𝑨𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒆𝒔

     My heart beats rapidly as I lift my hand to ring the doorbell. I arrived in Washington, D.C. yesterday and contemplated in a hotel to see my sister or not. Now I’m indecisive. I don’t know if it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, or if I should tell her I’m still alive. She’s probably healed from the old wounds. Seeing me again is only going to reopen them.

     I realize now that I shouldn’t have come here. After all, I’m not even her sister. I turn away from the front porch and, upon landing on the first stairstep, the door slides open.

     “Excuse me,” Liana says. “Can I help you?”

     I’ve missed her voice. Sometimes I think I made a mistake when I faked my death. I sigh softly and retrace my steps to the door. I halt in front of her, and she stares at me.

     My eyes widen when she mentions my name and pulls me into a hug. I thought she wouldn’t recognize me.

     “How?” I manage, after a long tight hug.

     “You don’t forget your sister even if she’s wearing a mask. Why did you do it?”

     She leads me into the house, and I tell her everything. Then we sit in the living room next to each other.

     “Don’t ever do that again. You’ve got people who care about you. I’m your family, Adria.”

     I giggle. She still calls me Adria. The name echoes in my head, bringing back memories of our childhood days.

     “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I wanted so badly to go off the grid after discovering Jeff cheated.”

     “I can’t shoo you away. You’re still family. Family always wins,” she says and pushes closer to me, resting her head on my shoulder.

     Over dinner, she asked me how I faked my death, and I told her I couldn’t have done it without Robert. It took a lot of time, money, and planning to make my suicide believable. I left the part where we had to use a dead woman’s body who looked somewhat like me for the ruse to work out deliberately. I’m glad she didn’t ask. It’s all in the past now, and I don’t want to remember any of it.