CHAPTER 002
1334 Words
꧁ Callista
༺༺༒༻༻
My mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
Nothing came out.
I just stood there staring at her — Isolde, in the flesh, on my doorstep — and my brain simply refused to produce a single coherent word.
Three years.
Three years she had been gone, vanished so completely that there were moments I had almost convinced myself she wasn't real, that she was just a bad dream the universe had eventually gotten tired of sending.
And now here she was, standing in front of me like she had simply stepped out for the afternoon.
The girl whose presence had ruined my childhood. Whose absence had given me the closest thing to peace I had ever known.
What was she doing here?
Why was she here, in my home, on my doorstep, smiling at me like that?
Isolde tilted her head slowly, her smile never wavering.
"Sister." Her voice was soft, almost playful. "Don't be rude now. We haven't seen each other in three years and this is the welcome I get? Not even a hello?" She gestured lightly toward the inside of the house. "Aren't you going to let me in?"
I opened my mouth… I actually had something forming this time, words lining up finally…
"Baby, who is it?"
Stellan's voice came from somewhere behind me and my heart lurched. I turned instinctively, and I watched his face.
I watched the exact moment he saw her.
I watched as his eyes widened in shock and that shock transformed into absolute joy in less than a second.
"Oh God." The words came out of him like something he couldn't hold. "Oh my God…Isolde…"
He crossed the space between them in three strides and pulled her into his arms and I stood there in my own doorway and watched my husband swing another woman off her feet. Watched him bury his face in her hair. Watched him hold her the way you hold something you were terrified you had lost forever.
My heart broke so quietly I almost didn't notice it happening.
I had known, of course.
I had always known on some level that Stellan had loved Isolde first — had courted her shamelessly when he moved in next door, had spent months lavishing her with attention and gifts and the full force of a man who wanted something badly. He had been completely, unashamedly obsessed with her.
And when Isolde had her accident and disappeared it had broken something in him that I had watched him carry quietly for months before he finally turned and noticed me standing there.
Eventually he had healed. Eventually he turned and saw me.
I had told myself that was enough. I had told myself many, many times.
"Where have you been?" Stellan pulled back just enough to cup Isolde's face in both hands, his eyes scanning her like he was checking for damage. His voice cracked slightly. ""Do you have any idea what these three years have been like? I looked for you. Do you know that? I actually looked for you — I made calls, I had people ask around, and nobody knew anything." His thumbs moved across her cheekbones. "I missed you every single day. Every single morning I woke up, and you were the first thought I had, and it was like losing you all over again. Every single second, Isolde. I missed you so terribly. Why would you leave like that? Why would you just disappear without a single word and leave me here wondering if you were even still alive?"
I was three feet away.
I stood there and listened to my husband say all of that and I kept my face very, very still.
Isolde reached up and covered his hands with hers, her eyes soft and warm in a way I had never once seen her direct at me.
"I missed you too," she said quietly. "Every single day, I missed you too. But I'm back now, Stellan." She smiled up at him — slow and certain, like someone settling back into a seat that had always been theirs. "Isn't that what matters? I'm back now and everything is going to go back to the way it should be. Everything is going to be fine."
I kept my breathing even. I kept my expression neutral. I had years of practice at both.
Then Isolde looked at me.
Her eyes moved from Stellan's face to mine and the warmth in here eyes dialed back a little.
"It really has been so long, Sister," she said gently. "And look at you — you've been busy, haven't you? Playing house, wearing the ring, filling all the spaces I left behind." She tilted her head. "I have to admit, I didn't expect you to go quite this far with it. But I suppose when someone hands you an opportunity you take it, right?" Her eyes flicked briefly to Stellan then back to me. "The thing is though — Stellan's heart has always belonged to me. From the very beginning, it has always been mine. You and I both know that you were never really his wife in the way that matters. You were a placeholder, Callista. A warm body filling a space that was always going to be mine the moment I came back. And now that I'm here—" she spread her hands lightly, almost apologetically, "—you won't need to keep doing that anymore. You can rest."
I blinked.
I turned to Stellan.
I waited for him to say something. To laugh it off, to frown, to do something that made it clear that his wife was not a placeholder in her own home. That there were boundaries. That there was a line.
He said nothing.
He was still looking at Isolde.
That silence told me everything I needed to know, and I felt the ground shift slightly under my feet, a quiet, sickening tilt that I had to breathe through carefully.
I straightened.
I took one step toward Isolde and looked at her directly, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.
"I am genuinely glad you are alive and that you are okay," I said. "I mean that. But let me be very clear with you right now — you do not get to walk through my front door and speak to me like I am some temporary inconvenience that you can dismiss now that you've decided to come back. Stellan and I are married. We have built a life together and I am his wife, in every way that matters, and I will not stand here in my own home and be told that I am a placeholder by someone who disappeared for three years without a single word to anyone." I held her gaze. "You are welcome here as a guest. But you will not disrespect me in my own house. If anyone here is the intruder, Isolde, it is—"
The slap came so fast I didn't see it.
The force of it snapped my head to the side, the pain exploding across my cheek. I pressed my hand slowly against my face and turned.
Stellan.
He was standing there pointing at me, his chest rising and falling, his eyes burning with something I had never once seen directed at me before — anger, hard and cold and completely without warmth.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" His voice came out low and furious."Who do you think you are speaking to her like that? She just got back — she just walked through that door after everything she has been through and this is what you give her?" He stepped closer and I held my ground because my legs had gone very strange. "You want to talk about disrespect? Look at yourself right now. You know your place in this house, Callista. You have always known your place. So I suggest you remember it and stay in your damn lane."
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