I KISSED MY SISTER'S FIANCE

Chapter 2

"No." The word slipped from my lips before I could stop it.

On the other end of the line, Nathan said nothing.

I sat perfectly still, my phone pressed against my ear, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.

"No," I said again, shaking my head even though he couldn't see me.

"That's not funny."

"It's not a joke, Lena."

The room suddenly felt too small, too quiet.

I had seen Isabella less than twelve hours ago.

She had been smiling at dinner, laughing, planning her wedding. People didn't simply stop existing overnight.

"You're lying," I whispered.

I wasn't speaking to Nathan anymore. I was speaking to the universe, to God, to anyone who might take those words back.

"I wish I was."

The words seemed to hang in the air between us. I could hear Nathan breathing.

I could hear my own.

I could hear my heart trying to break through my ribs.

"How?" I finally asked.

A pause followed. "I can't talk about that right now."

"Nathan..."

He sighed softly.

"I was there this morning."

I sat up straighter.

"What do you mean?"

"I was one of the officers who responded to the scene."

The words didn't make sense at first, and then they did.

Nathan wasn't just my childhood friend. He was Detective Nathan Cole.

"Oh." That was all I could manage.

"I had to inform your parents,"

he said quietly.

"Your dad tried calling you, but your phone wasn't reachable.

When he couldn't get through, I told him I'd contact you." I glanced at my phone.

At some point during the night, my phone must have died. I didn't even remember plugging it in before I fell asleep.

A cold shiver slid down my spine.

"Where are you?" he asked gently.

"Home."

"I'm coming to get you."

"No."

"You shouldn't be alone."

"I said no." The words came out sharper than I intended. A long silence followed, and then his voice softened.

"Lena."

I covered my mouth with my hand.

I couldn't breathe properly, because all I could picture was my sister's face.

Her smile at dinner.

The way she had wrapped her arms around me and said she had missed me.

A sob escaped my throat, then another.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," he said quietly, and the call ended.

I didn't lower the phone.

I just sat there while Nathan's words echoed through the apartment.

The city outside my window had already begun to wake. Somewhere below, a car horn sounded.

A door slammed. Someone laughed. How strange. The world was still moving, and mine had just ended.

My gaze drifted toward the photograph on my dresser. The same one from three weeks ago.

Isabella's smile.

Adrian's hand around hers.

The sunlight caught in the diamond. I couldn't breathe.

I slid off the bed onto the floor, because standing suddenly felt impossible.

This wasn't real.

It couldn't be. I had seen her last night. I had heard her laugh. I had hugged her at dinner.

People didn't simply disappear. Not Isabella. Never Isabella.

A knock sounded at my door. I didn't move. Another knock, and then Nathan's voice.

"Elena. Open the door."

I stared at the wall. A few seconds passed before his next knock came, softer this time.

"Lena." Something in his voice broke me.

I somehow got to my feet and walked to the door.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then I whispered,

"Tell me you're wrong."

Pain flashed across his face.

"Oh, Lena."

That was all it took.

The tears came instantly.

I covered my mouth, but a sob escaped anyway, and Nathan stepped forward and pulled me into his arms.

I hadn't cried like this since I was a child.

I clung to him because I had nothing else to hold onto.

"It's not true," I said against his chest. "It's not."

His hand rested gently against my hair.

He didn't try to argue or offer false comfort. He simply held me while my world fell apart.

After a long while, I pulled away. My face felt numb.

"When?" I whispered.

He looked at me carefully.

"They found her this morning."

The word found settled heavily inside my chest.

Not she died. Not she passed away. Found her. I swallowed slowly.

"Found?"

He nodded once, and I knew that look.

The carefulness.

The measured words.

The detective in him was trying to protect me. A terrible feeling stirred low in my stomach.

"You were there." It wasn't a question.

He hesitated, then nodded again.

"You saw her?"

"Yes."

I looked away, because I couldn't bear to imagine it.

My sister, alone somewhere, while strangers stood around her. A fresh wave of grief crashed through me.

"My parents?" I managed.

"I told them I would come get you."

I nodded slowly. Everything felt distant, as though I were moving underwater.

Nathan glanced toward my bedroom.

"Do you need a few minutes?"

I almost laughed. A few minutes.

How much time did someone need after finding out their sister was dead? An hour? A year? A lifetime?

"I don't know," I said quietly, and he didn't answer, because neither of us did.

I grabbed my coat with trembling hands and didn't remember putting on my shoes.

A few moments later, we were in his car.

The drive felt endless.

The city looked different somehow, every corner carrying something of her.

The bakery Isabella loved.

The bookstore where we used to spend rainy afternoons.

The traffic light where she once made me stop the car because she had spotted a stray kitten on the curb.

Everything reminded me of her.

"Nathan?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.

"Yeah?"

I swallowed.

"Do you remember when Bella broke her arm?"

A small smile touched his face.

"She fell out of the tree behind your house."

"She was trying to rescue my kite."

A shaky laugh escaped me.

"I cried more than she did. I thought she was dying, and I was only eight."

I looked back out the window.

"I remember sitting beside her hospital bed while she smiled at me through the cast, telling me she was fine, promising she'd always protect me."

My throat tightened.

"She hated seeing me cry."

Nathan's hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel, but he didn't interrupt.

"When I was ten, I got lost at the county fair. Bright lights, too many people, pure panic. And Bella found me. She was crying harder than I was."

I smiled weakly through my tears.

"She hugged me and said she'd never let anything happen to me." My voice broke on the last word.

A terrible silence filled the car, and then I whispered, "Who was protecting her?"

The question hung between us.

Nathan had no answer. Maybe because there wasn't one.

