I Died So My Genius Brother Could Win
Juniper Marlow · Completed · 6.1k Words
Introduction
Me? I'm the kid who doesn't need to be seen.
The night before Nationals, I told my mom my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand. She said I was making trouble. Dad told me to take a painkiller and tough it out. Then they loaded up the car and drove two hundred miles to watch Soren skate.
They didn't come home until Sunday night. By then, I'd been dead for over a day.
I called her. Again and again. She had her phone on airplane mode.
Now I'm a ghost, drifting behind their car on the highway home. They're laughing, complaining I didn't even text Soren a congratulations.
I wonder what their faces will look like when they walk through that door.
Chapter 1
My brother Soren is a figure skating prodigy. Every dollar in this house, every hour, every ounce of attention — it all belongs to him.
And I'm the one who doesn't need to be seen.
Our fridge has always been split into two worlds. Soren's shelf is packed with organic beef and imported salmon. Mine has whatever discount cereal is about to expire. He gets a private physical therapist at two hundred dollars an hour. I wear Mom's hand-me-downs.
I've never brought any of this up. Nobody in this house wants to hear me complain.
Mom likes to say that a family blessed with a talent like Soren's should count it as a gift from God, and everyone else should step aside to make room.
The pain started on Thursday night.
At first it was just a dull ache around my belly button. I figured it was what I got for eating nothing but bargain-bin cereal three days in a row. I curled up on my old bed — the one with the busted springs — and tried to ride it out. There's no heating in the attic, so I pulled the blanket tight around me and waited for it to pass.
"Wren! Where did you put Soren's backup skates?" Mom's voice shot up from downstairs, mixed with the sound of a suitcase zipper being yanked open.
I pressed my hand against my stomach and dragged myself out of bed. My forehead was slick with cold sweat, and every step sent something twisting through my lower right side.
"Storage closet under the stairs."
I gripped the railing and inched my way down to the first floor. The living room was a mess — gear everywhere for Soren's trip to Nationals tomorrow. Soren, fifteen years old, was sprawled on the couch scrolling through his phone. His therapist had just left.
"You look awful. Don't get Soren sick — he's skating his short program tomorrow." Mom didn't even glance up. She was sliding his three-thousand-dollar custom skates into a velvet bag.
"Mom, my stomach really hurts." I leaned against the wall, my T-shirt soaked through with cold sweat. "I think I need to go to the ER."
Mom stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me. There was no worry in her eyes. Just irritation.
"The ER? Do you have any idea what that costs? Soren's choreographer just raised her rates again this month. Wren, you're seventeen. Can you please not make trouble right when your brother needs us the most?"
"No, Mom, this time it's different—"
I doubled over. My stomach heaved and I dry-heaved before I could stop it.
"That's enough." Dad walked in through the front door, car keys in hand, fresh from filling up the tank. He looked worn out. "Wren, listen to your mother. Stop trying to make everything about you. Tomorrow is the biggest day of your brother's life — he's going for a spot on the national team. Take a couple of painkillers and tough it out."
Soren looked up with a frown. "Can you seriously not do this right now?"
I looked at the three of them. All they could see was the gold medal and the ice. None of them noticed my white lips or my legs shaking under me.
Tomorrow was also my eighteenth birthday. In this family, that wasn't something worth mentioning.
Last month, the letter from the state art exhibition arrived at the house. I'd been selected. Mom tossed the envelope on top of Soren's gear pile, and nobody had opened it since.
I didn't say any of this out loud.
"Okay."
I clenched my jaw, turned around, and dragged myself back up to the attic, one step at a time.
"Good luck tomorrow, Soren."
"We're leaving first thing in the morning. Won't be back until Sunday night. There's frozen food in the freezer — figure it out yourself." Mom called this up from downstairs, and then the door slammed shut.
They didn't leave me a single dollar.
I curled up on the bed. The pain was zeroing in on my lower right side now, each wave sharper than the last. I fished out two expired painkillers, swallowed them dry, and closed my eyes in the dark.
Downstairs, the engine turned over. The car pulled out of the driveway, the sound fading until there was nothing left to hear.
The whole house was empty except for me. They wouldn't be back until Sunday night.
Just tough it out. It'll pass. That's what Dad said.
