Love Too Deep to Cross, We Meet No More in This Life

On the eve of the New Year, a firework dart, tipped with barbs, pierced my shoulder and lodged itself in my body. Before they could rush me into surgery, the doctor looked at the two men who had hurried in with me and asked for a family member to sign the consent forms. Both of them lunged for the pen, nearly coming to blows. One was my husband. The other was my brother. “I’ll sign,” my husband, Scott, said, “but only if you agree to a sham divorce first. Willow was terrified tonight. A divorce certificate will calm her down.” “Sign it or don’t. I’ll do it,” my brother, Chris, snapped back. “Fine,” Scott retorted, “but you have to promise that when Evelyn wakes up, she won’t press charges over the arrow. It was just a girl who couldn’t handle being yelled at. She didn’t mean to do it.” A weak, bitter laugh escaped my lips. With the last of my strength, I motioned the doctor closer. “Don’t save me.” Whether I lived or died… it didn’t matter anymore. … The argument in front of the emergency room doors raged on, but it wasn’t about who should sign as next of kin. It wasn’t about the fact that I was in critical condition and needed immediate surgery. Scott Vance and Chris Shay stood on either side of my gurney, each man blocking one of the wheels, preventing it from moving forward. We were inches from the operating room, but it might as well have been a world away. The arrow, armed with five barbed hooks at its tip, had entered through my right shoulder and traveled horizontally across my body. The tip was now resting perilously close to my heart on the left side. The doctor was sweating profusely, knowing better than anyone what every passing second meant for me. He tried to intervene, but a single glare from the two of them silenced him. This was the Vance family’s hospital, after all. No one would dare overstep. In his hand, Scott held a divorce agreement. In his, Chris held a legal waiver, a promise not to press charges. Each man was desperate to shove his pen into my still-conscious hand, competing to see who could get my signature first. They were eager to run back and report their success to the “traumatized” little girl, Willow. Staring at the two documents shoved in my face, I managed a breathless smile. I asked them a completely nonsensical question. “Tonight, you threw a party for Willow to celebrate 148 days since you met her. Why… why did it have to be today?” A day earlier, a day later—it would have been just another meaningless number to them. So why today? With the arrow still inside me, every word was an agony. But I was deceiving myself. One last gamble. Just one more. Maybe one of them would remember what today was. Scott remained silent. Chris’s fist tightened and relaxed at his side, his impatience a palpable force. “We just wanted to make Willow happy. It’s that simple. Can you stop wasting time? What’s the point of this?” The raucous laughter from that party, the blinding colored lights, the adoring smiles on my husband’s and my brother’s faces—that was the fuse that had lit my rage. I had crashed the party, shattering the joyful atmosphere. Everyone had called me a lunatic. Scott and Chris had shielded Willow behind them. “If you’re going to be crazy, go do it at home! Don’t embarrass us here!” I had looked only at Willow’s triumphant face. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You’re disgusting.” In front of the two men, her expression shifted seamlessly into one of profound sorrow. “Why… why does my sister have to say such cruel things to me? Is it so wrong to want to be with the people I love?” The two men she had just claimed as her own blushed. “I thought I finally had a family! Why does she still hate me so much? Why?” And then, under the guise of an emotional breakdown, she had fired the firework dart at me. Even as the arrow pierced my flesh, Scott had pinned my arms down, terrified I would lash out and hurt his precious darling. He had stared at me, his eyes filled with a deep, chilling disappointment. “Why?” he’d asked. “How did you become this person? You’re vile.” As they were loading me onto the stretcher, Willow had insisted on seeing me. She had leaned in close, her voice a triumphant whisper in my ear. “Sister, you know what today is, don’t you? I’m celebrating for you. It’s the one-year anniversary of your and Scott’s baby’s death. Too bad they don’t remember. Only I do. You should thank me, really.” Unable to lift my hands, I had lunged forward and bitten her ear. For that, Scott had nearly crushed my jaw. And now, it was the reason they both felt so justified in forcing these papers on me. I deserved this. It’s almost funny. Willow, my long-lost twin sister, had only recently been