The apartment is unusually alive for a weekday afternoon.
Not loud. Just… breathing.
Sunlight slants through the living room window in that lazy way it does when it has nowhere urgent to be. The fan hums. Someone downstairs is frying onions. The world is being very normal, which already feels suspicious.
And it's been this way since my last conversation with Lena. The one which left us both broken and in tears, hopefully for the last time.
I'm at the table with my laptop open, not really writing, not really not writing either. One paragraph, deleted. Another rewritten. My brain circles the same thought like a bored vulture.
Alice comes out of Josh's room with her phone in her hand and an expression that immediately puts me on edge.
It's not panic.
It's not anger.
It's… delight.
Now, that's suspicious…
She leans against the doorway, scrolling, lips twitching like she's trying very hard not to smile.
"Ash," she says casually.
I don't look up. "If this is about the electricity bill, I already paid my share."
"It's not."
"If Josh broke something—"
"He didn't."
"If I left the gas on—"
She clears her throat. Loudly. On purpose.
"I found Josh's big secret."
I froze.
Laptop still open. Fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard.
"…What secret?"
She finally looks up at me, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Wow. That was instant fear. Should I be offended that your first thought wasn't 'my brother is secretly a spy'?"
"What did you find?" I ask, sharper than I mean to.
She watches me for a beat, like she's deciding how much damage to do. Then she grins.
"Relax. It's not drugs. Or crime. Or an underground cult. Unless you count fanfiction as a cult, which, to be fair—"
"Alice!" My patience were running thin.
"Okay, okay." She pushes off the doorway and drops into the chair opposite me. "Josh writes."
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
"…Writes what?"
She arches a brow. "That reaction right there. That's why I didn't just say it."
"Writes..." I repeat slowly, like the word might rearrange itself into something more sensible if I give it time.
"Short stories. Plot outlines. Character sheets. Comment threads longer than my grocery lists." She tilts her phone toward me, then pulls it back just before I can see.
"Online stuff."
My chest does something strange.
Not pain, or joy.
Surprise. Clean and sharp. My brother is a writer, and I had no idea?
"Since when?" I ask.
Alice shrugs. "From the looks of it? Not recently."
"I didn't know."
"No kidding."
"That's not..." I stop, then restart. "That's not like him. He never said..."
"That's because he didn't want to," she says, gentler now. "Not because he couldn't."
The fan hums. A car honks outside. The world keeps functioning, completely uninterested in my mild internal collapse.
"How did you even find this?" I ask.
She grimaces. "Accident. Mostly. I borrowed his charger. His browser was open. I swear I wasn't snooping."
"You were snooping."
"I was curious," she corrects. "There's a moral difference."
I snort despite myself, then sigh. "What kind of writing?"
She brightens instantly. "Mystery. Suspense. Twisty stuff. Some fanfic. Some original concepts." She leans forward. "He's got a following too, Ash. Not viral-famous, but… real. People comment. Argue. Ask for updates."
That lands harder than it should.
"People read him?"
"People wait for him," she says. "Which is honestly rude, because now I want updates too."
I stare at the tabletop, my reflection faint in the polished wood.
"I had no idea," I say quietly.
Alice studies me. "You look more stunned than upset."
"Why would I be upset?"
She shrugs. "Some people don't like finding out someone close to them has a whole secret life."
"No," I say immediately. Then, softer, "I'm just trying to figure out how I missed it."
"You didn't miss it because you're selfish," she says. "You missed it because you were surviving."
That's her being kind. She could have said broken. Or grieving my failed relatinship with Lena. Or stuck in a past that refuses to stay past.
"I should've noticed," I murmur.
She tilts her head. "You've been carrying a lot. Blind spots come with the weight."
I glance at her. "Since when are you this wise?"
"Since I started hanging out with writers," she replies solemnly. "It's contagious."
I almost laughed.
"What's his pen name?" I ask. I'm sure he must be using a pen name. He told me thousands of time before how much he hated his name Josh. I can imagine he would gladly take an opportunity to give himself a name he thinks suites him better.
She lifts her phone, deliberately vague. "Not mine to give."
"Come on."
She shakes her head. "You'll hear it from him. Or you won't. Either way, it's his choice."
I nod. Fair.
A memory surfaces, uninvited.
"He used to read my stuff," I say. "When he was a kid. He'd sneak my notebooks out of my bag."
Alice's expression softens. "Yeah?"
"He'd pretend he didn't understand half of it. But he'd ask questions anyway." A quiet laugh escapes me. "I thought he was just being annoying."
"Congratulations," she says. "You accidentally raised a writer."
"That's terrifying."
"For you," she agrees. "For him, it might be freedom."
"Thanks for telling me," I say.
She grins. "You're welcome. Also, watching you panic for exactly three seconds was extremely satisfying."
I really laugh this time, and the sound surprises both of us.
"So in the end," I look outside the window. "I was not the only writer in my family."
Life didn't stop, it just waited.
Quietly.
In Josh's room.
With a pen, a screen full of words, and a future I somehow didn't see coming.
One thing is certain.
Josh is going to do a lot of explaining once I find him.