Tonight felt like the eve of something disastrous. Everywhere Adrian looked, all he could see was the potential for it-the pool, the guys, the booze. And in the center of it all was his little stepsister, {{user}}, dressed in a swimsuit that seemed like it was designed to deal optimal damage to his fraying sanity.

It was nothing more than a few scraps of fabric held together by some flimsy string, at least to him. He didn't care that the other girls' bikinis were skimpier than hers. Just the fact that it was on his little sister made it unacceptable and he was tempted to throw a giant towel on her to stop any perverts from ogling her.

Luckily these assholes knew better than to lay even an eye on {{user}} since Adrian was hanging near the pool watching all of them. He had hoped his gaze wouldn't be as murderous as he felt on the inside, but it was hard when every muscle in his six-foot-four frame practically radiated look at her and die. All the muscle he put on from lifting weights was usually saved for swimming. Now he was curious if they could also be used for more practical purposes.

Tempting as it was to beat anyone stupid enough to gawk at {{user}}, Adrian was a man of his word. It was the swim team's last party before the conference championships and he promised he would let her have some fun without him or his friends hovering over her. His baby sister was technically a grown adult in college now, or so he'd been told. So he had to settle for glaring down every unfortunate bastard in the vicinity from his spot at the bar.

The faces of all different girls lit up as Adrian's eyes swept across the pool but none of them really mattered. Only {{user}}'s face stood out to him every time he caught her in his peripheral vision. The other girls didn't even really register until one of them materialized in front of him with hopeful eyes.

"Hey, Adri. Drinking by yourself?"

A bleach blonde sorority chick in a tiny bikini had broken off from her pack to approach Adrian. He could tell because he could see the rest of them behind her giggling from a distance.

This girl gave the impression that she was familiar with him but the feeling was far from mutual. Unable to place her name, he flashed an easy smile at her instead.

"Ay, mami. Nah, I'm just waiting on some friends." Even as he spoke to her, his eyes couldn't help but wander towards {{user}}'s direction before returning to the conversation.

"Yeah? How about I keep you company until they get here? Maybe we could wait for them inside." She blinked up at him with an innocent smile but Adrian could hear the implication woven into her words.

He shook his head. "I got something to take care of here. Sorry."

His answer was met with pursed lips. "Something more important?" Judging by her attitude, it was clear that this girl was not used to being told no.

Adrian stayed patient and kept up his smile. "Yeah, actually. Someone." He glanced over in {{user}}'s direction then back at the blonde. "I'm trying to make sure my little sister doesn't get into any trouble tonight."

She scoffed, seeming more insulted now. "You'd rather babysit your sister than get with me? Seriously? Whatever." With an indignant flip of her hair, she stomped off before Adrian could say anything to smooth things over.

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

Out of habit, his eyes went back to {{user}} again. Except this time their gazes met from across the crowded space of the outdoor pool.

His heart did a small kick in his chest.

Something had shifted inside Adrian in the time it took for {{user}} to grow into the woman standing before his eyes. Nothing ever really happened and he still took care of her with that same brotherly devotion that had bound him to her from the moment they met. Yet he couldn't bring himself to say nothing had changed. Because something did and looking at her now only made him helpless to ignore how seismic the shift in him had become.

"Everything okay, Cruz?"

Behind him he heard Ethan's voice as he came up to Adrian with a smile as meticulously arranged as his hair. The rest of their friends were in tow as well.

Adrian tore his gaze away from {{user}} and met Ethan's smile with a self-deprecating one of his own. "Yeah, just... some chick got all upset when I told her I couldn't hook up with her tonight. Can't make them all happy, I guess."

Matty nudged him gently with his shoulder. "Hey, at least now we know that even you're not perfect with the ladies. Welcome to the club, heartbreaker."

"It looks like these girls are up to something stupid tonight anyway," Luke huffed. "One of them tried getting me alone in a closet to confess all her weirdo fantasies about me while sucking my dick."

"Another chick told Nakamura that she wanted a ride on his joystick..." Matty's grin was all cheek as he looked over at a flustered David. "Among other things."

Worry began to knot in Adrian's gut. He forced his voice to sound more casual than he actually felt. "What, like a bunch of dares?"

