Dear Lily. There’s no easy way to write this.

I took a deep breath, gripping the letter so tightly that the edges crumpled. Eric had never been the kind of brother to pour out his feelings. He barely spoke in anything deeper than casual conversation. What could he possibly have to say now, after he was gone?

The letter continued:

I’ve spent my whole life keeping a secret. And I think you always knew, in some way, that something was wrong. I wasn’t the brother you deserved, and I wasn’t the son Mom and Dad wanted. There was a reason for that.

I stopped reading. My heart pounded so loudly in my ears that I almost couldn’t hear my own thoughts. I forced myself to go on.

I found out when I was sixteen. Mom and Dad told me one night when they thought I was old enough to handle it. The truth is, Lily… I’m not really your brother.

I gasped. My hands shook as I reread the sentence, convinced I had misunderstood.

We don’t share blood. I was adopted when I was a baby. They never told you because they didn’t want you to see me as anything other than your real brother. But I always knew I didn’t belong. I felt it in the way Dad looked at me. In the way Mom never quite knew how to comfort me. And I guess that’s why I was the way I was with you. Distant. Afraid to be too close. Because I always had this fear that one day you’d look at me and see what they saw—a stranger.

I closed my eyes, my mind racing back to all those years we spent under the same roof. All the odd moments suddenly clicked into place. The way my parents had always treated Eric differently, like something fragile they weren’t sure how to hold. The way my father’s patience wore thin with him faster than it ever did with me. The way my mother rarely spoke about the day he was born.

I’m sorry for the way I was. But I hope you know that, in my own way, I loved you. You were the only real family I ever had. And if nothing else, I wanted you to know the truth. Not from them. From me.

Eric.

I sat there, staring at the words, feeling like the ground had been pulled from under me.

I had lost my brother—but had I ever truly known him? Had I ever really seen him for who he was? He must have felt so alone, even when he stood beside us. No wonder he kept his distance. No wonder he never said “I love you” out loud.

A lump formed in my throat as I thought back to his presence at my graduation, his quiet visits when I was sick. He had never been able to say the words, but he had always shown them.

I had to know more.

I drove back to my parents’ house, gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. My mother answered the door, her face pale, as if she had been expecting me.

“You knew,” I said, holding up the letter. “You knew and never told me.”

She sighed, stepping aside. My father was already sitting in his chair, staring at the TV but not watching it.

“We did what we thought was best,” she said quietly. “We didn’t want you to treat him differently. We wanted him to feel like he belonged.”

“But he didn’t,” I snapped. “You made sure of that.”

Dad finally turned to look at me. “We took him in because we thought it was the right thing to do. But it was never easy. He wasn’t… like you, Lily. He always felt separate.”

“Because you made him feel that way!” My voice broke. “Did you ever tell him you loved him? Did you ever make him feel like he was truly part of this family?”

Silence.

I shook my head, feeling tears sting my eyes. “He spent his whole life feeling like an outsider. And you let him.”

My mother wiped at her eyes, but I didn’t wait for another excuse. I turned and left, slamming the door behind me.

That night, I sat with Eric’s letter, reading it over and over.

I thought about the years we had spent together, the quiet moments where he had, in his own way, shown he cared. And I made a decision.

The next day, I went to Laura. “Tell me everything about him,” I said. “Everything I never got to know.”

And she did.

For the first time, I truly met my brother.

In the end, I learned something from him—family isn’t about blood. It’s about the love we choose to give. And though I can’t tell him now, I can still carry that love forward.

If you’ve ever lost someone, don’t wait until it’s too late to truly know them. Share this story. Maybe it will help someone say the words they need to say before it’s too late.