Sweet Romance12 min read
The Pen, the Pu'er, and the Night I Stopped Loving the Wrong Brother
ButterPicks11 views
I don't remember the first time I decided to be visible by proxy.
"You're chasing him again," Sandra said one morning, leaning over my desk with a grin. "You're the classic clingy type, Kiera. Everyone knows."
"I am not," I replied, and tucked the paper cup of Pu'er tea into my bag like it was a small, secret flame. "I just— I like coffee better than gossip."
"Right," she said, not believing me, but Davina came over and nudged Sandra with her elbow, soft and serious. "Let her be. She's been kind. That's rarer than it looks."
"You think kindness is a strategy?" Marcella asked, amused.
"Sometimes," I said. "Sometimes being kind gets you closer to the people you want to know."
Davina's eyes were the only ones that softened. "Trust me, Kiera. You do what you want."
So I did. I learned to make an espresso so Miguel would like coffee my way; I memorized the way Esteban liked his music playlists so I could talk to him when I needed to; I bought a steel pen because Miguel had once left it at my desk and I kept it like a talisman.
"Why that pen?" Emmeline asked when she noticed it on my desk. "It looks ordinary."
"It isn't," I said. "It belonged to someone who saved my life once, in a different sense."
She smiled, unasked questions flickering away. The pen sat heavy in my bag, like a quiet promise.
I helped Esteban when he got the flu that winter. He called me with a voice like broken glass and I went. I brought soup, a thermos of Pu'er, and the kind of patience that comes from rehearsing lines in your head so long they start to sound true.
"You're a saint or crazy," Esteban croaked when I handed him a spoonful of porridge. He was pale, leaning against his apartment doorframe, and he tried to smirk.
"You can pick," I said, stirring the porridge with my wrist. Steam fogged the room and I pretended not to feel my throat tighten.
"Stop being sentimental," he muttered, averting his eyes. "I won't die from this."
"Good," I said, even though the spoon trembled. "Then promise me you'll call if you need anything."
He promised. Later, when he was better, he shrugged and said, "You helped me because it makes you happy, right? Because you like me."
"I don't," I told him plainly. "I like Miguel."
He blinked as if I had turned the lights off. "Miguel? My brother? The one you never talk to unless it's for favors?"
"Exactly," I said. "That's the one."
Weeks later, when rumors about me and Esteban sleeping over at the same hotel flooded our circle like spilled ink, people congratulated me.
"Finally," Sandra wrote in the group chat. "You two fit together like a bad rom-com."
Davina was practical. "That's not right. She was with me that night. I took her home."
"Rumors are faster than truth," I texted her, and then I did something sudden and stupid and decisive: I blocked Esteban on every contact method I had.
It was like flipping a switch. Half a month of silence. I told myself it was to take a breath. I told myself it was to make Esteban realize I wasn't his doormat. People assumed we'd broken up for real.
I discovered the sharp pleasure of being misunderstood.
A week after I went quiet, Esteban found me in the office pantry, eyes rimmed red, his breath short.
"You deleted me," he accused. "Why did you delete me from your phone?"
I looked at him, hands around a paper cup of cold Pu'er. "I didn't owe you continuity," I said.
He turned on me with a small animal's panic. "You could at least hear me out."
"Out about what?" I asked. "About how you bragged you spent the night with someone and left it to other people to assume it was me?"
He swallowed. "It wasn't like that."
"It doesn't matter," I said. "It matters that you let people think it."
"I didn't mean—"
"You didn't mean to make my life into a joke?" I cut him off. "You didn't mean to make Davina's car and my presence into a story?" My voice cracked and I surprised myself by the weight in it. "I did what I did because I wanted to meet Miguel. I helped you because you offered me a favor."
He lowered his head like a prickled animal. "And what favor was that?"
"Help me get close to your brother," I said.
Esteban blinked as if I had thrown cold water on him. A muscle jumped near his jaw. "You used me?"
I watched the recognition—annoyance, then guilt—slide across his face. "I was never your girlfriend, Kiera. I don't want you to think—"
"Good." The word was small but firm. I turned to leave and the sugared scent of gossip in the air made me nauseous. "Don't use people's lives as entertainment."
He looked like he wanted to say more. People crowded the pantry's frosted glass door, eavesdropping. I didn't care. I walked out and let the door close between us.
