By the time my sister kissed my boyfriend in front of the campus library, the sky over our California college looked like it was on fire.

The sunset poured molten orange over the red-brick buildings, students were crossing the quad with iced coffees and backpacks, and I was close enough to hear her laugh, see her fingers curl into his collar, and watch her mouth crash into his like she was claiming a trophy.

And Milo Everett grabbed her shoulders and shoved her away so hard the air went silent.

“What is wrong with you?” he shouted, his voice cracking across the lawn like a whistle at a Friday night game.

Phones were already out. People were already recording. Half the University of Westlake, here in the U.S., was about to watch my sister Genevieve implode on their screens.

And all I could think was: of course she did it where everyone could see.

Because that was Genevieve Parker. My older sister, my shadow, my rival since kindergarten. The girl who once stole my favorite doll, ran it over with her pink bicycle, and said, “What can I do, Celeste? Things you love just end up in my hands.”

Back then I’d cried.

This time, I just watched.

But the truth is, this story didn’t start with that kiss. It started months earlier, with smoothies, pretend relationships, and a sentence I will never forget.

No man around you can resist me.

She said it in our mother’s kitchen one sticky August afternoon, back home in the suburbs outside Los Angeles. The kind of California heat where the air-conditioner struggles and the iced tea runs out too fast.

Genevieve sat on the counter in a silk slip dress that was definitely not meant for family lunch, swirling her strawberry smoothie like it was a martini.

She had just “broken up” with Asher—her boyfriend of exactly four weeks.

“I don’t get why you’re so upset,” she said, watching me with lazy interest. “We only dated a month. Isn’t that normal? College guys don’t actually commit.”

I held my coffee mug a little too tight.

“You sent me those candle-lit photos,” I reminded her, keeping my voice even. “You FaceTimed me from his apartment, told me he was ‘different’ and ‘maybe the one.’”

She shrugged. “He was never really mine.”

“He was my friend,” I said. “You knew that.”

“We weren’t soulmates,” she went on, with that airy tone she used when she’d decided something was over and thus irrelevant. “He used me as a shield to keep other girls away. When I got bored, I left. It’s not personal, Celeste.”

It was always personal with her.

“But why him?” I asked quietly. “You could have had anyone.”

She hopped down from the counter, crossed the small distance between us, and rested a manicured finger under my chin.

“What can I do?” she said, eyes glittering. “No man around you can resist me.”

I laughed.

I actually laughed.

Because at that exact moment, the one man she hadn’t been able to touch walked in through the back door, smelling like sunshine and laundry detergent and a little bit of basketball court.

Milo Everett.

Six-foot-four, captain of our university’s basketball team, the guy students on campus wore jerseys for during March Madness like we were a Division I school on ESPN instead of a mid-tier state university. Black T-shirt, silver chain at his throat, dark curls pulled back, and that calm, grounded way of moving that made people quiet around him.

He smiled when he saw me. Not at her. At me.

“Ready to go?” he asked, like the kitchen and my sister and the sticky air didn’t exist.

I stepped past Genevieve, wrapped my arms around his waist, and felt him hug me back, easy and familiar.

“Yes,” I said, and tilted my head up to kiss him.

For the first time since we were kids, Genevieve didn’t have a line ready. She just stared, frozen in our mother’s big California kitchen, smoothie glass in hand, watching me walk out with the one person she had secretly loved for years.

I didn’t know then how far she’d go to get him—or destroy us both trying.

I met Milo long before that day, before Asher, before everything collapsed.

It was my freshman year at Westlake, three years after we’d moved from the Midwest to California. I still felt like the new girl in the United States, even though I’d technically been born here. New state, new school, new coast, new set of rules.

The first time I noticed him, he was dragging a guy off a terrified girl outside a frat house.

No one likes to talk about what really happens at American college parties, not in university brochures and definitely not to parents on campus tours. But that night, the music was too loud, the beer too cheap, and someone had pulled a girl into the shadow between two houses.

I saw her first, pressed against a wall, palms flat, voice small and shaking: “I said no.”

Before I could even move, Milo was there. No hesitation. One second he was laughing on the lawn with his teammates, the next he was shoving the guy back, putting his body between them.

“She said no,” Milo barked. “You deaf?”

The guy tried to bark back, but confronted with six foot four of angry athlete and the eyes of five other players backing him up, he backed off, hands raised in surrender. The girl ran. Milo didn’t chase her. He just watched her go, jaw clenched, then turned back to his friends like he hadn’t just done something enormous.

People whispered his name all over campus after that. Hero. Protector. The kind of guy American moms liked to imagine their daughters dating.

I pretended not to care. But I started sitting where I knew I’d see him: in the cafeteria, by the far corner in the library, near the basketball court.

By the middle of sophomore year, we were talking. It started with random comments about classes, then turned into shared coffee, late-night memes, inside jokes.

Soon, we were messaging every day.

He’d send photos of the team’s away games in other states—Arizona, Oregon, Washington—little snapshots of locker rooms and empty gyms. I’d send him screenshots of my design projects for my media major, asking which logo he liked better.