Outside the window, familiar streets began to appear. I suddenly didn't want to go home, because once I stepped inside, it would become real.

There would be tears and questions and an empty place where my sister should have been.

My breathing became uneven, and Nathan noticed immediately. He pulled the car to the side of the road.

"Hey." He looked at me steadily.

"You don't have to do this all at once."

A tear slid down my cheek.

"I don't know how."

He held my gaze for a long moment.

"You don't have to know how.

You just have to take the next breath."

I closed my eyes.

And for the first time since his phone call, I took one. Then another. Then another.

A few minutes later, Nathan started the car again, and neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive.

When my parents' house finally came into view, my heart broke all over again.

Every light inside was burning against the pale morning sky. Cars lined the curb.

I recognized my aunt's sedan and my uncle's truck. News had traveled fast. Too fast.

I couldn't breathe.

"Nathan..." My voice shook.

"I can't do this."

He looked at me, and right now he wasn't looking at me like an officer.

He was looking at me like the boy who had known me since I was six years old.

"You don't have to be strong today, Lena."

The words broke something inside me.

"What if I walk in there and it becomes real?"

His expression softened.

"I think it already is."

I hated him for being right.

The quiet stretched between us before he said gently, "Your parents need you."

A fresh wave of pain moved through me.

My mother. My father. I hadn't even thought about what this must be doing to them.

I opened the door.

The cold morning air hit my face, and for one terrible second I considered getting back into the car and telling Nathan to drive somewhere far away, somewhere none of this had happened.

But grief doesn't wait for permission, and neither does reality. I stepped out.

Nathan came around the car and stopped beside me. Neither of us spoke as we walked up the path.

I had walked this path thousands of times, after school, on birthdays, on Christmas mornings, on the day I left for college, and every single time Isabella had been waiting somewhere inside.

I reached the front door. My hand trembled.

I couldn't open it. Nathan gently placed his hand over mine.

"You don't have to go in alone."

I looked at him, and for the first time that morning I realized he looked tired, not physically, but heartbroken, as if this loss belonged to him too.

Maybe it did. He had grown up with us. Isabella had been family to him long before he became a detective.

I swallowed hard and turned the handle.

The sound that met me nearly brought me to my knees.

My mother was crying, not quietly, not softly, but sobbing.

The kind of grief that comes from losing a piece of yourself. I had never heard a sound so broken.

I stood frozen in the doorway until my father looked up, and I saw it all at once, the devastation, the disbelief, the unbearable truth in his eyes.

"Elena..."

His voice cracked, and that was all it took. I crossed the room in seconds.

My father pulled me into his arms just as my mother reached us, and suddenly we were all holding onto each other as though letting go meant falling apart completely.

I buried my face in my father's shoulder and wept.

I don't know how long we stood there.

Minutes.

Maybe longer.

Eventually, my father loosened his hold on me, and my mother took my face in both hands.

She looked terrible.

Her eyes were swollen and red, and her hands trembled against my cheeks.

I had never seen my mother look old before.

Now she looked as though she had aged twenty years overnight.

"Mom..." My voice broke.

A sob escaped her.

"Oh, my girls."

She pulled me into another hug.

I held onto her because I didn't know what else to do.

After a while, she pulled away and wiped at her tears.

"She was here last night."

I frowned.

"What?"

"After dinner." My mother's voice shook. "She came by for a little while."

I stared at her.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

She swallowed hard.

"She looked upset."

My heart tightened.

"I asked her what was wrong, but she just smiled and said she was tired."

That sounded exactly like Isabella.

She had always smiled when she didn't want people worrying about her.

"She sat with me in the kitchen for a while."

A tear slid down my mother's cheek.

"Then she asked if I'd heard from you."

I froze.

"Me?"

My mother nodded.

"I told her no."

Silence filled the room.

"She said she'd tried calling you more than once."

I felt my stomach drop.

"I asked if everything was alright." My mother's voice cracked. "She just said she needed to talk to you."

I couldn't breathe.

"About what?"

"I don't know."

Another tear rolled down my mother's cheek.

"Before she left, I asked if she wanted me to call Adrian."

My mother shook her head slowly.

"She said no."

The room suddenly felt colder.

"She didn't want to speak to him?"

"No."

Silence settled between us.

Then my mother whispered,

"I almost asked her to stay."

Her voice broke completely.

"But I thought she just needed some rest."

I wrapped my arms around her again.

"You couldn't have known."

"But mothers are supposed to know."

I had no answer for that.

Because at that moment, I couldn't stop thinking about one thing.

She had wanted to talk to me.

And I had never answered the phone.

I wiped at my face and took a shaky breath.

The room had gone strangely quiet.

Then I noticed something.

No one had said how she died.

A cold feeling settled in my stomach.

I looked at my father. "What happened to her?"

The question seemed to freeze the room.

My father looked away.

My mother's sobs softened.

And Nathan's expression changed for the briefest second.

The look of a man choosing his words carefully.

"Not now, Lena," he said quietly.

Silence followed.

Heavy. Wrong.

And for the first time that morning, beneath the grief, I felt something else.

Fear.

I looked around the room, and that was when I saw him.

Adrian.

I almost didn't recognize him.

He looked as though he had aged ten years overnight. His eyes were red, his tie hanging loose around his neck, and he was staring at nothing.

Then he looked at me, and the room seemed to stop. The dock. The kiss. Isabella's tears.

Everything came rushing back at once, and I couldn't breathe. His expression shifted through guilt and shock and pain, all of it crossing his face in the space of a single second.

Neither of us spoke. Neither of us could.

A terrible thought settled inside me.

She had wanted to talk to me.

That's why she called. And I had never answered. If I had... would my sister still be alive?