I wanted Miguel to know me for myself, not as someone who lurked at his brother's heels. For years I had told myself that getting close to Esteban was the shortest bridge to Miguel. I had rehearsed lines: 'We're friends', 'I like him for his music', 'I want to help him'. Each excuse was a brick, and I had built a house of excuses and lived in it.
But that night at the company mixer—the farm fête where both our teams were shuffled together—things shifted.
They had us play a silly game where women put an object from their purses on the table, and men chose blindly. I had placed Miguel's pen—left at my desk months ago—on the table like a trap. If he picked it, he would have to sit with me for the pairs activity. It was childish, but I wanted a chance.
The host announced, "Open your eyes!"
Esteban's hands hovered over the items and then, like a cheat, he picked up my pen with a small smile. He held it as if it were nothing.
Miguel, standing farther back, watched intently. When he realized which pen Esteban held, his gaze didn't shift; it narrowed, quietly amused.
Later, on the raft for the team event, I kept thinking of that pen and how sturdy it felt between my fingers. I was terrified of water—a childhood memory of being swept under—and I told myself I wouldn't let it ruin the night. Miguel sat behind me.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly when I stiffened.
"I'm fine," I said, and lied.
At the big drop, our raft flipped.
"Hold on to me," Miguel ordered, and his hands were already strong, even though I had remembered him as gentle. One arm went around my waist and the other braced my shoulders as the river threw us. I clung to his neck the way a frightened person clings to a rescue.
When we made it to shore, the adrenaline left me shaking. Miguel set me on the stones and waited, as calm as a man who has always known how to fix a frightened person.
"Thank you," I whispered, burying my face in my knees.
He leaned close. "Are you all right?" he asked again.
"Yes," I said, and the honesty tasted like relief. "I'm not afraid when you're near."
He smiled that half smile that always unsettled me—warm, but reserved. "Good."
The rest of that evening blurred into small, bright moments: Miguel handing me a towel, a laugh shared in the dregs of the bonfire light, Davina making faces at Sandra when Sandra snorted into her wine.
Then the next morning at the office everything shifted. Rumor had a new shape. Sandra had posted something that twisted the hotel's story into a full narrative. Esteban's temper, which had always been a brittle thing, broke.
He stormed over and dragged me into the tea room.
"You think you're clever," he hissed, eyes raw. "You think you can play with people."
"You started the play," I snapped. "You let people think the hotel thing was true."
He laughed, a sound like a snapped wire. "No one forced them to believe anything. Especially not you. You hid behind being nice and everyone bought it."
"You don't get to define me," I said. "And you don't get to use me as your stage prop."
He stared at me like I'd become a stranger. "You used me to get to Miguel," he said at last.
"I used the access you offered," I said. "But you sold it as a romance because you liked attention. You never meant anything you said to mean."
He reddened. "I did what I had to. You think I like being made a joke?"
I had an idea then—a small, scorching plan. "If it's attention you want, let's give the crowd the truth."
He looked surprised. "You think telling everyone will help?"
"It will show them who started the lie," I said. "And it will show them who keeps using people for sport."
At first he hesitated. Then the old showman in him flared and he agreed. "Fine. Let's do it."
The 'punishment' that followed wasn't legal. It didn't require cops or lawsuits. It was social, public, and measured—the kind of thing that makes the world tilt for the person who thought everything was theirs to play with.
We were at the company's end-of-season meeting, a packed room with our neighboring tech firm's people and our own team squeezed into folding chairs. Miguel had been called up to introduce a partnership. I sat in the audience with the pen on my lap and my Pu'er cup cold beside me, heart thudding like a trapped bird.
"Before Miguel speaks," I asked Davina quietly, "when he finishes, can I say something?"
"Of course," she mouthed back. Her hands were steady.
Miguel finished, thanked the teams, and sat back down. The room applauded, polite and energetic. Esteban sat with his face like a closed fist, fiddling with his phone. I stood.
The lights weren't bright but the room was quiet enough that my voice didn't have to climb. "I need to tell the truth," I said.
Heads turned. Esteban looked at me with a mix of fury and smugness, as if he expected me to crumble.
"I was never Esteban's girlfriend," I said. "I helped him when he was sick because I agreed to a favor. I helped because it was a way to meet Miguel. I helped because he promised me—"
Esteban's mouth opened.