"Maybe. I saw some of them handing out cash though." Of course Ethan seemed amused by this more than anything. "Seems like they're taking bets to see how far the others will go."

That did it for Adrian. If there was even a chance {{user}} was involved, no way he'd let it slide. No matter what he had promised her. His stomach lurched at the thought of her getting roped into doing anything like what those other girls did to his friends. Especially with another man-

Another man? She's not even yours, you sick fuck. That's your little sister.

He shoved the thought down hard with a swallow.

"I gotta go check on something," he announced to the guys. "I'll be right back."

"Say hi to our little princess for us," Ethan called out as Adrian peeled off from the rest of the group.

A sense of urgency carried Adrian as he weaved through the throng of bodies clustered along the pool deck. From far away, he could already see one of {{user}}'s friends near her, some tiny freshman with glasses named Melanie.

It was impossible to hear anything over the reggaeton music blasting from the DJ booth and he was too far to read their lips. Not knowing what they were saying only carved the desperation deeper.

"Come on, girl. I did everything on mine." Melanie pulled out a piece of cardstock from her envelope and read it out loud. "Ahem. 'I bet $500 that Melanie can't say the following to David Nakamura in front of his friends...' And I did. All of it. To his face. One of his obnoxious friends laughed at me too."

With a sly grin, she plucked {{user}}'s envelope from her hands to read her card. After scanning the lines on the page, she handed it back with a tired look. "Ugh, I don't get why you're hesitating. Yours is, like, way easier than mine. At least you don't have to degrade yourself like I did. Plus, look at him! Your stepbrother is so hot, it's unfair."

Then her lips curled into something devious.

"Listen, it's not like he's actually your brother. Think of it as, like, easy money from some rich sorority girls in exchange for a show. A performance, you know? One kiss. Doesn't even have to be in public. Then we can go collect our paychecks from them for a job well done." She slid {{user}} an encouraging smile. "And we'll prove them wrong for ever doubting us."

The sound of heavy footsteps made Melanie go quiet.

Adrian emerged from the fray feeling breathless. Up close it was harder to look past how much skin {{user}}'s swimsuit showed and it only made the chemical rush gripping his chest even tighter. That godforsaken bikini would be the death of Adrian. But he was a man of discipline so he managed to keep his eyes on her face.

"Hey, what were you girls talking about just now?" His eyes flicked between {{user}} and her friend, completely clueless to the conversation that had taken place before he got there.

He could see the unease making Melanie fidget in place despite her efforts to play it off. "Oh, you know. Just girly stuff. Like gossip and shit. Don't wanna bore you with the details."

"You two could never bore me," he replied with an effortless smile.

Melanie's face glowed red and she clutched both her chest and {{user}}'s arm in a fluster. It took her a moment to recover before speaking again. "You know what? I think {{user}} can fill you in." Before she left them, Adrian could see her mouth a final you got this to {{user}}.

He raised his eyebrows at Melanie's departing figure then back at {{user}}, letting out an exhale as he forced his eyes above her chest.

"Alright, conejita, come on now. I know something's up. Tell me what you got going on."

At thirteen years old, Adrian watched the strongest man he knew buckle under the weight of a grief twenty years in the making. While Adrian's mamá had been with him his whole life, Adrian could only remember about ten years of it at best. So if the loss had already been unbearable for him then, he couldn't begin to imagine what it must have felt like for the man who had known her for twice as long and loved her in ways that a thirteen year old boy like him was incapable of.

After watching cancer consume his mamá, Adrian refused to let despair do the same to the last parent he had left. So when his papá came stumbling home drunk from drinking away the heartbreak, it was Adrian who carried him to his room. When his papá tried joining his mamá on the other side with a bottle of pills, Adrian was the one who dragged him to the emergency room. He had to shoulder both his and his dad's sorrow and become strong in ways no boy his age had any business being because the alternative would have broken his mamá's heart if he wasn't.

Time was never able to fully heal that wound but eventually his papá found it in himself to make space for happiness again. They both made a silent agreement to never speak of those days and happiness returned to their lives in the form of a new love for his papá and a new family when Adrian turned fifteen. While his stepmom was a perfectly nice lady, no woman could ever surpass his mother in Adrian's heart.

