I KISSED MY SISTER'S FIANCE

Chapter 4

I didn't sleep.

I lay in bed with my phone clutched against my chest, listening to Isabella's voicemail over and over again until I could recite every word from memory.

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

"I forgive you."

"I should have told him the truth a long time ago."

"If anything happens to me…"

Then the crash. Then the gasp. Then silence.

Each time I listened, the same cold certainty settled deeper inside me.

Bella hadn't sounded tired.

She hadn't sounded like someone saying goodbye.

She had sounded afraid.

At some point the tears stopped coming, and I simply stared at the dark ceiling with my sister's voice echoing inside my head.

I don't remember falling asleep.

I only remember waking up to sunlight pouring through the curtains, and for a few seconds I forgot everything.

Then I looked at the phone in my hand and remembered the voicemail.

I sat up so quickly my head spun.

I opened the app and froze.

Nothing.

I blinked and looked again.

No new voicemail. No saved messages.

No unread messages.

A strange feeling crept into my chest.

I refreshed the page and checked again, and then again, before searching our messages, thinking maybe I had imagined where I'd seen it.

Still nothing.

My breathing grew shallow.

"No…"

I opened the call history.

Nothing.

I searched every folder and menu I could think of.

Same thing.

"No."

I was already out of bed, the blankets tangling around my legs as I stumbled toward the door.

"No, no, no…"

I knew what I had heard.

I had spent half the night listening to it, and my hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone as I rushed out of my room.

"Claire."

No answer.

"Claire!"

I practically ran downstairs.

She looked up from the kitchen table, startled, still wearing one of my old sweatshirts with her dark hair tied into a messy bun.

"Elena?"

I shoved the phone toward her.

"It's gone."

She frowned.

"What is?"

"The voicemail."

"What voicemail?"

"The one from Bella. The one from last night. I listened to it. She called me the night she died. She left me a message."

Claire stared at me, and I could already see concern creeping into her eyes.

"Elena…"

"It was there."

My voice shook.

"I listened to it. She said she forgave me. She said if anything happened to her—"

"Slow down."

"I'm not making this up."

"I didn't say you were."

"Then help me find it."

She stood and gently took the phone from my hand, searching through the voicemail, call history, messages, and deleted files while I watched.

The silence in the kitchen became unbearable.

Finally she looked up.

"There's nothing here."

"It was there."

"I know you think it was."

"I don't think it was. It was."

My voice came out louder than I intended, but Claire didn't flinch.

She simply looked at me with an expression that made my chest hurt.

Pity.

Worry.

The kind of look people gave someone who was falling apart.

"You haven't been sleeping," she said softly.

"I know what I heard."

"You've been through something horrible."

"I know what I heard!" My voice cracked, and the kitchen fell silent.

A few seconds later, footsteps sounded behind us. My parents had come in, and my mother looked between us.

"What's wrong?"

Claire hesitated, so I answered first.

"Isabella left me a voicemail."

Silence.

"What?" my father asked.

"The night she died. I listened to it last night."

My mother's face turned pale.

"What did she say?"

I swallowed hard.

"She said she forgave me."

Tears instantly filled my mother's eyes.

"And she said…" I stopped. "She said if anything happened to her…"

Nobody spoke.

"Then the message disappeared."

The room remained quiet.

I looked at each of them, wanting someone to say it, wanting someone to tell me I wasn't crazy.

Instead my father stepped forward.

"Sweetheart…"

I hated that tone.

The gentle one.

The one people used when they thought you might break.

"It was real," I whispered.

My mother crossed the room and took my hand.

"Maybe you had a dream."

"No."

"You've barely slept."

"No."

"You're grieving, honey."

"I know the difference between a dream and a voicemail."

A tear slipped down my cheek.

"I heard her."

No one answered, and somehow that hurt more than if they had argued, because I could see it on their faces.

They were worried about me.

Not the voicemail.

Me.

A knock sounded at the front door, and a few moments later it opened.

Nathan stepped inside, took one look at the room, and frowned.

"What happened?"

No one answered until Claire finally spoke.

"Elena thinks Bella left her a voicemail."

My stomach twisted.

Thinks.

Nathan looked at me, and I stepped toward him immediately.

"It wasn't a dream."

"I didn't say it was."

"She left me a message. She said if anything happened to her."

His expression changed, just slightly. I saw it.

"Can I see your phone?" he asked gently.

I handed it to him. He searched quietly, then looked up.

"There isn't a voicemail here."

"I know."

"What exactly did it say?"

I repeated every word, every sentence, every pause, every breath, even the crash.

When I finished, the room was completely silent.

Nathan gave the phone back.

"You remember all of that?"

I nodded.

"Every word."

He looked at me for a long moment, then said carefully,

"Lena… grief does strange things sometimes."

I stared at him.

"I know that."

"You've been under an unimaginable amount of stress."

I couldn't breathe.

"You don't believe me."

"I believe that you believe you heard it."

I stared at him, waiting for him to laugh and say he was joking. He didn't.

"Nathan, you know me."

"I do."

"Then you know I wouldn't make something like this up."

A shadow crossed his face.

"I know you've been carrying around enough guilt to crush anyone."

I shook my head.

"No. Don't do that."

"Lena—"

"Don't look at me like I'm broken."

Nobody said anything. I turned to my mother.

"Mom, tell him."

She looked devastated.

"Honey…"

"You know Bella. You know she wouldn't say something like that unless she meant it."

A tear slipped down her cheek.

"I don't know what to think."

The words hurt more than they should have. I looked at my father next, but he wouldn't even meet my eyes.

Something inside me cracked.

"I heard her," I whispered.

No one answered, and I suddenly felt very alone.

My sister was gone. The voicemail was gone.

And now it felt like I was losing the only thing I had left of her too.

I remembered lying awake all night replaying her voice over and over because I had been terrified I might forget it someday.

I remembered pressing the phone to my ear just to hear her say my name one more time.

I tried to remember every detail of it, the slight tremble in her voice, the way she paused before speaking again, the faint sound of wind in the background.

I repeated the words silently in my head, afraid that even one forgotten detail might mean losing the last piece of her all over again.

Now there was nothing.

No recording.

No proof.

Only my memory.

A terrible thought crept into my mind.

What if I did forget?

What if, months from now, I couldn't remember the exact sound of her voice?

What if this was the last thing she ever tried to tell me, and I failed her again?

Fresh tears burned my eyes, and I wrapped my arms around myself because suddenly I couldn't stop shaking.

"It was her voice," I said again, softer this time.

The silence that followed felt unbearable.

I took a step back.

"Nathan…"

"I'm not calling you a liar."

"But you think I imagined it."

He said nothing, and that was answer enough.

I looked around the room.

Claire. My mother. My father. Nathan.

They all looked at me with quiet concern.

I suddenly couldn't stand being in the room anymore.

Without a word, I turned and walked upstairs.

I heard someone call my name.

I ignored them.

I closed my bedroom door, locked it, and sank onto the edge of my bed.

The house was quiet again.

I looked at the empty voicemail screen.

At the proof that no longer existed.

I sat motionless, the phone trembling in my hands.

Maybe I was exhausted. Maybe grief had finally broken something inside me. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing.

But then I closed my eyes and heard her voice again.

"If anything happens to me…"

My chest tightened.

I opened my eyes and stared at the dark screen, because no matter how many times I tried to convince myself otherwise, one terrible thought refused to leave me.

I had heard my sister say those words.

And now I was the only person in the world who knew she had said them.