The Sister I Raised Took My Bed And My Man Chapter 08

The Sister I Raised Took My Bed And My Man Chapter 08

I barely got a few quiet weeks before the mess found me again. 

One night I came home from work. The elevator doors opened, and I heard shouting from down the hall. 

I rounded the corner and saw Ivy slumped against my door. Her hair was a mess. Her face was deathly pale. Her right hand was pressed hard against her chest, and she was struggling to breathe. 

Julian stood in front of her, his voice low and venomous. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? Showing up here making a scene?” 

“I’m the one making a scene? You’ve been sneaking off to see her behind my back, you think I don’t know? How many messages have you sent her? You tell everyone I’m crazy. That I’m exhausting. That I can’t do a single thing right. Yeah. I heard you.” 

Julian’s hand flew up and cracked across 

her face. The slap echoed down the hallway. “What the hell do you want from me? Wasn’t showing up at my office and humiliating me enough? The whole firm is laughing at me now.” 

Ivy’s hand flew to her cheek. Her lips shook. She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what had just happened. 

“What did I do? You left me alone at the hospital. 

You wouldn’t answer your phone. I went to ask you what was going on. That’s a crime now?” 

“I told you I was in a meeting.” 

“A meeting? Your location showed you parked 

outside her office building. You were in a meeting 

under her window?” 

Julian’s face changed. He took a half–step 

backward. His voice went cold. “You tracked my 

location?” 

“If I didn’t, were you just going to lie to me 

forever?” 

They were still at it, right outside my front door, 

one accusation after another. 

Ivy’s chest was heaving harder now. Her fingers were clamped over her heart so tight the knuckles had 

gone white. 

Julian stood two steps away, hands shoved in his pockets. His expression shifted from guilt to irritation. to something cold and dead. 

He didn’t even reach out to steady her. 

I stayed at the bend of the hallway, watching them 

in silence. 

The motion–sensor lights clicked off, then flickered back on, startled awake by their voices. 

“I threw away my sister for you. I have nothing left. And now you’re tired of me? Back when she was gone, you chased me like I was the only thing that mattered, you remember what you said? You said she was too much. Too strong. You said you only felt like a real man 

when you were with me.” 

“Enough.” Julian’s face twisted. “Ivy, look at 

yourself. Just look in the goddamn mirror.” 

She froze. 

“You want the truth? Fine. You’re a burden. You happy now?” 

He was nearly screaming. 

“Your heart’s shot. You can’t do a damn thing. You can’t even take care of yourself. Everything that’s happened to you! You brought it on yourself!” 

“You couldn’t survive without your sister, so you latched onto me and blew up my whole life. My career? Gone. My reputation? Destroyed. Everything. That make you happy?” 

“You betrayed your own flesh and blood. You don’t 

get to stand there and judge me. She carried you for twenty–four years and look what you did to her. You 

put on her slip.” 

“You climbed into her bed. You waited for her to 

walk through that door and catch you. Two months we were doing this, and not once did you stop and think about the shitstorm that was coming?” 

Ivy’s entire body went slack. She 

collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. 

Her hand was still pressed to her heart. Her lips turned from white to blue. Her breathing came faster and faster, shallow and ragged, until she was curled into herself. 

Julian stood beside her, looking down with blank indifference. No reaching down. No shielding her now. 

I watched it all, cold–eyed. 

These were the two people who had shattered me. 

The two people I had treasured above everything, right there in front of me, tearing each other apart. 

They’d licked each other’s wounds and called it love. Now the wounds had rotted, and the maggots were spilling out. 

“Yes, 911? 12 

I pulled out my phone and dialed. 

Magnolia Lane. I have a woman in cardiac distress.” 

Ivy still had tears on her face. She went completely 

still when she heard my voice. 

Julian spun toward me, panic and confusion colliding on his face. He opened his mouth to say something. 

I cut him off. I put my phone away and kept my voice level. “The ambulance is on its way. This is the last time I help you, Ivy. The last time, after everything that started when you were ten years old and ran out to get medicine for me.” 

“From here on out, you could be thriving, barely 

surviving, dead in a ditch–it’s all the same to me.” 

I turned to Julian. “When you chased me, you said you admired that I was strong and independent. 

Then when you betrayed me, you blamed me for being too strong. Too independent. You said I made you feel 

unnecessary.” 

“And now you’re doing the same thing to her. You call her crazy. You call her exhausting. Just admit it, 

Julian. You never loved either one of us. You loved your 

own pathetic male ego.” 

“All your reasons are excuses. You just needed a pretty lie to dress up your betrayal.” 

Ivy crawled toward me, her hand shaking as it groped across the floor. Her fingers brushed the toe of my shoe and she grabbed hold of my pant leg, clinging 

like a drowning woman to driftwood. 

“Elena…” 

I crouched down. One finger at a time, I peeled her 

grip off me. 

Sirens wailed in the distance. 

I didn’t look at them again. I turned around and 

walked into my apartment. 

My phone buzzed. A text from Chloe. [ 

Dinner 

tonight? I’ve got a friend who wants to meet you.] 

I stared at the screen for a long moment. Then I 

typed back: [I’ll be there.] 

You can’t live in the past forever. 

It was time to start something new.