Chapter 4

NYLA

“What are we doing so high up here?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself as the cold night wind whipped through my hair. The place looked nothing like the cozy downtown spot she promised. It was just a deserted overlook, cracked concrete, and pure darkness. The city lights twinkled far below us. “Marisol, this isn’t a café. This doesn’t even look safe.”

She shut the car door behind her and gave me that soft, familiar smile that used to fix everything when we were kids. “It’s okay, Ny. Trust me. The view is beautiful once your eyes adjust. I just needed somewhere quiet where no one could bother us. Come stand by the edge with me.”

I hesitated, my stomach already twisting with unease, but her voice was gentle, the same voice that talked me off ledges when we were teenagers. I walked forward slowly, my sneakers crunching on loose gravel. “You said it was warm and quiet downtown.”

“I didn’t lie,” she said, stepping closer, the moonlight catching her faint smile. “I just needed you alone. Really alone. So we could talk properly.”

I stopped a few feet from the guardrail. “Then talk.”

She took a long breath, looking out over the cliff like she was searching for the right words in the dark. “Do you remember the first day we met? Third grade. Those older girls had me cornered behind the cafeteria because my shoes had holes in them and my mom couldn’t afford new ones. They were laughing, pulling my hair, calling me trash.”

“Mari—”

“And then you showed up. Tiny little you, with your perfect ponytail and your brand new backpack. With your perfectly neat shoes, and you told them if they touched me again you’d make sure everyone in school knew their dads were broke too. They ran off crying. You didn’t even know my name yet, but you stood there like you’d fight the whole world for me.” Marisol continued.

I swallowed hard. The memory hurt in a sweet way. “Of course I remember. You cried into my shirt for twenty minutes. Then you shared your cookies with me at lunch and we’ve been stuck together ever since.”

She smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes this time. “Stuck together. Yeah. Inseparable. Everyone said we were sisters. You got the nice house, the perfect grades, the mom who baked cupcakes for the whole class. And I got the drunk dad and the second hand uniforms. But I had you. That made it bearable.”

“Mari, why are you bringing this up now?”

She turned to face me fully. “Because somewhere along the line you got selfish, Nyla.”

I laughed, short and sharp, because it sounded like a joke, a ridiculous one.“Excuse me?”

Her face changed. The softness vanished. Her eyes went cold and flat like someone flipped a switch inside her. “You heard me. You stopped seeing me. You got the fancy college acceptance, the dream job, the perfect wedding, and then Evans. The richest man in the state. Every girl’s walking fantasy. And you just… took him. Like everything else. Like you always do.”

My heart started pounding so hard I felt it in my throat. “Marisol, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve always been jealous of you,” she said, voice steady now, almost calm. “I hated watching you have everything I deserved. The attention, the love, the life. And when Evans looked at me the way he used to look at you, I finally felt like something was mine. Something better than the scraps you left behind. And then you came along with this pregnancy.” She glanced at my stomach and then back at me.

I took a step back. The gravel shifted under my shoes. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny.” She tilted her head. “It’s supposed to be fair.”

Headlights cut through the darkness behind her. A black car rolled up slowly and stopped. The driver door opened and Evans stepped out, hands in his coat pockets, looking relaxed, almost bored.

My blood turned to ice. “Evans? What… what is this?”

He walked over and slid an arm around Marisol’s waist like it was the most natural thing in the world. She leaned into him, possessive, while I stood there staring. He kissed the side of her head and then looked at me with zero regard.

“Hey, baby,” he said, voice smooth. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I was getting tired of the hide and seek.”

I couldn’t breathe. My knees almost gave out. “What is happening right now?”

Marisol smiled, small and cruel. “We’re fixing a problem.”

Evans shrugged. “I want you gone, Nyla. Permanently. Unfortunately for you, divorce is messy. Settlements, lawyers, the press digging into why my perfect wife suddenly left. And I’m not giving you half of what I built. That money is staying with me and the woman I actually love.”

I stumbled back another step, closer to the edge than I realized. “You can’t be serious. Evans, please. Think about the baby. Our baby.”

He laughed, actually laughed. “That thing? We don’t need it. Marisol and I will make our own. Better ones. Ones that look like us.”

Tears burned down my face. I turned to her, my best friend, the girl I always called sister, the girl I protected my whole life. “Mari, please. You can have him. I don’t want him anymore. I’ll disappear. I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll go far away and you’ll never hear from me again. Just don’t do this. I’m begging you.”

She stepped forward until we were inches apart. I could smell her perfume, the same sets of perfumes she had worn since high school. “You still don’t get it, do you?” she whispered. “I don’t want you gone from the city. I want you gone from the world. No dramatic reappearance years later with some sad story and a kid that looks just like him. No chance for you to take him back when you decide you’re lonely. This ends tonight.”

“Marisol,” I sobbed, reaching for her hands. “You’re the only friend I have. We have called each other sisters for the longest. Please.”

Her fingers went ice cold in mine. “I never had a sister in you, Nyla. I had a shadow I could never escape.”

And then she pushed me, it wasn't too hard but just enough. My breath seized as I felt myself falling back.

My heel caught the broken edge of the concrete. The world tilted. I felt myself falling backward, arms windmilling, a scream ripping out of me that no one would ever hear. The cold air rushed past my body.

I thought of the tiny life inside of me, I thought of the girl who once shared cookies on a playground.

My body knew before my mind did. My back hit something hard, a branch maybe, and the breath exploded out of me. Pain bloomed across my spine, my hips, my skull. I felt the baby shift inside me, a tiny flutter of panic rushed out through my screams. The worst pain of all tore through my stomach, sharp and final, like something inside me was already dying.

I tumbled, rolled, crashed again. Rocks scraped skin from my arms, my cheek, my palms. Blood filled my mouth and I could feel the blood gushing out of my head.

I didn’t want to die, at least not like this, not when I had promised my baby a better life.

But the dark kept pulling, no matter how hard I tried to reach for a branch or something to hold onto, I just couldn't, and the pain kept growing, until even screaming hurt too much.

I closed my eyes, already accepting my fate and then a hard surface broke my fall, it all went quiet and everything went black.