I KISSED MY SISTER'S FIANCE

Chapter 3

Grief was a strange thing.

At first it arrived like a storm, violent and unforgiving, ripping through everything in its path.

Then it settled into something quieter and heavier, less like a storm and more like a shadow that followed you into every room, every moment, every breath.

Two weeks had passed since Isabella died.

The house was still full of flowers.

The lilies on the dining room table had begun to wilt, and the roses near the fireplace were already dying, their petals curling brown around the edges.

Every surface seemed to hold some reminder that people had come here to mourn my sister, as though flowers could fill the space she had left behind, as though condolences could make any of this hurt less.

The police had called it a suicide. A note had been found with her body, and everyone accepted the explanation.

I told myself I accepted it.

I had read the note so many times I knew parts of it by heart.

"Mom and Dad, I'm sorry for causing you pain."

"Lena, thank you for being the best sister I could have asked for."

"Adrian, thank you for loving me the way you did."

"I tried. I truly did."

"But I'm tired now."

Those words lived inside my head now, present when I woke up and present when I tried to sleep.

Believing the note was a choice I had made every single morning for two weeks.

Not because it gave me peace, but because the moment I stopped believing it, I would have to face a possibility that terrified me far more than losing her.

They never sounded like her. Because all I could think about was that night.

The dock.

The kiss.

The look on her face when she found us.

I broke her heart, and then she died, and the thought that had taken root inside me over the past two weeks refused to be pulled out no matter how hard I tried.

She killed herself because of me.

I hadn't gone back to my apartment.

I hadn't gone back to work.

Most days I barely left my room.

The world outside continued moving, but mine had stopped the moment Nathan called and told me she was gone.

A soft knock sounded at my bedroom door, and it opened before I could answer.

Claire stepped inside carrying a tray.

She had been my best friend since college and my roommate for the last three years, and somehow over the past two weeks she had quietly become the person holding my life together.

She brought food, handled the things I couldn't, and stayed long after everyone else went home.

"You should eat something," she said softly, setting the tray on my nightstand.

Soup. Toast. Tea.

I looked at it without any real interest.

She sat on the edge of the bed.

"They called again. Your office. They called your dad this time."

She gave me a moment before adding,

"They said to take as much time as you need."

A lump formed in my throat.

I loved my job. I loved my tiny office and my ridiculous coffee mug and my coworkers who argued about everything.

But all of that belonged to a different version of me, one who still had a sister.

Claire reached over and squeezed my hand, and I didn't answer, because right now I couldn't think beyond the fact that Isabella no longer existed.

Downstairs, voices drifted through the house.

Another person arriving with sympathy and sadness.

Neighbors, church members, old family friends, some who cried and some who hugged me and some who told stories about Isabella that I had never heard before. Everyone said the same things.

"She was such a beautiful soul."

"She's in a better place now."

"Time heals everything."

I had learned to nod. To say thank you.

To pretend those words carried weight. They didn't. Nothing did.

The funeral had been four days ago, and I still couldn't stop thinking about it.

The church had been packed, every pew filled, people lining the back walls.

I hadn't realized how many lives my sister had touched until I stood in that room and watched them all grieve her.

Her favorite white roses surrounded the casket. She would have laughed at that. She always said funerals used too many flowers.

My mother broke down twice during the service. The second time she reached for the casket and wept so hard that several people had to help my father hold her up.

And my father, a man I had never once seen cry, not when his own father died, not when he lost his business years ago, stood beside his eldest daughter for the last time with tears sliding silently down his face.

Something inside me shattered watching him.

I remembered looking toward the back of the church and finding Nathan standing there.

Still, quiet, his suit jacket wrinkled and his eyes carrying the kind of exhaustion that sleep couldn't touch.

Then there was Adrian, standing beside the casket, pale and motionless, looking like a man who had been buried alongside her.

I hadn't spoken to him. I couldn't.

Every time I looked at him I saw the dock, and every time I saw the dock I saw my sister's face.

Later that evening, Nathan appeared in my doorway carrying two grocery bags.

"You hiding again?" he asked gently.

I managed a small shrug.

He set the bags down and dropped into the chair beside my bed.

"Your dad sent me up."

He studied my face for a moment.

"You sleeping?"

"Yes."

I lied.

He didn't call out the lie. He simply looked at me with the patience of someone who had known me since childhood, through scraped knees and birthdays and heartbreaks and every significant moment in between.

"You don't have to talk," he said quietly. "I just didn't want you sitting up here alone."

Something tightened in my chest. I looked away before he could see it.

The room fell silent. Outside the window, the sky slowly darkened.

Another day ending.

Another day without Isabella. Nathan eventually went downstairs, and Claire fell asleep on the couch sometime after midnight, and the house finally went quiet.

I lay awake staring at the ceiling, not crying, feeling too hollowed out for tears.

My eyes drifted toward my nightstand where my phone sat dark and dead, exactly where I had left it two weeks ago.

Claire had mentioned it earlier, gently, the way she handled most things.

I had said nothing. She placed it back without pushing.

I stared at it now. Then, for reasons I couldn't explain, I reached for the charger.

A few minutes later the screen lit up for the first time in two weeks.

Notifications flooded in.

Missed calls, messages, emails.

I ignored them all and opened my photos instead.

Isabella filled the screen. Her laughing. Her making ridiculous faces. Her stealing my fries without apology.

A video of her singing badly in the car. Another of us dancing in the kitchen at two in the morning.

I smiled at the screen, and the smile broke into tears before I even realized I was crying.

I wiped my face and opened our messages, scrolling through years of conversations, through memes and birthday wishes and random complaints sent at odd hours.

Then I saw it.

"One unheard voicemail."

The name on the screen made my stomach drop.

"Bella"

The timestamp beneath it read two weeks ago, 11:47 p.m.

The night I saw my sister alive for the last time.

My hands began to tremble. I stared at the screen for a long moment, almost unable to press play.

Then I did.

Her voice filled the room.

"Lena… if you're hearing this, I couldn't reach you."

I stopped breathing.

"I saw you and Adrian tonight. I know I should be angry… but I can't be."

A sob caught silently in my throat.

"I forgive you. Tell Adrian I forgive him too."

A shaky breath followed, and then her voice continued, quieter now, more deliberate.

"I should have told him the truth a long time ago. I kept waiting for the right moment."

My heart pounded against my ribs.

"Tell Mom and Dad I love them."

Silence stretched across the recording. Then her voice returned, barely above a whisper.

"And Lena… if anything happens to me…"

She stopped. I could hear her breathing, unsteady and careful, as though she were listening for something.

"Don't let them say I—"

A loud crash cut through the recording.

A sharp gasp.

Then a sound I had never heard from my sister before.

Fear.

Then nothing.

The voicemail ended.

I sat completely still, the phone trembling in both hands.

The police had ruled my sister's death a suicide.

They had found a note. They had closed the case with the kind of certainty that left no room for questions.

But those were not the words of someone who had chosen to die.

Those were the words of someone who was afraid.

A cold chill moved through me, slow and absolute. Because in that moment, sitting alone in the dark with my sister's voice still echoing in the room, I understood something that changed everything.

Isabella hadn't left me a goodbye.

She had left me a warning.

And my sister never intended to die.