My Sister's Fiancé

Chapter 4: She Looks Familiar

He had only taken a few steps when he started to feel guilty.

"Agh! Why me? I don’t even know her, so I shouldn’t care about her—I shouldn’t care about that woman at all!"

But it was as if his feet had a mind of their own, leading him back to where he had left the woman. She was snoring when he arrived.

"Seriously? She can really sleep here?"

He lifted the sleeping woman onto his back and started walking.

"Now what? Where am I supposed to take this woman? Of all people, why did I have to be the one to find her?" he complained. "And she’s so heavy too. Damn drunkard. I shouldn't have come here. I should have left with my friend."

He had walked several steps while carrying her when a hand suddenly slapped him across the face.

"What the—" He dropped the woman, who fell onto the sand. "Ouch! How dare you slap me!" he shouted. He was about to fight back when he saw a woman. She looked around forty. What had he done to deserve getting slapped by her?

"Hey! Don’t go speaking English with me! Just because my lady's drunk doesn’t mean you can just take her away. You’re probably planning something bad, aren’t you?" the woman accused. "Well! I won’t allow it."

He scowled at what she said. "Excuse me, whoever you are. First of all, not once did I think about doing what you're accusing me of. I had no plans of taking advantage of your drunken companion. In fact, I was doing a good deed, and now I'm the bad guy? Wow!"

"W-what do you mean?" the woman scratched her head, seemingly sobering up from what she had just done.

"Your lady friend is drunk, ma’am, and I found her here. I was planning to help her when you came along and slapped me. Is this how people are here? When you do something good, you’re the one who gets blamed?" Derrek continued.

The woman looked ashamed and apologized to him.

"I-I'm sorry, son. It’s just that... no one has ever tried to help my employer before, so I thought you were up to no good," she explained.

"Never? You mean she does this often? Sleeps here?" he asked, one question after another.

"Well, she doesn’t exactly sleep here because I always come and fetch her. She’s always like this, but she’s a good girl, that Sab. She’s just going through something."

He looked at the woman again. He still couldn’t see her face because her hair was all over it. She was still asleep and completely unaware of her surroundings, even though she was sprawled on the sand.

"By the way, what’s your name, son? So I can at least thank you for helping her out?"

"I'm Derrek—Derrek Sison. And I repeat, I don’t care about her. It’s just that my conscience wouldn’t let me ignore her if she died there or got swept away by the waves just because I didn’t help. Why am I even explaining this to you? Tch."

"Still, thank you so much, Derrek. Oh! There’s Jason. He can carry her now, so we’ll be leaving," she said and called out to a man with a semi-bald head and brown skin. If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the same man offering water sports earlier.

Jason carried Sab and started to walk away. Derrek just smirked at the woman’s situation.

"She’s so miserable," he muttered. "What kind of drama is she dealing with?"

He was about to leave the area when he spotted a bracelet. It was silver with a heart-shaped pendant. He picked it up and called out to the woman he had spoken with earlier.

"Ma’am, your employer’s bracelet!" he shouted, but she didn’t hear him as they were already quite far and she seemed to be talking to Jason. He then looked at Sab, whose face was buried in Jason’s back. Her face suddenly lifted as she adjusted her hair, and Derrek was stunned. Even from afar, he clearly saw the young woman’s face.

"S-Sam?" he exclaimed.

He tried to chase after them, but by the time he reached a corner, they were gone. He wasn’t familiar with the area, so he decided not to look for them anymore. He looked at the bracelet in his hand.

"Is it really you, Sam?"

"Are you serious?" Levi asked. He couldn’t believe what Derrek had just confessed—that he saw her on the beach—which only confused Levi more.

"I saw her with my own two eyes, Lev. I saw Samantha. She was drunk, and someone carried her. I even talked to the woman who was with her. Come on, you have to believe me," he pleaded.

Levi still looked confused. He didn’t know whether to be angry or pity his friend. He and Derrek had been friends for a long time—long before Levi became the manager of the band they both built together.

"Bro, you know how much I want to believe you, right? But how can I believe you saw her, if in the first place, she’s already dead? Come on, explain that to me. How?"

"So, what are you trying to say? That I made it all up? That it was just my imagination?"

"I don’t know, bro. Maybe. Possibly."

"Lev—listen. I’m not imagining things or making up stories. Why won’t you believe me? I really saw her. It was Sam!" he insisted.

"Stop it, Derrek! You’re the one who should listen to me." Levi grabbed his friend’s head and looked him straight in the eyes. "She’s gone, for God’s sake, Derrek. For over two years—You should accept that. That’s why I brought you here, because I thought you were finally going to move on like you said. You promised not to think about her anymore, to forget the past. But what is this?" The disappointment was clear on Levi’s face. "I suggest you go home, if this is all you’re going to do here." With that, he turned his back on Derrek.

Derrek sighed.

"Why won’t he listen?" he thought. Then again, who would believe him when everyone knew Sam was gone? He sat on the bench nearby and bit his lip. He didn’t know how he could convince Levi about what he saw.

"Are you okay, bro?" asked Drake as he approached. Derrek only nodded. "I heard everything. Did you really see Samantha?"

"I know you won’t believe me either, Drake. You’ll probably think I’m going crazy too. But I’m telling the truth," he explained.

"Okay. How about this? I’ll go with you to where you saw her. That way we can find out if it’s really her," Drake offered. He wanted to comfort Derrek. He knew losing a loved one wasn’t easy, so he understood his friend.

"Really? You’ll do that, bro?" Derrek suddenly felt hopeful.

Drake nodded. "Yes. But if we confirm that it’s not her, promise me you’ll let her go?"

Though hesitant, Derrek agreed—because he was confident that the woman he saw was indeed Samantha.