Chapter 2 – Ariane - The Brother’s Back
“Oh, Finn!”
His name tastes like a foreign word, too heavy on my tongue, too intense for the warm hall light. I keep my voice polite and steady, the way my mother trained me to greet people we can’t afford to offend. My hands are tucked against the pale folds of my dress, so he won’t see how awkward I am.
He nods, the line of his mouth barely moving. “Ariane.”
The syllables sink into me, low and even, as if he’s testing them, as if my name is still a question he hasn’t decided whether to keep asking.
For one second, we’re just standing there in the foyer, the echo of our voices stretching between us.
The chandelier scatters light across his face, the dark lines of his shirt, the cut of his shoulders.
His eyes don’t look away. They pin me where I stand and suddenly, I feel stripped down in my own house, as if the walls and floors that know me as well as him are siding with him.
And then Mom sweeps in, perfume of roses smothering the moment, smile wide and practiced.
“Now, now, we’ll save the catching up for the table.
The Whitakers are waiting.” She’s already shepherding Finn forward like she always does, directing, controlling, and smoothing everything over before it can get messy.
But my feet don’t move. My body won’t let them. Because the last time I saw Finn Wagner, I promised myself I wouldn’t care what he was like. And yet here I am, watching him walk away, and all I can do is remember.
###
It was Thanksgiving. Maybe the third one after the wedding.
The house was packed with relatives, casseroles, and polite laughter that had nowhere to go.
I was seventeen, still too young to wear heels but too old to be told to sit at the kids’ table.
I wore a navy sweater dress that Mom bought me two sizes too small, as if she could stitch me into the young lady that she wanted me to become.
My hair was in a tight bun because she said it looked neat that way.
I spent most of the day carrying dishes from the kitchen to the dining room, the smell of turkey and butter sticking to my skin.
He arrived late. Of course he did.
The sound of his car had barely died when the door opened, and Finn walked in with a new girlfriend dangling off his arm like she’d been rented for the evening.
She was everything I wanted to be. Tall, glossy, and with a stacked body men would gladly worship.
She wore stilettos that sank into the front lawn when they crossed it, and she complained about the mud before she even said hello.
Her lipstick was the color of wine, her laugh the kind that announced itself to people who mingled three rooms away.
Everyone whispered about how pretty she was.
Mom smiled like the woman’s presence proved something about our family, like Finn’s arm candy was another trophy to hang on the wall.
And Finn, God, Finn, he didn’t look at anyone else. Not Richard, not Mom, and definitely not me. He opened her coat for her, brushed his hand down her back like a claim, smirked at her shallow jokes.
When Richard asked about the city, Finn only shrugged and said, “It’s better than this fossil with plumbing.”
My face burned hot with anger, but no one else seemed to notice the insult.
Eleanor laughed thinly, and Richard poured him wine.
And I sat there, seventeen years old, pressing my nails into my palms so hard I left crescents.
I hated him then.
I hated how snobby he was, how cold… how he made the rest of us seem small just by standing in the room.
That night, when the table was cleared and the house had quieted, I slipped upstairs early.
I didn’t want to see the way Mom smiled at him like she wanted his approval, or the way Richard lit up whenever Finn deigned to speak.
I curled under my quilt with a book of poems and told myself I’d erase the day from memory.
But I couldn’t sleep.
Because through the vent in my room, voices carried.
Finn’s voice. Low, rough, and laced with laughter I’d never heard before. I crept to the top of the staircase, careful not to let the boards creak, and sat where the shadows kept me hidden.
He was in the hallway, phone pressed to his ear. His girlfriend had gone to bed already, I guessed, because his tone wasn’t meant for her.
“No, she’s fine,” he said, voice casual, bored. “Passes the time. Good in bed, though. I’ll cut it loose before Christmas. Already lining up someone better.” He laughed, short and cruel, the sound of a man who didn’t care if he broke things because he’d never be the one to clean them up.
My stomach dropped so fast I thought I might be sick.
Not because I cared about her. I didn’t, obviously.
But the way he said it—the way he dismissed her, a person, one he carved her down to nothing with just a few words, felt like a warning to me.
That was the real Finn Wagner. He was not just cold.
There was something dangerous about him.
He was someone who could hold you in his hands and then let you shatter without blinking.
I hated him. I told myself that a hundred times that night as I crept back into my room, heart thudding, cheeks hot. I hate him. I don’t care. I don’t care. But my body betrayed me, because I could still hear his laugh even when I pressed a pillow over my ears.
After that, I avoided him. At dinners, at holidays, at the rare moments he appeared at all.
It was easy, because he stayed gone. Too busy for Christmas, too distant for summers, too successful for birthdays.
His name was always on the RSVP list, but his chair always sat empty.
And I told myself that was for the best.
Until now.
###
The foyer tilts back into focus.
I blink, and Finn is already moving toward the dining room with Mom’s hand at his elbow. The chandelier light glances off his dark hair. He’s somehow grown older, harder, and more dangerous than the boy who laughed into his phone while I hid on the stairs.
Not to mention, I’m engaged. So why am I even thinking about him?
But inside me, there’s still that girl lurking in the shadows, her heart racing and throat tight, whispering to herself: Don’t care. Don’t you dare care.
But the truth burns beneath my ribs: I do.
I’ve always wanted to impress him. How could I not, with the way Richard talked about him? Like he is the best person in the world.
I should follow Mom’s perfume trail and the click of her heels into the dining room; slide into the role she’s been rehearsing me for since I was old enough to walk. Smile, sit, and behave.
Instead, I pause in the foyer, staring at the reflection of the chandelier in the spotless floor. My reflection stares back, fractured by light, and I wonder if I’ll ever feel whole under this roof again.
“Sweetheart?” Richard’s voice drifts from the side hall. He’s halfway out of his jacket, tie loosened, sleeves rolled. He looks at me with that quiet warmth that never asks for anything. “You coming?”
“In a second,” I manage.
He nods, not pushing. “Don’t be long. Your mom’s holding her breath in there.” He smiles, soft and tired, and disappears into the dining room.
My mom’s moods and breaths. That’s what this house feels like most days, her inhale, her control, and her demand that nothing spill out of its lines. And me? I’ve been holding mine to match hers ever since I can remember.
I touch the tiny pendant at my collarbone, grounding myself in its heart shape.
My heart won’t stop racing. My body remembers Thanksgiving, that hallway, the laugh I overheard through a vent.
The vow I made to hate him. And yet… here I am, pulse betraying me in the very place where my family is supposed to feel safe.
I want to believe that I’m wrong. I shouldn’t be basing everything on a night that happened years ago. People change… I’ve changed. God knows I’ve had my fair share of misunderstandings, moments I wish I could rewrite. He deserves the same grace, doesn’t he? Everyone deserves that much.
So, fine. He can have it.
A new start. A fresh page. I can handle that.
I hear chairs scraping in the next room, the low hum of conversation, my mom’s voice smoothing over the edges before they can harden. That’s my cue.
I take one last breath of the foyer’s cooler air, square my shoulders, and step toward the glow spilling from the dining room. The doorframe rises in front of me like a line I can’t uncross.
But my place is waiting.
And so is he.