“You’re really good at this,” he texted once.

It took me ten minutes to answer, because no one had ever said that to me like it wasn’t surprising.

By the time spring rolled in, I was half in love with him.

And then I ruined everything by pretending to date someone else.

It was stupid. It was complicated. And it started with Asher.

Asher was tall, handsome in a clean, sharp way, majoring in business with the kind of confidence that came from a family with their names on buildings. He was also, unfortunately for me, one of Milo’s friends.

He approached me one day after class, backpack slung over one shoulder, Vans squeaking on the tiled floor.

“Celeste,” he said. “Can I ask you something kind of weird?”

I was used to people asking me trivial things: notes, homework help, where to buy coffee on campus with the shortest line. This felt different.

“Sure,” I said slowly.

He cleared his throat. “My ex keeps appearing at my games, DMing me, making it… weird. I told her I moved on, but she’s not getting the hint.”

I nodded. I knew that story too well.

“I was wondering if you’d help me out,” he continued. “Just for a bit. Fake date. Public enough that she sees. You can say no. I’ll make it worth your time. Not like that,” he added quickly, seeing my face. “I mean, free tickets, rides, coffee, whatever.”

I should have said no.

Instead I thought about Milo and the way my heart hammered every time he messaged me, and how he never once crossed the line between friends and something more. I thought about my sister’s voice in my head: no man near you can resist me.

And I said yes.

It was supposed to be a two-week act. A couple of photos on Instagram, sitting together at games, letting people assume. It worked too well. People believed it. My sister believed it.

She saw the photos on social media and texted me three screaming heart emojis and one “OMG finally.”

I felt sick looking at my phone. It wasn’t real and yet it was public and that made it feel real enough to sting.

The worst part wasn’t what Genevieve thought. It was what Milo did.

Or didn’t do.

For the first time in months, he stopped messaging me first. He was still polite, still kind, but something shuttered behind his eyes. Our conversations were shorter. He stopped sending me photos of away games.

Finally, one night as I was leaving the campus coffee shop, he caught up with me on the quad. It was late, the California sky a deep velvet blue, stars dim behind city glow.

“Celeste,” he called. “Wait up.”

My stomach swooped. I turned.

He had that look he got before big games: focused, tense, like he was about to shoot a free throw with the whole arena watching.

“What are you doing with Asher?” he asked, skipping hello. His voice came out rough, his hands jammed into his pockets.

I lifted my chin. “We’re dating.”

His laugh was short and humorless. “Dating.”

“Yes, dating,” I repeated, suddenly angry. Angry at myself, at my sister, at every man who had ever looked past me to get to her. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

He stepped closer, eyes burning. “Because you don’t look at him the way you look at me.”

The words knocked the air out of my lungs.

I swallowed. “How do I look at you?”

“Like you actually see me,” he said quietly. “Not the jersey, not the captain, not the guy people yell for at home games. Me.”

The night hummed around us. The fountain in the center of the quad splashed softly. A group of students walked past, laughing, and then turned down a different path, leaving us alone.

“I thought you were happy,” he said. “I thought maybe I waited too long, and if that’s true, that’s on me. But Asher? Really?”

It all tumbled out then. The truth about the fake dating. The ex he was trying to keep away. My attempt to be “chill” and “cool enough” to do it. How stupid I felt.

He stared at me, jaw clenched. “You’re not a prop, Celeste,” he said finally. “Not for Asher. Not for anyone.”

Then, voice shaking just enough to reveal how much he meant it, he added, “I can’t watch you pretend with anyone else. Not when I— Not when I want to be the one you don’t have to pretend with.”

That was the night the wall between us shattered.

We kissed under the weak California stars, between red-brick buildings and the faint smell of cafeteria fries, and every crush I’d ever had, every doubt I’d ever swallowed, felt like it had led to that moment.

The next day, we told Asher the truth. Surprisingly, he was fine with it.

“Fake dating is exhausting,” he said, shoving his hands through his hair. “You two actually look like you like each other. I’m out.”

And just like that, we were a real couple.

Milo was… everything.

Not perfect. He left socks everywhere. He got tunnel vision before big games. He sometimes forgot to text back because practice ran long or his phone died. But he was gentle where it mattered. He listened. He paid attention.

My roommate, Tessa, once watched him drop off soup when I had the flu, then stay to wash my dishes even though he had morning practice.

“He’s too good to be real,” she whispered as he left. “If you don’t marry him, I will.”

I should have known that nothing that good in my life would go unchallenged by my sister.

At first, she kept her distance. She was busy being the crown jewel of our family: perfect grades in a competitive major, leadership roles, polished Instagram, internship at a big-name company in downtown L.A. She had always been the one our parents bragged about: “Our daughter, Genevieve, is such a driven girl.”

If my name came up at all, it was usually followed by a polite pause and “Celeste is… creative.”

But as word reached home that Celeste, the quiet second daughter, had somehow snagged campus star Milo Everett, I could feel something shift.

She started showing up more.

