'd used a heart emoji? When was the last time she'd sounded this light and hopeful?

He thought about Chris's face in that photograph, turned away from the happy couple, isolated even in the midst of what should have been a family moment. He wondered if Chris knew that his dad was dating his mom. What would happen if he'd been shown photos of Ben's mom, if he'd done the same horrible math and reached the same nauseating conclusion? Their eyes would meet across the table of an expensive restaurant this weekend. Chris would know. Ben would know. And neither of them would be able to do a damn thing about it without breaking their parents' hearts. Ben typed out a response with numb fingers. Sounds great, Mom. Can't wait.

He hit send and threw his phone across the bed, then collapsed backwards onto his pillows, staring at the ceiling. The water stain looked like it was spreading. Or maybe that was just his vision blurring.

Outside his window, someone's car alarm went off. A dog barked. Life continued, oblivious to the fact that Ben's carefully constructed world had just imploded over a handful of beach vacation photos. This weekend, everything would change.

And Chris Hartley was going to hate him even more than he already did.