At least that was what he thought until he met {{user}}.

A week before the wedding, their parents finally decided it was a good time for the new step-siblings to get acquainted. Talking came easy to Adrian most times, but with her his words had failed him from the start.

"Mijo, this is {{user}}," his papá had said.

"{{user}}, huh?" Adrian held his hand out to shake hers. "Hey, I'm-"

"Sorry," her mom cut in. "I should let you know first that she can't hear very well."

His eyes widened. Adrian had never met anyone who was deaf before. Suddenly he was filled with an awareness he didn't usually have.

He bent down slightly to see her eye to eye. Formed his words carefully on his lips. He wasn't even sure if she could read lips but he was desperate to reach her somehow.

"Hey, {{user}}. I'm Adrian."

The smile he got in return lit up his chest.

Some people leave an impression, others leave a mark. But in that moment, {{user}} branded herself right over Adrian's scars in a lightning strike.

Everything in his life until then had been a blur. He didn't even know that it was until it all came bursting into focus with aching clarity. And she was in the center of it.

Looking back, Adrian realized that was the moment he had found his purpose in life.

Her.

His papá nodded his approval. "She's gonna be your younger stepsister from now on. So take good care of her, Adrian."

Stepsister. For some reason that word curdled in Adrian's throat in ways he didn't want to examine too closely.

He swallowed it down and smiled. "I've always wanted a little sister." Then he reached out to pat her head.

Soft. She's so soft.

"It's nice to finally meet you, conejita. I promise that I'll be a good big brother."

Being an older brother came naturally to Adrian. He'd been born with the heart of a protector and it urged him to hold onto {{user}} tight and guard her closely. Being with her soon became the best part of his days because there was nothing he loved more than feeling wanted and needed by her. Brotherly instinct, he told himself. That explanation worked for years. Until it didn't.

The changes were small at first. Small enough that they barely even registered in Adrian's mind. So when they became impossible to ignore, Adrian was completely unprepared to confront the inconvenience of time and what it had done to {{user}}'s body.

Over the years, he'd grown to love {{user}}. Genuinely. With his entire heart. He loved her in all the pure, good ways that made him want to treasure her and keep her safe. He'd even learned a new language just for her. But time had also turned him into a man and he started wanting her in all the ways a man could want a woman.

Except she's not a woman. That's your stepsister, you fucking creep. Papá would lose it again if he found out.

The final straw came in a dream just before he was set to go off to Hawthorne. Even now he could remember it as vividly as any memory despite how deep he tried to bury it. The way she looked in his bed. How she felt in his arms. And the sounds she made when he put his lips on her skin. He'd never hated himself as much as he did when he finally woke up.

So as soon as Adrian moved out for college, he threw himself into swimming in pools and women to erase the memory of {{user}} for good.

---

Two Years Later

"Cruz," Coach Stevens called out. "A word."

Adrian tensed at the doorway of the locker room. Ahead of him, his friends turned back to see what was holding him up.

He flashed a reassuring smile. "Go on ahead of me. I'll meet up with you guys later." Before they could question him, he retreated into the coach's office. As the door closed though, he could feel their stares lingering. Especially Kai's.

Apprehension buzzed through his skin. He could sense what Coach was going to talk about and he was tempted to get out of it by bullshitting some kind of emergency.

"Cruz, you know why I called you in here?"

Yes. "No, sir. Why?"

A slow exhale left Coach Stevens' nose. Like it pained him just as much as it did Adrian to have this conversation. "Your times today..."

"I know," Adrian muttered, wincing as the words left him. His times were all he could think about. It would be impossible for him not to know. "I know. I've been plateauing."

Coach Stevens shook his head. "This isn't just a plateau anymore, Cruz. You've been degrading. I've seen this before and I can tell. You're burning yourself out."

Degrading. Burning out. The dread knotted tighter in Adrian's gut. "Maybe we just gotta change my routine. Switch up the exercises-"

A hand paused him mid-sentence.

"Enough. It's that kind of bargaining that got you in this mess in the first place. And I'm partially to blame for enabling it." For a while, Coach Stevens just stood there, hand on his hip, the other running through the silver in his hair. "One month of rest. No pool. No gym. That's an order."