"—and I never meant for my actions to be twisted into gossip," I continued. "But Esteban here—" I looked right at him, and for the first time in months I did not flinch— "has enjoyed letting things become a spectacle. He enjoyed making his private things public because he likes attention."
"You think you're so noble?" Esteban snapped. "You dragged me into this, Kiera."
"I didn't drag you," I said. "You used me for stories. And when it was convenient you let others take the blame and the credit. You let people say things about me that weren't true because you liked the performance."
A ripple went through the crowd.
"Why are you telling this now?" someone from the back called.
"Because honesty matters," I said. "And because people deserve to know who created the story that damaged me."
"He hurt people," Davina said loudly, standing up beside me. "He made fun of Kiera while she cared for him in a fever. He posted things to make himself look better."
Sandra had been in the front row, and her face had gone a delicate, bemused shade. Marcella whispered to Morgan and they looked uncomfortable. Emmeline's camera started recording.
Esteban's confident face crumpled into a mask. "You're lying," he said. "You're making this up to get sympathy."
"Is it sympathy you want?" I asked. "Or is it responsibility?"
The room leaned forward. Phones lit. Two people muttered, "Show the messages."
"Yes," Miguel's voice came, low and steady from the row behind. He stood, holding a small stack of papers in his hand. "If we're talking about responsibility, here's what I have."
He handed an envelope to the HR manager at the front. The manager looked surprised, then open-mouthed, and motioned for a projector. Miguel didn't say more. His face was composed, almost serene.
A few files were displayed: screenshots of texts where Esteban bragged about manipulating situations for attention; a voice note where he chuckled about how people believed the hotel story; messages where he arranged the rumor with precision. The room filled with a hum that quickly became a thunderclap—gasps, whispered "Oh my"s, the shuffle of chairs.
Esteban's denial melted into fury. "Those are edited!" he yelled.
"Is that true?" Miguel asked evenly.
"No!"
"Are these messages yours?" someone asked from the back.
The evidence spoke. A young engineer's cursor hovered over the play button; the voice that came through was unmistakable. People murmured, then quieted, then there was the brittle sound of collective disappointment.
"How could you?" Marcella said softly, and I felt every eye like a pinprick.
Esteban's face went redder and redder. "You set me up!" he accused, a whine now in his tone.
"Set you up?" Miguel's voice was like winter iron. "We simply showed what you've been doing when you thought no one was watching."
I hadn't expected that Miguel would step in like this. I hadn't expected him to assemble files. The fact that he had meant more to me than I had let myself admit made his protection warm, and it made the shame on Esteban look sharper.
Esteban scrambled for a defense. "I was joking! Teenagers gossip; they twist things—"
People in the crowd began to speak. Someone said, "So you lied on purpose." Another voice: "That's not joking."
Two interns started to laugh—uneasy but cruel—and then stop when their laughter sounded like knives. Phones streamed live footage. Sandra's face, which had been enjoyably complicit earlier, went pale.
"It was a stunt," Esteban pleaded finally, voice thinner than before. "A stupid stunt. Please, I didn't mean to hurt—"
You're not allowed to make this up, Miguel said, very quietly, loud enough for the room. "You did this for likes. For shock. You chose to make someone's reputation your entertainment."
A woman near me snapped a picture. Someone else whispered, "He always was like that." The office lobby, which had been used to gossip and shrugging, transformed into a tribunal. The people who had laughed at Esteban's jokes now shook their heads.
Esteban's breathing quickened. He looked around and realized there were no allies on the faces he hoped would support him. His girlfriend, who had been whispering at his side, stood up and walked away without a word. One colleague—someone he had once mocked publicly—closed her laptop in his face.
"Please," he said, suddenly smaller. "I didn't mean for any of— I was stupid. I am sorry. I—"
The arc from arrogance to pleas is small and unsympathetic when a crowd watches. It takes on the air of confession that can't be rewound. He went through the motions: denial, anger, bargaining, begging. People filmed him. A circle of whispers gathered like rainclouds.
The punishment was not a court sentence. It was what a public shaming does when it strips pretense: colleagues stopped laughing at his banter; clients who'd admired his bravado exchanged uneasy looks; invitations he'd expected ceased to arrive. In the weeks after, Esteban found himself on the outside. The meetings he used to dominate were shortened when he spoke. The cheap applause he had banked on dried up. He called me once—three times—and each time I let it go to voicemail.
