Chapter 0006

•ISOLDE•

The following morning, my brother, Edan, arrived. Seeing him was more heartbreaking than I thought it would be.

I wondered what would have happened if I had been a little more careful, or told him to come to the door. Maybe, just maybe, he would've saved my life.

Because it was so hard sitting there and smiling at Caleb and Talia as if I weren't there because of them.

Even seeing them now made me wonder if they were sleeping together behind my back. I didn't even know when their affair had started.

I didn't know how long it took them to decide to end my life.

The doctor was still talking when Caleb's hand closed around mine.

"We should get you home," he whispered, turning to me with that familiar half-smile. "You need rest, and you'll be more comfortable in your own bed."

I flinched before I could stop myself.

He didn't notice. Or if he did, he said nothing about it. He was already looking past me, toward the curtain, as if the matter were settled.

My own bed. The same bed where, in a life I had lived so fully that I could still feel the cold of the floor beneath my cheek, he had fucked Talia.

I had pressed my face into the pillow and let the tears run sideways into my hair so he wouldn't hear me.

I wouldn’t go back to that house.

"Actually," I muttered. Caleb looked at me. "I'd like to go to Edan's." I kept my voice even. "Just for a few days. While I recover."

His eyebrows knitted. "You'd be more comfortable at home," he said again. "I'll take care of you."

"I know," I answered. "But I want to be with my brother."

Edan was leaning against the wall near the window with his arms crossed. He had arrived twenty minutes ago and had barely spoken since.

"She can stay with me," Edan chimed in. "Nancy will look after her. She's good at that sort of thing."

Caleb's jaw tightened. "Nancy?"

"My housekeeper," Edan answered. "She's a kind woman. Isolde will be comfortable."

Caleb turned back to me. "Why don't you want to come home?"

"I just want to be with my brother." I smiled. "That's all."

It wasn't a full answer and we both knew it, but it was the only one I was going to give him. I didn't have the energy to perform confusion or softness right now.

I was sitting upright in a hospital bed with a scraped palm and a bruised shoulder, and all I wanted was to be somewhere he couldn't reach me while I figured out what came next.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

"Okay," he murmured against my hair. "A few days. But call me when you get there."

"I will," I answered.

He said goodbye, shook Edan's hand, and left. I watched the curtain fall closed behind him and breathed.

Edan leaned over and sat on the edge of my bed.

"You going to tell me what's going on?" he asked.

"Not tonight," I answered.

He nodded. He had always known when to push and when to wait. It was one of the few things about my life that had remained uncomplicated.

"Alright," he replied. "Let's get you out of here."

The nurse went through the discharge instructions while Edan signed the paperwork. And I sat in the chair beside the bed and stared at my hands in my lap.

They were the same hands. The same short nails, the same small scar along my right index finger from a glass I had broken at sixteen.

Nothing about them had changed, and yet I had watched these hands press against a wound in my side while the feeling left them.

I curled my fingers inward and looked away.

I was gathering my coat from the back of the chair when the curtain moved again.

Talia stepped inside.

She had her handbag tucked under one arm and she was looking at me with her eyes wide and soft.

"I'm glad I caught you before you left," she murmured, leaning toward me. She took both my hands in hers and looked at my face. "Isa. I'm so relieved you're okay. When I heard about the accident, I couldn't breathe. I kept thinking—" She stopped and shook her head. "I can't imagine losing you."

I looked at her.

I thought about the dress. My dress. The one I had worn on the night I told Caleb I was pregnant, the one she had been wearing when she crouched down to my level on the balcony and told me that I deserved a peaceful death when it came.

She had smoothed the fabric over her hips when she stood and walked back inside, and the door had clicked shut behind her.

I smiled.

"I'm happy too," I answered. "I'm fine, Talia. Don't worry about me."

She squeezed my hands and pulled me into a hug, and I let her. I kept my arms around her and my chin above her shoulder and my face perfectly still.

"Take care of yourself," she murmured. "And call me if you need anything. Anything at all."

"I will," I answered.

She pulled back and looked at me one more time, satisfied with whatever she saw there, and then she left.

Edan appeared at my elbow a moment later with my discharge papers folded in his hand.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered.

The city moved past the car window in long streaks of amber and grey. Edan drove without music, which I was grateful for. He didn't ask questions, and I didn't offer anything.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and watched the lights blur.

I was alive. I was sitting in my brother's car on the 8th of July, 2023, and I had two years. Two years to make sure that none of it ever happened.

I pressed my lips together and held myself very still, because if I let go of even one breath too quickly, I wouldn't be able to stop what came after it.