The Internal Bleeding

The blue light from my laptop screen is steady and cold. It lights up the dark walls of my bedroom. 

It is 2:00 AM. It has been over a week since that rainy night on Kalayaan Avenue. 

The hospital is quiet on my night off, but my mind is still racing like I am working in the emergency room. Every few seconds, I tap my mouse to reload the webpage. 

The local news forums do not care about a single life on a rainy Tuesday. To them, it is just traffic. A minor delay. But if you dig deep enough into the police blotter archives, past the political scandals and the real estate ads, the truth is written in cheap, unedited text.

HIT-AND-RUN VICTIM IDENTIFIED; DIES IN MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL The female pedestrian struck by an unknown vehicle at the corner of Kalayaan and Makati Avenue on April 21 from her injuries. Police say she is Ana Del Rico, 24 years old. Records show Ana had no family. She grew up in Hospicio de San Jose orphanage. The police are asking anyone with video of the crash to come forward. Authorities are requesting anyone with CCTV footage to step forward.

I stare at the words until my eyes hurt.

No family.

Ana Del Rico did not have a rich mother sitting by a pool. She did not have a father making million-dollar business deals in Singapore. She only had a hard job at a call center, a rented bed, and shoes that got ruined in the mud. 

I read the medical cause of death: Severe abdominal trauma. Internal bleeding.

She bled to death on the inside. Her organs burst under the weight of Scarlet's heavy silver car—under the weight of that terrible double bump my sister felt under her tires. 

While I was at the hospital saving a patient's life, just twenty minutes away, Ana Del Rico was bleeding to death. She died because my sister only cared about saving herself. 

I close the laptop. The sudden darkness in my room feels heavy, like wet wool over my face.

I do not use the spare key this time. I do not walk quietly. I kick Scarlet’s bedroom door open with my shoe. The metal lock breaks the wood frame with a loud crack. 

The sweet vanilla perfume smell is gone. The room just smells like cheap alcohol and fear. 

Scarlet jumps up from her bed. She is holding a heavy glass vase like a weapon. Her eyes are red and wild in the dark. When she sees it is just me, she drops her arm. The vase falls onto the bed. 

"Snow," she breathes heavily. "You broke the door. Mom will hear you—" 

"She is dead, Scarlet," I say. I do not whisper. I want my voice to be loud enough to shake the room. "Ana Del Rico died four days ago." 

Scarlet freezes. Her mouth drops open. She looks very pale.  "No. Tito Robert said... he said she was stable. He said he took care of the hospital bill through an anonymous foundation."

"Tito Robert lied to you so you would stop throwing up from guilt, " I say, stepping closer to her. The space between us feels cold and huge.  "He didn't pay a bill. He hid her. He let her die in a crowded ward with a curtain drawn around her so nobody would ask why a silver Mercedes was speeding away from the intersection."

"It was an accident," Scarlet cries, hitting her own legs with her fists.  "You don't understand, Snow! It was dark! The rain— "

"Then you go to the police and you tell them it was dark," I say. I grab her arms tightly, the same way I hold down a struggling patient. "You go to the police station tomorrow morning. You tell them you panicked. You can hire the best lawyers Papa's money can buy, but you have to turn yourself in. "

"No!"

She twists out of my grip with wild strength. She backs away until she hits the balcony doors. 

"Are you insane?" she screams in a high, panicked voice. "Turn myself in? In Manila? Do you know what happens to rich people in those jails? It is hot and full of disease, Snow. Fifty women sleeping on a concrete floor. I wouldn't last a week. I would die in there!" "

"An innocent girl already died, Scarlet!" I shout back, breathing hard. I am no longer calm like a doctor. I am just a sister looking at a monster. "She was twenty-four. She had nobody. No family to cry for her, and no one to fight for her. If you don't turn yourself in, you are pretending she never existed." 

"Good!" Scarlet screams. The word is sharp and cruel. She is shaking so hard her teeth are clicking. "Let her be erased! Why should my life be ruined for a nobody? Papa’s big business deal is in two days. If I go to jail, the family name is ruined. Everything we have... the hotels, the land, your precious hospital funding—all gone! "

She looks at me with a mean, ugly expression. Her panic turns into the cold, selfish attitude our family is famous for. 

"You won't tell," she whispers. It is not a question. It is an order. "Because if I go down, Snow, I'm taking the Ford name with me. And you wear that name too."

I truly look at her.

The light from the hallway shows her face, which looks exactly like mine. We have the same eyes and the same dark hair. But on the inside, we are completely different people.

"I am going to work," I say quietly.

I turn my back on her. I leave her broken door wide open. As I walk down the stairs, I can hear her crying again. It is a weak, pathetic sound from someone who is only crying because she cannot hide what she did. 

Outside, the early morning fog is rising from the lawns of Forbes Park. It looks like smoke. It looks like something beautiful that has burned down to the ground.