Chapter 2
1153words
I'd stayed up all night, sitting on the sofa with bloodshot eyes, waiting for an opportunity—a moment when only Mom and I were alone.
Dad and Aunt Rachel left almost simultaneously—one claiming to have an early meeting at the company, the other going to meet so-called friends. They exchanged a knowing glance at the entrance, and the familiarity in that look pierced me all over again.
"Mom," I called out to Katherine as she was about to clear the dining table.
My voice was terribly hoarse. Mom turned around upon hearing me, and seeing my condition, her face immediately creased with worry. "Eva, honey, you look awful. Didn't sleep well last night?"
I took a deep breath, and those words that had been circling in my mind all night finally found their way out: "Mom, last night... I saw Dad and Aunt Rachel together. In the guest room bed."
Katherine's hand holding the plate froze in mid-air. The concern on her face instantly solidified, then was replaced by complete disbelief.
"Impossible!" Her voice suddenly rose, sharp with offense. "Eva, what nonsense are you talking about? Rachel is my sister! I raised her like my own daughter! And your father would never..."
Her words came to an abrupt halt. She put the plate down heavily on the table with a harsh clatter, her eyes filled with confusion and denial.
Watching Mom's instinctive denial, my heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. I didn't argue further, just silently took out my phone and opened the only photo in the album.
I handed the phone to her.
The photo, secretly taken through the door crack, was blurry and dimly lit, but the contours of two bodies intertwined on the bed—that disheveled blonde hair and my father's distinctive profile—remained clearly identifiable.
Katherine stared intently at the phone screen. Her breathing became rapid and shallow, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
"No... this isn't possible..." she murmured, her face instantly draining of all color.
She collapsed onto the sofa, the phone slipping from her trembling hands and falling onto the soft carpet without a sound.
"After our parents died, I took on all the burden, supporting her through college..." Her voice was like sleep-talking, echoing hollowly in the silent living room. "When she couldn't find a job, I pulled strings to arrange one for her... When she had nowhere to go after her divorce, I was the one who took her back home..."
She counted every sacrifice she had made for her sister, remembering each detail with perfect clarity. These once-warm memories were now piercing her heart, tearing it to pieces one by one.
"I was so good to her... I treated her as my only family..."
Suddenly, she sprang up from the sofa, a flash of madness in her eyes, and stumbled toward the guest bedroom upstairs.
I immediately followed her.
Katherine rushed like a madwoman into the room where those sordid scenes had played out just hours ago. She yanked open the bedside drawer and frantically searched through it.
Soon, her movements stopped.
In her hand, she clutched a birth control pill pack with only a few pills remaining, and a white card. A hotel key card.
Katherine's gaze fixed intently on the hotel key card, the date clearly imprinted on it—last month, when she had gone to the neighboring city to take care of her former mother-in-law, who was also Rachel's former mother-in-law.
Rachel had told her at the time that the company had an important project requiring overtime work, so she couldn't accompany her.
So that so-called overtime was actually spending time with my father in a hotel. This wasn't a moment of drunken impulse, but a long-premeditated betrayal.
"Ah——!"
A piercing scream, barely human, erupted from Katherine's throat as she clutched the damning evidence. Her body went limp, and she collapsed completely onto the floor, breaking into loud sobs.
Her crying was filled with the pain of being torn apart, the despair of having her world turned upside down, and the immense grief of betrayal. She cried until she was almost suffocating, curling up into a ball, as fragile as a child.
I rushed over and held her tightly, letting her tears soak my clothes as my own flowed uncontrollably.
Just then, the door was pushed open.
Rachel stood at the doorway with shopping bags. Upon seeing the scene in the room—the pill pack and room card in her sister's hand—the surprise on her face lasted only a second.
She wasn't flustered or guilty; instead, she slowly curled her lips into a cold smile.
"Well, sister, you found out," her tone was terrifyingly calm. "That's fine. I don't need to keep pretending anymore."
Katherine raised her tear-streaked face, looking at her in disbelief. "Rachel... why..."
"Why?" Rachel looked as if she had heard the biggest joke ever. She casually threw her shopping bags on the floor and walked into the room step by step. "Do you have any idea how suffocated I've felt all these years? Why do you get to have everything from birth—a perfect family, a husband who loves you, excellent children! And what about me? I have nothing!"
"I paid for your education, helped you find jobs, took you back in when you got divorced..." Katherine repeated tearfully all those things she had done for her sister over the years.
"Yes! You're always that high and mighty 'perfect sister'!" Rachel rudely interrupted her, her voice becoming shrill, filled with resentment accumulated over twenty years. "Growing up, all Mom and Dad ever said was 'look how excellent your sister is' and 'why can't you be more like your sister'! Where were you when that bastard was abusing me, forcing me into a mountain of debt? You didn't know! All you could do was casually say 'sister, you need to be strong' and then continue living your damn perfect life!"
Her eyes burned with manic hatred, piercing directly at Katherine.
"So, I'm going to destroy you, ruin your perfect life, make you taste the suffering I've endured all these years! Damian loves me, not you, you boring housewife! I'm just taking back a little of what should have been mine!"
After saying this, Rachel turned to pick up her bag. As she reached the door, she paused, turned back and dropped one final bombshell.
"By the way, those debts I owed? Damian already paid them off for me. So, at least half of your family's money is mine."
The door slammed shut.
Katherine's crying stopped, leaving only hollow, lifeless eyes staring straight ahead.
I supported her cold, trembling body, looking at her lifeless profile. A cold flame like I'd never felt before began to burn fiercely in my heart.
