My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 13

My Sister’s Forbidden Love For My Fiancé Chapter 13

Heaned against the back wall of the elevator as it descended, watching the numbers drop one by one. My heartbeat was steadier than I’d expected.

That late night folding clothes in front of the closet. That early morning heaving over the toilet. They felt

like they were behind frosted glass now-blurred, no longer sharp.

The elevator doors opened.

Someone sat on the sofa in the reception area.

She’d lost a lot of weight. Her hair was cut short, permed, dyed a deep brown.

There were new lines around her eyes, deeper shadows around her mouth. She looked at least a decade older than her actual age.

She clutched a small purse so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She set it on the front desk.

The moment she saw me walking over, she went rigid. Like she’d been nailed to the spot.

Then her eyes reddened fast.

Her lips began to tremble, the word rolling around in her throat for a long time before it finally came out,

shaking.

“Rowena.”

I stopped two paces away. I didn’t answer.

She set the small bag on the front desk, her hands shaking too much to unzip it. It took her several tries. Inside was a tin box with a faded cartoon bear on the lid, the edges rusted.

She opened it. Inside lay a gold chain, broken in two but carefully tied together with a faded red ribbon, tied

into a crooked little bow.

There was also a note. The paper was yellowed and brittle, the pencil writing faded but still just legible.

[The day my sister first came to my house, she was so tiny and sweet. I swore I’d protect her forever.]

I wrote that when I was twelve.

She’d just arrived, timid, hiding behind our father-barely up to my shoulder. I took her hand and walked her through every room in the house. That night, I’d written the note at my desk and tucked it into the fairy-tale book by her bed.

I thought I’d lost it when we moved.

Sadie covered her mouth, tears spilling fast, her shoulders shaking as her voice broke apart behind her

Lingers.

“Rowena… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….

She cried so hard she sank to the floor. The receptionist scrambled to hand her tissues, but she didn’t take them. She just looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, carving pale tracks through her gaunt

cheeks.

“I was young and crazy and didn’t know what I had.”

“I thought he loved me. I thought I’d won. But I found out later. He never stopped thinking about you.”

She drew a ragged breath and went on, broken and halting.

“All those months he was looking for you… he slept with your old coat every night. After you left, he moved out. He stayed in that apartment you used to rent. Refused to come back.”

She curled into herself, spine hunched, forehead pressed against the edge of the front desk.

“Can you forgive me? Just a little? Just a tiny bit?”

I stood there and listened to everything she said.

It was strange.

There was no anger left in me. No grief, either. Just quiet

The memories that once made me sick to my stomach, that left me curled on the couch in my old apartment, choking on tears I couldn’t let out-hearing them now felt like listening to someone else’s story.

I walked over, bent down, and helped her up.

“Sadie,” I said. “Let the past stay in the past. I don’t hate you anymore.”

Her eyes lit up. Like the last ember in a pile of ash, fanned back to life by the wind.

Then I let go of her hands, stepped back, and looked her in the eyes as I said the next part.

“But nothing matters between us now. This is where we end.”

Her face froze.

I turned and walked toward the entrance.

Arthur was waiting by the pillar outside the main doors. He wore a camel-colored trench coat with a white

sweater underneath.

I called out to him.

Honey. Let’s go home.”