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
The Billionaire's Surrogate's Secret
“Who said that’s still fucking true? We stopped being just man and surrogate the first time our eyes met.” He walked towards me, boring into my eyes with those eyes of his. “I fucking want you, Vanessa.”
My heart stuttered.
This could not be real.
“But the rules—“
“I made them. I can destroy them. I already destroyed them when I kissed you.” He was dangerously close now, but all I kept getting was danger signals combined with the panic, alarm, lust and above all, the guilt.
It was killing me.
Vanessa Sterling who never liked men because of what her father did to her mother ended up having a drunken one night stand with a stranger and that might end up changing her life forever.
Rodri Darnell who doesn’t want to get married or have kids but is forced to give his father a grand child, decided to use a surrogate.
Vanessa Sterling was supposed to be an ordinary surrogate to Rodri Darnell of the Dolphin Emirates, but he fell in love with her.
Their only problem will be Vanessa's secret.
Faking It With My Worst Enemy On Ice
But on his birthday, everything falls apart when his girlfriend exposes Clare's most humiliating secret in front of the entire team.
Just when Clare is ready to disappear, Rhys Calloway, her worst enemy and the team's arrogant captain, pulls her into his arms and tells everyone she is his girlfriend.
She should have pushed him away, but she kissed him back instead.
Now Clare is locked into a two-month fake relationship with the most infuriating man she has ever met, trying to get over a stepbrother who never cared and survive a captain who makes her forget why she was supposed to hate him.
The problem is that Rhys kisses like he means every single second of it, and just when Clare starts to move on, Zane decides he wants her back.
One girl, two hockey players, and a heart that was never supposed to feel this much. Will she choose the stepbrother who broke her or the enemy who caught her when she fell?
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
Tango 2 the Alpha's Heart
My gaze snapped to his. He was smiling, causing my heart to skip a painful beat. Before I could respond, the music began, and my body instinctively reacted to the sweet melody.
I found myself molded to Lex's will, my feet irresistibly following the dance steps.
The crowd gasped as Lex pulled me into a more intimate position, his hands roaming over my body in a seductive manner.
The experience was both terrifying and magical, allowing me to feel every longing emotion through the dance.
I soon found myself lost in his arms.
When the music finally stopped, my arms were wrapped around his neck, his hands resting on my back, our noses almost touching. He gazed deeply into my eyes.
The ballroom fell silent.
Was he about to kiss me?
Lilly’s life was never easy; she lost her memory and family in a blazing fire. Angelica found and took her in—only to make her a slave to the household.
Years of torment and abuse left Lilly weak, vulnerable, and believing she was without a wolf, but that didn't mean that all hope was lost.
At night, in her dreams, he would patiently wait for her—the man who brought sunshine into her darkest moments.
They would dance the night away, but as dawn approached, he would vanish into the morning sun.
Lilly had given up hope of finding a mate, having a family, and leading a normal life.
But things are about to drastically change for her...
Secrets, lies, betrayal... and a baby on the way.
What if Lilly wasn't wolf-less? What if it was all a lie?
What if she had a living family? Would she stay and bond with them or make a run for freedom?
CHASING GHOSTS
Inked Adonis - Mafia Romance
Of me saying I want to climb him like a tree.
And he just. Texted. Back.
It's the dog's fault, really.
If this untrained Great Dane I'm walking had any manners at all, I never would've ended up here:
With my leash wrapped around the most gorgeous man I've ever seen.
Lucky for me, the guy is a good sport about it.
(Although his joke that “Dogs take after their owners” hits a little too close to home when Rufus starts humping his leg.)
He leaves me with his business card and a smile that makes my knees weak.
I'm still pinching myself as me and the bestie resume our walk.
“Methinks you had a little crush on him,” she accuses.
Not thinking and a little flustered by the whole experience, I reply, “I’d wrap my legs around his waist tighter than that leash.”
THAT'S when she reveals that she'd been recording my response.
THAT'S when she gives me the most devilish grin I've ever seen and says, “You're welcome.”
And THAT'S when she hands me my phone and reveals...
She sent the recording to him.
My heart is in my throat as those three little dots appear…
Then a text.
“PROVE IT.”
My Billionaire Husband's Secret
He was the CEO of the Blackwood Group — a man whose wealth and power eclipsed ninety-nine percent of the world.
He was gentle. Romantic. Attentive. I fell for him fast.
