I Died In The Fire While He Married My Best Friend Chapter 01

I Died In The Fire While He Married My Best Friend Chapter 01

The night senior finals ended, a sudden fire broke out in the science building at school. After something came crashing down and crushed my legs, I called my childhood sweetheart.

Before I could cry for help, grand, blaring wedding music poured through the phone.

Then came Zachary Sterling’s voice.

The crisp clarity he’d had as a boy was gone. Now his voice was low, lazy, and unfamiliar.

“Serena, you hid from me for seven years. Now that I’m getting married today, you’ve finally decided to come crawling back?”

I froze where I was. For one brief moment, even the unbearable pain in my legs went numb.

Hid for seven years? He was getting married?

Those words, strung together, made my head spin.

But just two hours ago, he had confessed his feelings to me, blushing as he slid a plain silver band onto my finger.

I wanted to ask him what was going on, unable to believe any of it, but I coughed up a mouthful of blood streaked with soot and ash.

Then my best friend Olivia Grant’s soft, timid voice came from the other end of the call.

“Zachary, is that Serena? Is she still mad at me? Is she coming to our wedding?”

The sharp click of a lighter sounded through the phone.

Zachary seemed to let out a faint laugh, his voice low, indistinct, and chillingly detached.

“Let her do whatever she wants. Doesn’t she love hiding? Then she can die out there for all I care and never come back.”

I suddenly went very still.

He didn’t know he had already gotten exactly what he wished for.

Because eighteen-year-old Serena Sullivan really did die on that summer night.

…

My mind went blank for a few seconds, but I still couldn’t believe the Zachary on the other end was seven years in the future.

This phone, this call, had somehow crossed time and reached Zachary seven years later.

But seven years later, Zachary no longer loved me.

He hated me so much.

“Zachary,” I said, parting my lips as my throat burned dry. “What are you even talking about?”

“So now you’re pretending to have amnesia?” Zachary scoffed.

I stared blankly at the flames as tears streamed down my face from the pain, my fingers digging hard into the broken ceramic tiles beneath me.

“Two hours ago, you were the one who confessed to me.”

Silence fell on the other end of the call.

A few seconds later, Zachary’s cold voice came through.

“Why bring up the past? Do you think I’m still eighteen, dumb enough to let you make a fool of me and lead me around like a dog?”

I had never lived through those seven years. I had no idea what he was talking about.

So what had happened during those seven years?

“Help me,” I whispered as my consciousness began to slip. Thick smoke poured into my lungs, and pain tore through my body. “I’m in the science building.”

The other end went quiet for a moment. Then he gave a cold laugh.

“The science building? Serena, if you’re going to lie, at least choose a better one. Central High’s science building burned to the ground that night seven years ago!”

“It was a massive fire. The whole building collapsed.”

“And now you’re telling me you’re inside the science building?”

I stared hard at the burning wreckage in front of me, my vision already blurring.

So the fire had been that bad.

Bad enough to bring the whole building down.

Then what about me?

Seven years ago, I was inside that fire.

Why didn’t he know?

After two beeps, the call ended.

I gripped my phone, the skin on the back of my hand curling from the heat.

Using the last of my strength, I opened the Messages app.

My fingers were covered in blood, leaving sticky red smears across the screen.

I didn’t contact Zachary again.

Instead, I texted Evan Brooks, the class president I usually got along with pretty well.

Me: [Evan, the science building is on fire. Please help me.]

Evan replied almost immediately.

Evan: [Serena? You actually have the nerve to show up?]

Evan: [Seven years ago, you took the seed money Zachary had saved and ran off with some older man. Do you have any idea how badly you hurt him?]

Evan: [Don’t play these sick mind games. Zachary is getting married today. Stop popping up just to disgust everyone.]

I stared at the words on the screen.

I knew every word, but when they were put together, I couldn’t understand them.

With stiff fingers, I kept typing.

Me: [I didn’t take any money. I didn’t run off with an older man. Who said that?]

He replied.

Evan: [Everyone says so. Olivia found the letter you left behind in your room. Stop pretending you’re innocent.]

How could I have done something like that?

Why would Olivia frame me?

Zachary and I both came from the same children’s home.

We had no parents. We only had each other.

When we were kids, I was timid and always got bullied by the older children.

Zachary would shield me behind him. Even when they beat him until his face was bruised and swollen, he still protected the half of a stale dinner roll I was clutching.

He told me, “Serena, don’t be scared. I’m here. No one gets to bully you.”

After we started high school, we met Olivia.

Her family had money, and she was straightforward and generous.

I was quiet and withdrawn, so I was drawn to her bright, outgoing personality. We became good friends.

But Zachary didn’t like her.

He thought she was noisy, spoiled, and entitled.

Every day, he stayed close to me, brought me breakfast, and helped me with math.

That lasted until tonight.

He confessed to me and put a ring on my finger.

I lowered my head and looked at my ring finger.

The plain silver band was heating up in the firelight, searing into my skin with a sharp, piercing pain.

How could I ever leave him and run off with someone else?

I wanted to explain. I wanted to type.

Then a deafening crash thundered through the building, and I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Zachary, just as you wished.

I really did die out there.