SIX MONTHS OF SILENCE

"Ma'am, you can't be here," The paramedic said again, more firmly this time, his hand still on my arm.

"That's my sister. That's my sister in there."

I shoved past the paramedic before he could stop me, my heels sinking into the gravel shoulder of the road, red and blue lights bouncing off the wet trees. Vivian's car had flipped at the curve near the old bridge, crumpled against the guardrail like it weighed nothing at all. I'd left my own coat somewhere between the ballroom and the parking lot, and i didn't feel the cold at all until much later, sitting in a hospital chair with my teeth chattering and my dress still damp from the rain.

Ryker got there before i did. He was already crouched by the shattered window, his voice cracking on her name over and over, and for one strange second i watched him and thought, distantly, that grief looked the same on everyone, rich or not.

"Vivian. Vivian, stay with me."

"Sir, we need you to step back, please."

"Not until she's out."

They pulled her out twenty minutes later. Alive. Breathing. Covered in blood that wasn't all hers.

The hospital hallway smelled like bleach and my mother's crying. My father sat with his head in his hands. I sat against the wall by myself, because nobody thought to sit with me, and i'd stopped expecting them to years ago.

A doctor finally came out, the kind of tired that only comes from delivering the same bad news too many times. "She's stable. But there's significant spinal damage. It's very likely she'll lose function in her legs. Permanently."

My mother made a sound i'd never heard a person make. My father finally moved, wrapping his arms around her without a word.

Nobody looked at me. I told myself that was fine. It wasn't about me.

Three days later, i went in to see her alone.

"Hey." I pulled a chair close to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

Her eyes filled with tears the second she saw me. "You did this."

"What?"

"You did this to me." Her voice rose fast, panic bleeding into every word. "We were arguing in the car. You grabbed the wheel."

"Vivian, i wasn't in the car. I was at the party. You know that."

"Don't lie to me!"

"Why would i lie? Think. Who picked you up that night?"

"Stop it," She said, twisting the blanket in her fists. "Stop trying to confuse me."

"I'm not trying to confuse you. I'm trying to get you to remember what actually happened."

"You've always been jealous of me. Everyone knows it."

"Jealous of what, Vivian? Being the one everyone believes without question?"

A nurse rushed in at the sound of her raised voice. Through the door, i saw Ryker appear, his face draining of color as he heard every word.

"Get out," He said, once he stepped inside.

"Ryker, i didn't…"

"Get out." Louder now, his whole body rigid. "Haven't you done enough?"

I left. What else could i do, standing alone against every single person in that room who had already decided the story before i opened my mouth? I sat in my car in the parking lot and cried until there was nothing left, my hands shaking too hard to even turn the key for a long time.

My mother called me two days later, her voice clipped and cold in a way i'd never heard from her before.

"The tabloids got photos of you leaving the hospital," She said. "They're comparing you to Vivian's old headshots. Selene, you couldn't have worn something that photographed better?"

"My sister is paralyzed, mom, and you're worried about camera angles."

"I'm worried about this family's image holding together for five more minutes. Is that so much to ask?"

"You do realize she blamed me for something i didn't do, right? Nobody's asked me how i'm holding up through any of this."

"You've always been the strong one, selene. You don't need anyone asking."

I didn't answer. There wasn't an answer that wouldn't have cost me more than i had left to give that week.

Two weeks later, Vivian vanished.

No note. Her hospital room empty one morning, the window unlocked, her bag gone from the closet like she'd been planning it for days. The police searched. They found nothing. My parents blamed me for that too, somehow, like my sister running from her own hospital bed was one more thing i'd driven her to do.

Ryker didn't speak to me again for six months. Six months of empty chairs at family dinners, of my mother's careful silences, of a house that felt colder every time i walked through it looking for a version of my sister that no longer wanted to be found.

***

I found him on the sixth month, drunk, alone, in the estate's study, because my mother called at eleven at night and asked me to check on him, and because i had never once learned how to say no to that word, no matter how many times it cost me something i couldn't get back.

Elise met me at the door first, cane trembling in her grip, her face pale in the hallway light.

"He's locked himself in there. Won't answer me."

"I'll try."

"Selene." She caught my arm. "Be careful with him tonight. Grief makes people into someone else for a while."

I didn't understand yet, not fully. I nodded and walked down the hallway anyway, my footsteps too loud against the marble floor.

The study door swung open under my hand. Ryker sat in the dark, a bottle on the desk, broken glass scattered near the fireplace.

"Get out," He said, without looking up.

"Your grandmother is worried."

"I don't want to look at you tonight."

"She shouldn't have to deal with this alone." I stepped further in, my voice smaller than i wanted it to be. "Neither should you."

He laughed, low and bitter, lifting his head at last. "Six months, selene. Six months and not one lead on where she went. Do you know what that's like? Loving someone who just vanishes into thin air?"

"I know it's hard."

"You don't know anything about it. You never even looked for her."

"That's not true. I hired someone. I called every week for months."

"Of course you did. Quiet, responsible Selene, handling everything from a safe distance." He stood too fast, swaying, crossing the room until he was close enough that i could smell the whiskey on him. "You never once cried where i could see it."

"Because in this family, showing anything becomes proof of guilt," I said quietly. "So i stopped."

He lifted his head slowly, his eyes red-rimmed, unfocused, and something in the way he looked at me made my whole body go still.

"You look like her tonight," He said, quiet, almost to himself. "You never used to. But tonight, you do."

The lights flickered once overhead, the storm outside rattling the old wiring, and i understood, a half-second too late, that whatever was about to happen in that room, i had already lost my chance to walk back out of it.