When he finally came to the office and walked by my desk, he didn't look me in the eye. He was thinner from worry and the exacting appetite of being proven small. A company group message called him out; HR had a quiet meeting. People who had once copied him on jokes now avoided his Slack pings.
He didn't collapse on his knees. He didn't beg publicly for forgiveness. He watched as his stage vanished and had to learn to look at a room the honest way: where faces no longer offered him applause but either indifference or warning.
And then, in a small mercy that I hadn't expected, he came to my desk late one evening.
"Why did you do that?" he asked without ceremony.
"Because you deserve to be confronted," I said. "Because you made me into a punchline."
He rubbed his forehead. "I didn't think— I didn't think you'd go public."
"I did," I said. "And you'll have to live with it."
He closed his eyes. "I don't blame you for trying to get to Miguel. That was clever. But you shouldn't have used me either."
"I didn't use you to hurt you," I said. "I used the chance you offered. We both made choices."
He nodded. "Then let's try to be better."
I accepted that as a truce. It wasn't a friendship, not anymore. It wasn't even civility at first. But it was less like the old things and more like two people who had scraped off the varnish and found the rough wood.
The aftermath loosened something between Miguel and me. He started to look at me not as the girl attached to his brother, but as someone who stood her ground and told the truth. We had more small conversations—on elevators, in the parking lot—each one building a quiet.
One evening after work, he stopped by my desk. "Do you want to try my favorite coffee? It's terrible if you don't know it, but there's a way to make it right." He half-smiled, as if daring me to refuse.
"You're testing me," I said, and he handed me his cup like a treaty.
"Maybe," he said. "But also maybe I'm trying to repay someone for listening."
Weeks turned into months. Miguel taught me how he liked his espresso—two shots, not too hot—and I taught him how to be seen. He taught me to swim slowly, patient with my fear, hands steady beneath me until I stopped flailing and started gliding.
At home he sometimes left little things: a neatly folded napkin, a pen placed where I would find it, the steel pen I had kept returned to my desk one day with a tiny post-it: 'For steady hands.' I laughed and kept it close.
And then came my birthday.
I didn't tell anyone. I asked Miguel to come over, and told him to turn his phone off. When he arrived, the hallway light caught his jawline and the simple white shirt he wore made him look like someone who'd stepped out of a calmer time.
"You're late," I joked, although he wasn't.
"Traffic," he said, but it was a poor excuse. He handed me a cup of Pu'er tea, warm and exactly as I liked it.
"You remembered," I said.
"I do," he said. "You like the Pu'er. And you like pens with weight." He winked.
We ate the small cake I'd bought—just enough for two. I had set my steel pen beside the plate like a marker on a map. After a while Miguel reached across and tapped it.
"What did you want back then?" he asked quietly.
"To be seen," I said. "Not as someone who follows a shadow, not as a rumor."
He took my hand, fingers warm, neither rushing nor distant. "I saw you," he answered. "I saw the stubbornness in the way you held a teacup and the way you kept a pen like it was important. I wanted to know who kept that habit."
"Did you always know?" I asked.
"Not always," he admitted. "But I learned to see."
The night was small, and it was perfect. His hand found mine as the second hand of the clock made its patient rounds. In the drawer where I kept small things, I slid the pen in and shut it. The pen was mine again; but it also belonged to the story between us.
When Miguel left that night he kissed my forehead, very gentle. "Happy birthday," he said.
I whispered, "Thank you." I watched him walk down the hallway and heard the pen clicking in the drawer when he pushed it closed earlier.
Later, when I lay awake with the Pu'er cup cold on the bedside table, I thought of the boat, of the pen, of the river, and of the way Esteban had learned the hard quiet of being noticed for all the wrong reasons.
I kept the cold cup. I left the pen where it was. The night smelled like rain that had stopped and wisdom that had grown slow.
The end wasn't a grand declaration. It was a small, steadyness: Miguel's coffee, my pen, and the fact that for the first time I didn't ache when I saw Esteban with someone else. He had paid his price in the world that had listened. I had paid mine in truth.
And when the clock ticked near midnight, I opened the drawer, took the pen, and clicked it twice.
"Click," I told the dark, and the sound felt like the start of saying what I finally wanted. It was ordinary, and it was honest, and it was mine.
The End
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