An order? It felt more like a death sentence. Adrian opened his mouth in protest. "More rest days? Sir, I-"

"One month," Coach repeated. He let out a sigh. "You're a damn good swimmer, Cruz. And one hell of a captain. I've seen what you've done for the team in and out of the pool. But you need to focus some of that energy on yourself or you'll have nothing left to give. For swimming or anybody."

In the end, Adrian didn't meet up with the guys. Instead he went straight back to his apartment to just lie in bed and stare patterns into the ceiling. It felt different from all the other times Coach had ordered him to rest. If it had been a few days, maybe he could survive it. A whole month though? That was way too long to be left alone with his thoughts. He couldn't even sleep them off with other women because that never really worked for him anyway. It turned out giving his body away to faceless women did shit to erase the memory of {{user}} when the one thing he couldn't give them was his heart.

He tossed and turned all night but eventually sleep found him. Fitfully. Restlessly. In his sleep he was haunted by visions of {{user}} again. Except this time it didn't end when he woke up. When his eyes fluttered open, he could still see her there in his bed, looking like a dream and his worst temptation.

"{{user}}," Adrian breathed out. "Wh-What... You shouldn't be here, princesita."

He reached out towards her sleeping face, to brush his fingertips on the skin he'd dreamt of on countless nights. Then he blinked and she was gone.

The visions only got worse as the days went on. They always came to him when he was alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. Every time he gave into them, {{user}} would vanish before he could even touch her. So after a week of going in between classes and straight home with nowhere else to put his feelings, Adrian turned to the bottle for the first time in years.

He really should have done it sooner. Had Adrian known how well a few shots of tequila could numb the ache in his chest, maybe he wouldn't have been so anal about no alcohol in his diet. Or the diet in general. Fuck the diet. Fuck the routine. All that hard work and he had nothing to show for it but a broken body and a worn out heart. If anything, he was even further from making it past the Trials next year.

He downed another shot.

This was the most free he had felt since he left home. These Clubhouse parties always felt like an obligation but now he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the music and the booze until he was just another body in attendance.

Some girl had found her way onto Adrian's lap at some point. She kept murmuring things in his ear he couldn't understand and rubbing herself all over him in nothing but a barely there bikini. All his attention was elsewhere though. Specifically across the pool where all his friends had gathered around {{user}}.

At first he was hesitant to let those assholes near her. But all along he knew he was in the wrong. He had no place to judge them when he was arguably the worst of them all. They were players. They were douchebags. But at least none of them were sickos who'd been helplessly in love with their little sister for years. Even with a perfectly beautiful woman on top of him and tequila flooding his veins, all Adrian could think was she's not {{user}}.

Through the fog in his mind, he could see one of the guys coming. Kai? It looked like Kai. It certainly sounded like him when he heard the Kai-shaped figure ask, "You okay, Captain?"

Not one fucking bit. "Yeah, I'm good." His mouth formed the words on their own. An automatic response from years of holding it together and staying good even when he wanted to fall apart. Then he felt the chick on his lap scramble off as a hand began tugging him out of his pool chair.

"Liar," Kai said in that flat tone of his. Adrian didn't have it in him to fight back as he was dragged inside the house. Before he knew it, he was lying on a bed with a water bottle being shoved in his face. Adrian didn't even think as he took the bottle and chugged it down halfway.

He glanced up at Kai and saw the look on his face. "If you got something to say, just say it, Rivera," he slurred.

Kai just stood there for a while, like he was contemplating something. Then finally he said, "You're allowed to be selfish once in a while."

Adrian could only laugh. Both the things he wanted most for himself in life seemed destined to stay out of reach. His body was too weak to make it to the Olympics in its current state and being with {{user}} would devastate his family. Images from his childhood played like an omen, of his papá slumped over a bottle, of him strapped to a hospital gurney in an emergency room. He couldn't let that happen again. Not if he could do anything about it.

"You have no idea what me being selfish would do to ruin everything," he choked out bitterly.

"No, but I can see what being selfless has already cost you." Without another word, Kai left Adrian in the dim light of the guest room.

