Falling for my Best Friend’s Brother

Chapter 4

Sonia’s POV

The sound that shattered me was not a scream, nor a crash, nor even the dreadful shriek of a machine. It was silence. A silence that fell after the monitors gave one long, unbroken tone that seemed to stretch into eternity.

I didn’t know when the doctor came in. I didn’t know how long I sat frozen, staring at the still forms of my parents, their bodies fragile and pale against the sheets. But I will never forget the words.

“I’m sorry, Miss Brown. We did everything we could. Your parents are gone.”

Gone.

The world broke.

I didn’t cry, not immediately. I thought I might scream, might collapse, might claw at the air to hold on to something real. Instead, I sat still, my heart hammering in my chest, my throat closing as if the air itself had been sucked from the room. Gone? How could they be gone? Just hours ago, their hands had been warm beneath mine, even if limp. Just hours ago, I’d whispered promises, begged them to hold on. And now? Now there was nothing.

When my body finally moved, it wasn’t graceful. It was violent, uncontrollable. I sank to the floor, pressing my hands against the cold tiles, rocking forward and back as if the movement could stitch my soul back together. My sobs tore out of me in jagged, ugly sounds.

Molly was beside me in an instant, her arms wrapping around me, her tears soaking into my shoulder. “I’m here, Sonia, I’m here,” she whispered over and over, her voice shaking.

Clara knelt, too, her own face streaked with tears as she brushed the hair from my damp forehead. Lewis stood nearby, quiet and steady, his hand resting on Clara’s shoulder, his eyes shimmering though he said nothing.

Alexander… Alexander stood in the shadows, his face unreadable. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, his jaw clenched, but he didn’t move forward. Not once. Not even as my world was ripped to pieces before him.

The funeral came like a blur.

Black. Everywhere black. Black clothes, black veils, black umbrellas swaying gently in the cool wind as the coffin was lowered into the ground. The sky was gray, heavy with unfallen rain, as if even the heavens couldn’t decide whether to break or to hold.

I stood there, numb, my eyes swollen and red, my fingers digging crescents into Molly’s palm. People murmured condolences I could barely register:

“They were such good people.”

“I can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling.”

“They’re in a better place now.”

Each phrase was a dagger, twisted with every repetition. Better place? What better place could there be than with me? What better place could there be than alive?

When the final clumps of earth fell onto the coffin, the sound thudding into my bones, I thought my knees would give way. I wanted to throw myself into that grave, to claw the dirt aside, to cling to them and never let go. Without them, who was I? What was I?

The hours after were unbearable. I sat in my silent house, staring at the framed photographs lining the walls, my parents’ wedding, our family vacations, the birthdays where they laughed and hugged me tightly. Memories pressed down on me like a weight I couldn’t shake off.

Molly didn’t leave my side. She moved through the house with me, picking up dishes I forgot I’d dropped, holding me when the sobs returned without warning. Clara and Lewis were there, too, hovering gently, quietly, like shadows that anchored me when I felt I might float away into nothing.

Finally, Clara sat beside me on the couch, her hand firm around mine. “Sonia,” she said softly, “you can’t stay here alone. Not now. Not like this.”

I blinked at her, my mind fogged, my throat raw.

“You’ll come with us,” she continued, her eyes wet but steady. “Our home is yours. It has always been yours. Let us take care of you until you find your feet again.”

I shook my head weakly. “I… I can’t. I don’t want to burden anyone.”

Lewis leaned forward, his deep voice calm. “You’re not a burden, Sonia. You’re family. And family belongs together, especially in times like these.”

Molly tightened her grip on me, her face fierce through her tears. “Please, Sonia. Don’t push us away. I can’t bear to see you like this and know you’re alone. Come home with us. Sleep in my room like old times, we’ll eat breakfast together, we’ll… we’ll try to find a way through this. Together.”

Her words broke the last of my resistance. I collapsed against her, sobbing anew, whispering, “I can’t do this without them. I can’t.”

“You won’t,” she said, her voice breaking but determined. “Because you have me.”

