Free Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian by Melanie Shawn Page B

school. Then middle school, her mouth filled with braces, her hair in curls because she’d permed it. Then in high school, her hair straight and shiny as she stuffed french fries—her junk food of choice from ages fourteen to eighteen—into her mouth.
    While thinking about those times—or any time he’d spent with Becca—Brian realized that those were the happiest moments of his life. She was his happy place.
    Had he always loved her and just been too blind to see it?
    Brian felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart like it was a lemon and they were making lemonade, like it was in wedged between a vise and someone was turning the crank.
    No . He shook off that thought. She’d just been his friend. He never even cared when she dated other guys.
    A small voice piped up in his mind pointing out the fact that maybe he’d never cared because he’d always known that he’d held the number one place in her life. If things had gotten serious with any of them, he was not so sure he would have been so okay with it.
    Stepping into his room, the room he’d grown up in, he immediately moved to his window to open it and get some fresh air. He wanted to try to clear his head, and the heat in his room, from being closed up all day, was stifling. He lifted the brass lock on the glass pane and was sliding it up when he heard his mom’s voice sounding more than a little distressed. He couldn’t see her, but he figured they must be out on the small patio off the master bedroom, which was directly below his room.
    He was just about to run downstairs to make sure that everything was okay when the words she was saying registered in his consciousness.
    “No, Frank. I forbid it. You are not going back full time. Dr. Corbin said that you need to retire and you are going to retire. There has to be another way. We’ll sell the house.”
    “Even if we sold the house, it wouldn’t pay off the second mortgage, much less a semester of tuition. I’m fine, Maggie. I’m strong. This is the only way.” His dad’s voice sounded resolute.
    From what Brian had observed over the years, most of the time, his dad backed down if his mom was really upset. But there were a few times when, no matter how upset his mom got, his dad had remained unmoved. If the tone he’d just heard was any indication, this was going to be one of those times.
    “She doesn’t have to go to Harvard. She can just go to a JC like Brian did. And we’ll figure something out with Brenden. Maybe he can get financial aid.”
    “No. If we made too much for Brittney to qualify then it will be the same story with Brenden. And Brit’s not going to a JC. She’s worked too hard. I’m going back to the shop. Full time.”
    Brian heard the metal legs of the patio chair scrape against the concrete slab and then the loud swoosh of the screen door that led into his parents’ room. He slumped into his desk chair, thinking that both his mom and dad had gone to bed, or at least were in their room, when he heard the muffled sound of his mom crying.
    Brian’s heart broke into a million pieces. His parents were good, hard-working people who’d been dealt a shitty hand by life. But they hadn’t folded. No. They’d sacrificed and worked themselves to the bone, no matter what hardships they’d had, all for their kids.
    There was no way that Brian was going to let the burden of his younger siblings’ tuition force his dad to come out of retirement. He didn’t know how, but he did know he’d find a way. If it meant forgoing his return to NYU and staying here to run the shop with his cousin, then so be it. He might have to get a second job to make ends meet, but he was young, healthy, and able. He couldn’t say the same for his parents.
    As much as he wanted to go downstairs and comfort his mom, Brian knew that’s not what she would want. Both of his parents were proud people, and the last thing they’d want to do would be to accept more of his help.
    He’d