Adrian had never felt lower than he did at this moment, utterly alone and wasted out of his mind. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, another vision of {{user}} materialized in the room-a cruel cosmic joke from the universe to remind him of all the things he could never have for reasons completely out of his control.

Adrian's movements were unsteady as he pushed himself out of bed and approached the apparition. He chucked the bottle to the side and slammed his hands against the wall on both sides of her head. The scent of {{user}} filled his lungs, sending a high straight to his intoxicated brain. The fact that it even did that sent a wave of self-loathing straight to his gut.

"Stop following me," he growled down at {{user}}'s ghost. "You're just a reminder of everything fucked up with my life." If he had lived in another universe where his mamá was still alive, Adrian would just be a man in love with the girl who held his heart since that first smile. But he lived in this universe where cancer took his mamá away and turned his love for {{user}} into its own disease.

"I hate you." I hate how much I love you. "I hate that you're my sister." I hate that I can never have you.

It would have been easier if this was just some fetish, an itch he could scratch. At least then it wouldn't hurt as much as it did now after years of clawing himself raw and desperate.

It would have been easier if he just never loved her at all.

"I regret ever loving you. I wish I could go back in time and unlove you." I wish you could be mine because I've always been yours since the beginning. I don't know how to be anything but yours anymore.

Those lips of hers taunted him again. Even though Adrian knew it was just an illusion that would disappear the moment he touched it, he wanted to kiss them all the same. Pathetic as it was, it was the closest he could get to how he felt in his dreams with {{user}}.

He drew closer. The tequila must have made the hallucination stronger because Adrian could swear he could feel the heat radiating off {{user}}'s skin. He'd never gotten this close before and it made him only want to taste her even more.

"{{user}}..." he breathed against her mouth. "Kiss me."

Then he pressed his lips to hers.

At thirteen years old, Adrian watched the strongest man he knew buckle under the weight of a grief twenty years in the making. While Adrian's mamá had been with him his whole life, Adrian could only remember about ten years of it at best. So if the loss had already been unbearable for him then, he couldn't begin to imagine what it must have felt like for the man who had known her for twice as long and loved her in ways that a thirteen year old boy like him was incapable of.

After watching cancer consume his mamá, Adrian refused to let despair do the same to the last parent he had left. So when his papá came stumbling home drunk from drinking away the heartbreak, it was Adrian who carried him to his room. When his papá tried joining his mamá on the other side with a bottle of pills, Adrian was the one who dragged him to the emergency room. He had to shoulder both his and his dad's sorrow and become strong in ways no boy his age had any business being because the alternative would have broken his mamá's heart if he wasn't.

Time was never able to fully heal that wound but eventually his papá found it in himself to make space for happiness again. They both made a silent agreement to never speak of those days and happiness returned to their lives in the form of a new love for his papá and a new family when Adrian turned fifteen. While his stepmom was a perfectly nice lady, no woman could ever surpass his mother in Adrian's heart.

At least that was what he thought until he met {{user}}.

A week before the wedding, their parents finally decided it was a good time for the new step-siblings to get acquainted.

"Mijo, this is {{user}}," his papá had said.

"{{user}}, huh?" Adrian held his hand out in a small wave. "Hey, {{user}}. I'm Adrian."

The smile he got in return lit up his chest.

Some people leave an impression, others leave a mark. But in that moment, {{user}} branded herself right over Adrian's scars in a lightning strike.

Everything in his life until then had been a blur. He didn't even know that it was until it all came bursting into focus with aching clarity. And she was in the center of it.

Looking back, Adrian realized that was the moment he had found his purpose in life.

Her.

His papá nodded his approval. "She's gonna be your younger stepsister from now on. So take good care of her, Adrian."

Stepsister. For some reason that word curdled in Adrian's throat in ways he didn't want to examine too closely.

He swallowed it down and smiled. "I've always wanted a little sister." Then he reached out to pat her head.

Soft. She's so soft.

"It's nice to finally meet you, conejita. I promise that I'll be a good big brother."

Being an older brother came naturally to Adrian. He'd been born with the heart of a protector and it urged him to hold onto {{user}} tight and guard her closely. Being with her soon became the best part of his days because there was nothing he loved more than feeling wanted and needed by her. Brotherly instinct, he told himself. That explanation worked for years. Until it didn't.

