Free What I Did for Love by Tessa Dane Page B

heaven is listening.” He grinned again, but this time there was the sadness over twopeople in heaven who would for sure be listening. I just hoped our parents were not sad for us, though I did not see how they could
not
be sad while we were all apart like this. I missed my parents so much, and I believed in my heart that they missed us too.
    As we left the restaurant, murmurs of “Good-night, Monsieur Cooper, Mademoiselle,” accompanied us out the door of the restaurant and into the waiting car. We were at my building within ten minutes. I kissed my brother several times, punctuating his cheeks with “good-night,” “I love you, Bredon,” and his “Love you too, Baby Sister” and a parting smile.
    Once in my apartment I switched on the “do not disturb” switch, a little orange light that sat under a small flap by the front door where only Marilisa knew to look. I wanted to cry, to scream, feeling pain for Bredon, feeling my head pounding in fear for my brother, and a loss of what I thought would have been the most fantastic love.
    My needs had to be put aside now. Rand could no longer be my preoccupation. I had thoughts to think, plans to make, to help Bredon despite his determined refusal of my help. Outwardly, the best I could do for him was to love him and be present for him. But I could also make secret plans, to help him financially. I was determined, however I could manage it, whatever it required, that I was not going to let my brother go under.
    Bredon knew all the significant people in the financial world. But he did not know all of them personally, and there were still, thankfully, many ethical financiers. Among the best of these were the parents of my friend and classmate Dina. Her parents were financial wizards in their own right, an investment team, and they could be trusted to keep the confidences that financial advisors were supposed to keep. I knew instinctively that I could plan with them to hide investments in Bredon’s venture under dummy names.
    I thought of them because of the way we had met. By the timeour college winter break had started this past December, Dina had been cut off by her friends. She had been part of a fashion-conscious, status conscious clique; had we been in high school, her group would be called “the mean girls.” After their break with her, they treated Dina as a pariah, and it was all because of a boy whom I thought was worthless and horrid. He had been the boyfriend of that group’s “leader,” a viper of a girl who probably found him to be her perfect mate. My parents had known that boy’s family, and I remembered how my parents had exchanged glances of distaste when they were mentioned in a conversation.
    The semester had officially ended the day before, giving us a free ten days before Christmas. We would not return to school until late in January. Women of the various class years were milling about in front of the main hall of the College and spilling through the iron gates, all of us leaving for the long holidays. Dina stood there in despair as her friends said their good-byes to each other, walking past her and looking the other way, going to their waiting families, friends, cars, taxis. Her frantic sense of loss and abandonment struck a too-familiar chord in me, and I went to stand next to her.
    She was surprised but grateful to have one classmate beside her, even though we had not really been friends during the semester. The women in her group socialized only with each other. Being close friends with someone outside their group was seen as contemptible betrayal. I found their attitudes and exclusivity appalling, and undoubtedly they regarded me and Robin as hopeless and beyond help. Even though Bredon was considered one of the most “eligible” men in the city, I was dismissed by them, I think, as an aberration, yet another unfortunate relative in an important family. They seemed oblivious to the known bond I shared with Bredon, and they certainly