found. Snatched at birth by an enemy of the family, our parents had spent their lives searching for her. That unresolved grief had ultimately led to their early deaths. On their deathbeds, they had made my brother and me swear an oath. If we ever found her, we would spend our lives making it up to her. And I had intended to. When we found Willow, I believed she had suffered too much. I was ready to give her everything. But from the moment she saw me, she was hostile. At first, Scott noticed it. Whenever I tried to bring him to my family home, he would resist, needing to be coaxed and placated. When he saw Willow, he wouldn’t even spare her a glance. “Babe,” he’d say, “I’m not going to be nice to someone who isn’t nice to my girl.” Chris was always caught in the middle, awkwardly trying to smooth things over. But somewhere along the line, it had changed. “Evelyn,” Scott had said one day, “Chris and I are taking Willow to Disneyland for a few days. You’ve been so many times, why don’t you just stay home? You know how sensitive she is. She thinks you don’t like her. Maybe you’ve been too harsh. She won’t have any fun if you’re there. Chris feels the same way, he was just afraid you’d be upset, so he asked me to tell you.” Then later: “I don’t understand you. This should be a happy thing, having your sister back, but you act like you wish she’d never been found. If Willow hadn’t told me, I would never have known you were bullying her in private, telling her to go back where she came from. I’m leaving. You need to think about what you’ve done.” He had left, his eyes filled with disappointment. I had held my tongue. I didn’t demand a confrontation, didn’t ask when, exactly, I had ever bullied her. Let it go, I told myself. Don’t ruin the mood. Just endure it. I remembered the oath my parents had made me take alone. Your sister has suffered. You’ve had twenty more years of happiness than she has. You have to be good to her. Otherwise, we’ll never forgive you, even in heaven. So I let her have her way. Until the day I found her in bed with Scott. The blood rushed to my head, and the world spun. I was blind with rage. I slapped her. In return, I received a slap from Scott, and another from Chris, who had rushed in after me. Chris was furious. “Willow told me you were tormenting her behind my back, forbidding her from getting close to me. I didn’t believe her. I guess you’re finally showing your true colors. She suffered for over twenty years, and when she finally comes home, she has to deal with a sister like you. Evelyn, do you think Mom and Dad are proud of you right now? If I could choose, I’d wish it was you who was taken all those years ago!” I stood frozen, tears streaming down my face. Scott held Willow, comforting her gently. He glanced at my tears, his expression cold. “Stop crying. Willow isn’t crying, so why should you? It’s not surprising that I fell for her. She’s a wonderful person. What you and I had was just a product of growing up together, an illusion. If you were the one who was taken and then returned, I would never have fallen for someone so vile. So don’t blame Willow. It’s not her fault. I should be grateful I’ve finally seen who you really are.” Looking at the victorious glint in Willow’s eyes, I suddenly understood. She didn’t love Scott or Chris. She just hated me. She hated that she was the one who was taken, that I had enjoyed a life of privilege she was denied. My pain was her pleasure. And the guilt the world felt for her was her ultimate weapon. I didn’t even have the right to fight back. And so, on that day, I lost my husband and my brother. If it weren’t for tonight, I probably would never have seen them fight over me again. Once, they fought over who got to spend time with me. Now, they fought over which paper I should sign first so they could run back and comfort Willow. At that moment, both of their phones rang simultaneously. “Scott… Chris…” It was Willow, her voice choked with tears. “I’m so scared. The blood… it got all over me, and I can’t wash it off…” “When they were putting my sister on the stretcher, I wanted to come with you, but… but she said that as soon as she’s okay, she’s going to kill me. What do I do? I really didn’t mean it. I’m so worried about her…” She sobbed and whimpered, then forced a brave tone for the two men on the other end, who were no doubt dying to fly back to her side. “Sometimes I think my sister is so lucky. She has both of you caring about her so much. I have nothing. And any little thing I do get, she forces me to give it back.” “It’s okay, you don’t have to rush back. I’ll be fine on my own…” “I’m going to go find a hundred of those firework darts, the kind I accidentally hurt her with. She said when she gets better, she wants to shoot