That night, I packed only the essentials, clothes stuffed into a suitcase with trembling hands, a few photographs, the necklace my mother had given me on my eighteenth birthday. Everything else stayed behind, the house becoming nothing more than an empty shell filled with ghosts.

When I walked into the Lim household, Clara pulled me into her arms without hesitation. “Welcome home, Sonia,” she whispered, her tears dampening my hair. “Welcome home.”

And though the grief still burned like wildfire inside me, though the emptiness remained vast and unfillable, I felt, for the first time since that dreadful silence, a sliver of safety.

But safety, I would come to learn, is only ever an illusion.

The Lim house became my shelter after the storm, though I could not yet bring myself to call it home. Its wide halls, polished floors, and high ceilings were a different world compared to my quiet family home. Every corner carried the warmth of Clara’s presence, the orderliness of Lewis’s steady hand, the bursts of laughter from Molly, yet for me, it all carried the sharp ache of what I had lost.

Clara moved through the days like a soft breeze, always near, always gentle. She made sure I ate, even when food turned to ash in my mouth. She pressed blankets over my shoulders when I shivered from tears. She didn’t try to fill the silence; she let it breathe, and in that quiet, I began to lean on her like the mother I no longer had.

Lewis, though less expressive, was a quiet strength. He offered stability where mine had been stripped away. When I sat staring out the window late into the night, he’d simply pass me a mug of tea, nod once, and sit down beside me without words. That presence, steady, unshaken, became its own comfort.

Molly, though… Molly was my anchor. She refused to let me drown. She pulled me out of bed in the mornings when my body screamed to stay buried under the sheets. She made me laugh through swollen eyes. She talked endlessly when the silence grew too heavy, and when I collapsed into tears again, she held me as if she could take the pain into herself.

But Alexander…

Alexander was the shadow at the edge of my new world.

He was there, yes. Passing through the house in sharp suits, phone pressed to his ear, his voice clipped and commanding as he managed his father’s company. He had stepped seamlessly into the role of leader after Lewis’s health had begun to falter, and everyone seemed to admire his confidence, his control. Everyone except me.

Because to me, he was distance wrapped in flesh.

He did not look at me when we crossed paths in the hall. He did not acknowledge me when we sat at the same dinner table. His words, when he bothered to speak them, were curt, almost dismissive.

“Pass the salt.”

“Close the door behind you.”

“Move your bag.”

Each syllable stung more than it should have, not because they were unkind, but because they were void of warmth. And warmth was all I ever craved from him.

For years, I had loved Alexander in silence. Quietly. Secretly. Through childhood games where he was always just beyond my reach, through teenage years where I watched him grow taller, sharper, into the kind of man who seemed untouchable. I had hidden my heart carefully, terrified it would shatter if exposed. And now, living under the same roof, that hidden love became agony.

Because now I couldn’t avoid him. I couldn’t pretend he was only a dream. He was flesh and blood, only steps away, yet impossibly far.

One evening, after another long day where I had drifted through grief like a ghost, I left my room in search of air. The house was quiet, Molly asleep, Clara and Lewis retired to their room. Only the faint hum of Alexander’s voice carried down the hallway.

I followed it before I could think.

His office door was slightly ajar, golden light spilling into the hall. I approached quietly, my bare feet making no sound against the polished wood. His back was to me, his shoulders stiff as he spoke into the phone.

“I know. I know she’s here,” he was saying, his voice low, strained.

My breath caught. Was he talking about me?

“Yes, she’s living with us now,” he continued. “But don’t expect me to pretend she belongs. She doesn’t. She never will. She’s just another responsibility I didn’t ask for.”

The words sliced through me like glass. My chest tightened, my pulse roared in my ears. I pressed a hand to the wall to steady myself, but it felt as though the ground had shifted beneath me.

Another responsibility.

Didn’t belong.

Never will.

I stumbled back, the edges of my vision blurring. The world that had been fragile but slowly stitching itself together shattered once more.

And I realized, with a kind of hollow dread, that the house I thought might save me could just as easily destroy me…