But a year into our marriage, I began to notice something — a pattern.
Lucas's sexual appetite was intense — he wanted me almost every night. Yet every single month, he arranged a solo trip to send me away. I told myself it was his way of spoiling me.
Then a message arrived from someone called Sweet An.
Do you really know your husband?
From that day on, my life filled with shadows.
I suspected my husband of having an affair.
When Lucas and I made love, something felt wrong — his body too large, too much, like something I couldn't explain.
I heard sounds during sex — animal sounds, like something feral had crawled into bed with us.
My best friend Mia said: "There are men sick enough to let dogs fuck their wives."
The family doctor, Daisy, told me: "You could never stay by Lucas's side forever. Your background doesn't make you worthy of being his wife. Do you understand?"
I went looking for whoever had been tearing my marriage apart. I fought to win my husband back.
But the deeper I searched, the larger the secret grew — something far darker hiding beneath this supposed betrayal.
Does Lucas truly love me?
And why, out of everyone in the world, did he choose to marry me?
The rejected white luna
Bloodright
Ashveil University is not what it looks like in the photographs. The students here carry something that shifts their eyes at the edges of anger. The northwest trees hold an attention that trees should not be able to hold. And the empty chair at the council table, the one nobody sits in, the one nobody explains, has been waiting three hundred years for one specific person to arrive.
Nobody told Adaline she was that person. They classified her as Dormant. A blank space in a file. Nothing.
She is the opposite of nothing.
Beneath the campus, three ancient entities are waking up. Every house in the pack world wants to control what runs in her blood. The boy sent to assess her has stopped being able to do his job. And the woman who has been three steps ahead of everyone since before Adaline was born is not a villain. She is a warning. She is what Adaline would have become if nobody had found her.
The suppression field holding everything together is failing. The clock is running. And the only way to stop what is coming requires Adaline to give up the thing she can least afford to lose.
She already knows her answer. She decided before anyone told her the full price.
Love's Deadly Equation
I was sent to her.
To watch her. To protect her. And, when the order comes… to kill her.
My name is Keegan Caffery. I’m the Carter Mafia’s best hitman. I don’t miss. I don’t fail.
At least, I didn’t use to.
I don’t know what it is about her that got to me first—her mouth, her mind, or the way she looks at me like I’m not what she should fear.
I’ve had a gun to her head since I walked into her life.
She knows it.
And she still doesn’t run.
She just watches me back like she’s studying a problem she refuses to call impossible.
She’s the one variable I can’t control.
And God help me… I don’t want to.
I have an order. I have loyalty. I have a trigger.
But every time I imagine it—
I can’t stand it.
Her or me. That’s the math.
It’s a deadly equation I don’t want to solve.
⬥ Maisie ⬥
I’m not ordinary. I stopped pretending long ago.
My name is Maisie Seo. IQ 145. Clinical genius.
Which sounds impressive until you realize what it actually means: I don’t fit anywhere people expect me to.
I see patterns everywhere. Outcomes before they happen. People like equations I’ve already solved.
It gets lonely in a world you’ve already figured out.
So I dull myself down. Smoke the edges off. Pretend, badly, to be the kind of normal that lets people stay.
Then he walked in.
I knew what he was immediately. Dangerous. Intentional. Wrong in all the right ways.
I should be afraid of him.
I keep waiting for that to kick in.
Instead, I’m fascinated.
Because for the first time in my life… I’ve found something I can’t solve.
He is my deadly equation.
THE CHRONO WITCH: BENDING TIME TO SAVE HIM
What she wasn't ready for was finding out Zayn Ponteris had been dead the entire time.
The grief shatters something inside her. And before anyone can stop it, Kayla does something no sorceress should be able to do—she travels back in time.
Suddenly she's fifteen again, standing at their end of year formal, with Zayn alive and right in front of her, completely unaware that in another timeline she watched his parents mourn him.
This time, Kayla is determined to save him. Except nothing goes according to plan.
Zayn has a girlfriend. And the closer Kayla gets to changing his fate, the more she realizes her powers are bigger and more dangerous than she ever imagined.
The supernatural world is closing in. The clock is running out. And the one person standing between Kayla and everything hunting her is the same boy she keeps bending time to protect.
Kayla has no idea what's in store for her.
Because when you bend time, fate bends back.