all of them at me. As long as it makes her feel better, I’ll do anything.” By the time the call ended, Scott’s and Chris’s faces were black with rage. Chris was the first to snap. He suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his hands around my neck. “Why? Why are you like this?” he hissed, his face contorted. “Why can’t you just accept her? It was an accident! A hundred arrows? Are you trying to kill her? Evelyn, how could you be my sister? How could our family produce someone so rotten?!” The pressure was immense. His movement jostled the arrow inside me. The barbs and hooks twisted in my flesh. It probably wasn’t a normal firework dart at all. I choked, spitting up blood. Scott finally intervened, grabbing Chris’s arm. “Calm down. Are you trying to kill her?” My heart, already turned to ash, flickered with a faint, secret hope. Maybe… maybe he couldn’t bear to see me die. “If you kill her now, who’s going to sign the papers?” Scott continued, his voice cold. “Are you going to forget about comforting Willow? If Evelyn dies now, Willow will blame herself for the rest of her life. Do you want her to live with that shadow forever?” Once Chris was pacified, Scott finally spared me a glance. I was still coughing up blood, the crimson staining half my face. The gurgling in my throat made it impossible to breathe without triggering another agonizing movement of the arrow. He frowned, his tone chilling. “That’s enough. Stop the act. Do you have a blood pack hidden in your mouth? I was with Willow when she chose those fireworks. They’re soft and thin. She’s a kind girl; she specifically had them custom-made so they wouldn’t hurt anyone. The impact must have just pushed it into your shoulder. It’s a flesh wound, nothing more. There’s no need to be so dramatic. Chris and I aren’t idiots.” I froze, even forgetting to cough. He mistook my shock for being caught in a lie. He sighed. For the first time since I’d caught him with Willow, he spoke to me in a gentle, coaxing tone. “Alright, this is just a temporary divorce to appease Willow. Sign the papers, and after you do, Chris and I promise we’ll take you to Sunhaven for a few days, just like you wanted.” With a nod from Scott, Chris reluctantly agreed. When I finally spoke, my voice was a raw, rasping sound, filled with utter despair. “You think… you think we were going to Sunhaven… for a vacation?” I thought if they remembered Sunhaven, they would remember why I had been begging them to go with me. They would remember why the sight of their smiling faces at that party had made me snap. Our daughter, Rosie, had been born frail and sickly. She couldn’t tolerate the cold. Sunhaven was warm year-round. In the three years of her life, we had spent more than half our time there. In the end, she hadn’t made it. She had left us, and I had cried until I fainted, over and over again. We decided to bury her in Sunhaven. At her grave, both Scott and Chris had wept and sworn they would come back every year on the anniversary of her death to be with her. 148 days. A laughable 148 days. And on the first anniversary of her death, they had forgotten everything. When a heart dies, there’s nothing left to say, nothing left to ask. I let out a long breath. I didn’t want to see them anymore. Let them leave. Words were useless now. I slowly raised my hand. “I’ll sign both.” Chris, barely concealing his excitement, shoved the pen into my hand. My left hand was the only part of me with any feeling left, and I signed slowly. But just as I was about to complete the last stroke of my name, I felt the barbs inside me begin to spin violently. The pen clattered to the floor. The pain was so intense that my body began to convulse. A spray of blood erupted from my mouth, covering both agreements, obscuring the text completely. Scott and Chris stared, stunned. Chris was the first to react. “Damn it! You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You ruined the papers just to spite us!” He raised his hand to strike me again. Just then, his phone rang. It was Willow. “Scott! Chris! Help me! A group of men… they have me cornered in an alley! They said… they said my sister sent them to teach me a lesson…” Panic seized them both. Even Scott, who had maintained a sliver of composure, let out a curse and kicked my gurney over. “So this was your plan all along! Wasting time so they could get to her!” “Evelyn Shay, if anything happens to Willow, I will make you pay with your life!” He turned to the hospital staff. “Tell everyone, let her lie here and play her games. She likes bleeding, right? For every cut anyone makes on her, I’ll pay a million dollars. But if anyone dares to treat her or bandage her wounds, they’ll have to answer to both the Vance and the Shay families!”