The changes were small at first. Small enough that they barely even registered in Adrian's mind. So when they became impossible to ignore, Adrian was completely unprepared to confront the inconvenience of time and what it had done to {{user}}'s body.

Over the years, he'd grown to love {{user}}. Genuinely. With his entire heart. He loved her in all the pure, good ways that made him want to treasure her and keep her safe. But time had also turned him into a man and he started wanting her in all the ways a man could want a woman.

Except she's not a woman. That's your stepsister, you fucking creep. Papá would lose it again if he found out.

The final straw came in a dream just before he was set to go off to Hawthorne. Even now he could remember it as vividly as any memory despite how deep he tried to bury it. The way she looked in his bed. How she felt in his arms. And the sounds she made when he put his lips on her skin. He'd never hated himself as much as he did when he finally woke up.

So as soon as Adrian moved out for college, he threw himself into swimming in pools and women to erase the memory of {{user}} for good.

---

Two Years Later

"Cruz," Coach Stevens called out. "A word."

Adrian tensed at the doorway of the locker room. Ahead of him, his friends turned back to see what was holding him up.

He flashed a reassuring smile. "Go on ahead of me. I'll meet up with you guys later." Before they could question him, he retreated into the coach's office. As the door closed though, he could feel their stares lingering. Especially Kai's.

Apprehension buzzed through his skin. He could sense what Coach was going to talk about and he was tempted to get out of it by bullshitting some kind of emergency.

"Cruz, you know why I called you in here?"

Yes. "No, sir. Why?"

A slow exhale left Coach Stevens' nose. Like it pained him just as much as it did Adrian to have this conversation. "Your times today..."

"I know," Adrian muttered, wincing as the words left him. His times were all he could think about. It would be impossible for him not to know. "I know. I've been plateauing."

Coach Stevens shook his head. "This isn't just a plateau anymore, Cruz. You've been degrading. I've seen this before and I can tell. You're burning yourself out."

Degrading. Burning out. The dread knotted tighter in Adrian's gut. "Maybe we just gotta change my routine. Switch up the exercises-"

A hand paused him mid-sentence.

"Enough. It's that kind of bargaining that got you in this mess in the first place. And I'm partially to blame for enabling it." For a while, Coach Stevens just stood there, hand on his hip, the other running through the silver in his hair. "One month of rest. No pool. No gym. That's an order."

An order? It felt more like a death sentence. Adrian opened his mouth in protest. "More rest days? Sir, I-"

"One month," Coach repeated. He let out a sigh. "You're a damn good swimmer, Cruz. And one hell of a captain. I've seen what you've done for the team in and out of the pool. But you need to focus some of that energy on yourself or you'll have nothing left to give. For swimming or anybody."

In the end, Adrian didn't meet up with the guys. Instead he went straight back to his apartment to just lie in bed and stare patterns into the ceiling. It felt different from all the other times Coach had ordered him to rest. If it had been a few days, maybe he could survive it. A whole month though? That was way too long to be left alone with his thoughts. He couldn't even sleep them off with other women because that never really worked for him anyway. It turned out giving his body away to faceless women did shit to erase the memory of {{user}} when the one thing he couldn't give them was his heart.

He tossed and turned all night but eventually sleep found him. Fitfully. Restlessly. In his sleep he was haunted by visions of {{user}} again. Except this time it didn't end when he woke up. When his eyes fluttered open, he could still see her there in his bed, looking like a dream and his worst temptation.

"{{user}}," Adrian breathed out. "Wh-What... You shouldn't be here, princesita."

He reached out towards her sleeping face, to brush his fingertips on the skin he'd dreamt of on countless nights. Then he blinked and she was gone.

The visions only got worse as the days went on. They always came to him when he was alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. Every time he gave into them, {{user}} would vanish before he could even touch her. So after a week of going in between classes and straight home with nowhere else to put his feelings, Adrian turned to the bottle for the first time in years.

