I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 13
Raina withdrew behind the food stand, embarrassed by how much Coco’s message had affected her. Theo had never promised her anything. He had approached the Smiths intending to marry Coco, and a few lunches could not erase that reality. Still, jealousy stung with an intimacy she had not given it permission to possess.
Theo followed, but before he reached her, Coco swept into the site clutching her bandaged arm. Her face was pale from genuine pain and carefully arranged distress. “Theo, I remembered,” she announced. “I remembered the accident and how I was hurt saving you.”
The workers fell quiet. Raina glanced from Coco’s bandage to Theo and understood at last that his questions about her scar were connected to the marriage proposal. He had not been visiting merely because he enjoyed her company; he had been testing whether she was someone from his past.
Coco peeled back enough gauze to reveal the inflamed wound. Its shape imitated Raina’s scar with disturbing precision. “The doctors treated it years ago, but it never healed properly,” she lied. Fresh blood gave the mark drama, though it also betrayed how recently it had been made.
Theo’s anger cooled into something more dangerous. “Why was it bandaged only yesterday?” he asked. Coco claimed an old injury had reopened. Her story stumbled over dates, and every correction made Raina more uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to explain this in front of me,” Raina said. She tried to return to the customers, but Theo blocked her path without touching her. “You deserve the explanation more than anyone.”
He revealed that a girl had saved him from a terrible accident when they were children. He had searched for her for years, tracing the Smith name without realizing two daughters had exchanged families. His original proposal to Coco had been built on that mistake.
Raina absorbed the confession in silence. The flashes behind her eyes returned: smoke filling a corridor, a boy coughing beside shattered glass, and her own arm burning as she dragged him toward daylight. She could not see his grown face within the memory, but his voice felt painfully familiar.
Coco noticed recognition stirring and attacked before it could settle. “Raina always copies me,” she declared. “She heard about the accident and decided my scar was another identity she could steal.” The accusation was absurd, yet it struck Raina’s deepest wound.
“My scar is in a hospital photograph taken years ago,” Raina replied. Coco insisted the date could be forged by the Lincolns. Her contempt for them drew Joshua forward, but Noah caught his brother’s arm. Public violence would only distract from the lie unraveling before them.
Theo asked Coco for one detail no report contained. “What did you say to me when I wanted to close my eyes?” She froze. Raina, without understanding why, heard herself whisper, “Pain is only the body shouting. We don’t have to listen.”
The sentence emptied the air from Theo’s lungs. It was the phrase he had carried through every nightmare, the voice that kept him conscious until help arrived. Raina covered her mouth, frightened by the memory that had surfaced whole.
Coco recovered with a brittle laugh. “Mom must have told her. Raina saw the photograph and planned this.” Theo asked how Mrs. Smith could repeat words he had never shared with anyone. Coco had no answer.
Raina looked at Theo, overwhelmed by a history she had forgotten and a future others seemed eager to decide for her. “Even if I was that girl, you don’t owe me a marriage,” she said. “Saving someone isn’t a contract.”
Her refusal made Theo more certain. The child who rescued him had demanded nothing, and the woman before him wanted no reward. Coco, by contrast, had accepted a proposal based on another person’s sacrifice.
“This was never only about debt,” he said. The words were meant for Raina, but the crowd heard them. “I came here for proof and kept returning because I wanted to see you.” Heat rushed into her face as her brothers collectively stiffened.
Coco’s fear became fury. She tore the gauze back over her wound and accused Theo of humiliating her for a street vendor. The insult erased the last trace of patience from Noah’s expression. “That street vendor is my sister. Speak to her with respect.”
Theo told Coco any discussion of marriage was suspended until the scar and hospital records were independently examined. She heard the unspoken ending: once examined, her deception would be obvious. Desperation made her eyes flick toward the hot serving pots.
Raina turned to calm a customer, leaving her back exposed. Coco’s hand closed around the edge of a heavy pot as though she meant to move it. Instead, she tipped it toward Raina with a sharp, deliberate shove.
Theo saw the metal container begin to fall. He lunged between them as boiling food surged over the edge, but Raina was already turning toward the sound. In the split second before impact, neither knew whose body would take the burn.