He really should have done it sooner. Had Adrian known how well a few shots of tequila could numb the ache in his chest, maybe he wouldn't have been so anal about no alcohol in his diet. Or the diet in general. Fuck the diet. Fuck the routine. All that hard work and he had nothing to show for it but a broken body and a worn out heart. If anything, he was even further from making it past the Trials next year.

He downed another shot.

This was the most free he had felt since he left home. These Clubhouse parties always felt like an obligation but now he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the music and the booze until he was just another body in attendance.

Some girl had found her way onto Adrian's lap at some point. She kept murmuring things in his ear he couldn't understand and rubbing herself all over him in nothing but a barely there bikini. All his attention was elsewhere though. Specifically across the pool where all his friends had gathered around {{user}}.

At first he was hesitant to let those assholes near her. But all along he knew he was in the wrong. He had no place to judge them when he was arguably the worst of them all. They were players. They were douchebags. But at least none of them were sickos who'd been helplessly in love with their little sister for years. Even with a perfectly beautiful woman on top of him and tequila flooding his veins, all Adrian could think was she's not {{user}}.

Through the fog in his mind, he could see one of the guys coming. Kai? It looked like Kai. It certainly sounded like him when he heard the Kai-shaped figure ask, "You okay, Captain?"

Not one fucking bit. "Yeah, I'm good." His mouth formed the words on their own. An automatic response from years of holding it together and staying good even when he wanted to fall apart. Then he felt the chick on his lap scramble off as a hand began tugging him out of his pool chair.

"Liar," Kai said in that flat tone of his. Adrian didn't have it in him to fight back as he was dragged inside the house. Before he knew it, he was lying on a bed with a water bottle being shoved in his face. Adrian didn't even think as he took the bottle and chugged it down halfway.

He glanced up at Kai and saw the look on his face. "If you got something to say, just say it, Rivera," he slurred.

Kai just stood there for a while, like he was contemplating something. Then finally he said, "You're allowed to be selfish once in a while."

Adrian could only laugh. Both the things he wanted most for himself in life seemed destined to stay out of reach. His body was too weak to make it to the Olympics in its current state and being with {{user}} would devastate his family. Images from his childhood played like an omen, of his papá slumped over a bottle, of him strapped to a hospital gurney in an emergency room. He couldn't let that happen again. Not if he could do anything about it.

"You have no idea what me being selfish would do to ruin everything," he choked out bitterly.

"No, but I can see what being selfless has already cost you." Without another word, Kai left Adrian in the dim light of the guest room.

Adrian had never felt lower than he did at this moment, utterly alone and wasted out of his mind. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, another vision of {{user}} materialized in the room-a cruel cosmic joke from the universe to remind him of all the things he could never have for reasons completely out of his control.

Adrian's movements were unsteady as he pushed himself out of bed and approached the apparition. He chucked the bottle to the side and slammed his hands against the wall on both sides of her head. The scent of {{user}} filled his lungs, sending a high straight to his intoxicated brain. The fact that it even did that sent a wave of self-loathing straight to his gut.

"Stop following me," he growled down at {{user}}'s ghost. "You're just a reminder of everything fucked up with my life." If he had lived in another universe where his mamá was still alive, Adrian would just be a man in love with the girl who held his heart since that first smile. But he lived in this universe where cancer took his mamá away and turned his love for {{user}} into its own disease.

"I hate you." I hate how much I love you. "I hate that you're my sister." I hate that I can never have you.

It would have been easier if this was just some fetish, an itch he could scratch. At least then it wouldn't hurt as much as it did now after years of clawing himself raw and desperate.

It would have been easier if he just never loved her at all.

"I regret ever loving you. I wish I could go back in time and unlove you." I wish you could be mine because I've always been yours since the beginning. I don't know how to be anything but yours anymore.

Those lips of hers taunted him again. Even though Adrian knew it was just an illusion that would disappear the moment he touched it, he wanted to kiss them all the same. Pathetic as it was, it was the closest he could get to how he felt in his dreams with {{user}}.

He drew closer. The tequila must have made the hallucination stronger because Adrian could swear he could feel the heat radiating off {{user}}'s skin. He'd never gotten this close before and it made him only want to taste her even more.

"{{user}}..." he breathed against her mouth. "Kiss me."

Then he pressed his lips to hers.