At our apartment, “just to check in.” At games, even though she’d never once cared about basketball. At the little coffee shop off campus where Milo and I liked to study.

He stayed polite. Always polite.

“Hey, Genevieve,” he’d say, standing just far enough away. “Good to see you.”

She’d flash her movie-poster smile, toss her hair, ask three questions in ten seconds: about practice, his classes, whether he’d thought about going pro overseas or staying in the States.

“I heard you’re amazing on the court,” she purred once, leaning on our kitchen counter. “Maybe you could teach me someday.”

He shrugged. “If you want to learn,” he said evenly, “hire a coach.”

She laughed like he’d told a charming joke. “Why hire one when my sister’s boyfriend is right here?”

He didn’t smile back. “Then don’t forget,” he said. “I am her boyfriend. Let’s avoid misunderstandings.”

For the first time in years, I saw her smile crack.

I thought that would be the end of it.

Then came the dinner.

It was her idea, of course. A “sibling night” at a trendy ramen place just off campus, the kind of spot all the TikToks talk about when they say “top 10 college-town eats in America.”

“Bring Milo!” she said over the phone. “I want to get to know him. Really, Celeste, stop being so defensive. We’re family.”

That should have been my first red flag.

She arrived in a tight red miniskirt and a top with a neckline that made half the restaurant glance over. Her hair was perfect, waves falling down her back like something out of a shampoo commercial. Red lipstick. Gold hoop earrings. Effortless and exhausting.

“Wow,” she said when Milo and I walked in, taking him in from head to toe. “You clean up well.”

“It’s just a shirt,” he said with an easy smile, pulling my chair out before sitting beside me.

We ordered. We talked. It was almost normal.

And then I dropped my chopsticks.

I didn’t mean to. My fingers were sweaty, my nerves high, and the smooth wood slid right out of my hand and clinked onto the floor. I muttered a quick apology, pushed back my chair, and bent down.

That’s when I saw it.

Her foot extended under the table.

Her ankle pressed against his calf.

Her toes—red polish, of course—resting between his knees, not accidental, not a quick bump.

And he hadn’t moved.

No flinch. No jerk away. Just sitting there, talking about midterms, while my sister’s foot sat in a place it had absolutely no right to be.

A cold weight dropped into my stomach.

I sat up slowly, face blank, handed my chopsticks to the server, asked for a new pair, and forced myself to eat the rest of the meal without shaking.

He didn’t look at her more than necessary. He kept his arm around the back of my chair. He paid the bill. He drove me home. He kissed me at my door like nothing was wrong.

But that image.

Her foot.
His stillness.

It lodged in my brain like a splinter.

The next morning, he greeted me outside my building with a hug from behind, arms around my waist, lips brushing my hairline.

“Morning,” he said, soft and warm.

I stiffened.

“Hey,” I replied, pulling away just enough that he noticed. “We need to talk.”

We sat later that day on the campus lawn, sunlight pouring through the leaves of the oak trees lining the main quad. Students tossed Frisbees. Someone played music from a Bluetooth speaker. It was the most American college picture you could have painted.

“Milo,” I began, picking at a blade of grass until it snapped. “Do you think my sister is attractive?”

He laughed. “Is this a trap question?”

“Just answer.”

He thought for a second, squinting up at the light. “I mean… sure,” he said. “She’s objectively pretty. So are a lot of people. Why?”

“She flirts with you,” I said flatly. “You know that, right?”

He frowned. “Does she?”

“You really don’t notice?”

“No,” he said, turning to face me fully. “Because I only see you.”

It was sweet. It was sincere. It should have fixed everything.

It didn’t.

Three days later, my sister showed up at my apartment uninvited, like always. She let herself in with the spare key my parents insisted she have “because you never know,” and made herself a smoothie, using my almond milk, my banana, my ice cubes.

She leaned against the counter, sipping loudly. “Is Milo coming over?” she asked casually.

“Maybe,” I said.

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, good. I wanted to ask him about that last game. That jump he did?” She shivered dramatically. “Wow.”

“You seem very invested,” I said, opening the fridge just so I’d have something to do with my hands.

“I like talent,” she said with a wink. “Especially when it’s so… raw.”

I wanted to throw the carton of orange juice at her head.

That night, Milo came over to watch a movie. I tried to focus on the screen, but I sat stiff, my arms tucked in, my answers short. Twenty minutes in, he paused the film and turned to me.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I lied.

His eyes searched mine. “You’ve been cold since dinner at your sister’s,” he said quietly. “Talk to me.”

I swallowed. The words tasted like rust.

“You didn’t move your leg,” I said.

He blinked. “What?”

“At dinner,” I forced out. “Her foot was… between your legs. Under the table. You didn’t move.”

His whole expression changed. His face darkened, eyes sharpening. “Celeste,” he said. “I didn’t notice. I thought she was just bumping the table with her heel. I was trying so hard not to explode at the way she was talking to me, I tuned half of it out.”

“You swear?” I whispered.

“On my life,” he said, shifting closer. “I don’t even like your sister. She creeps me out. If I had realized what she was doing, I would have shoved her chair away.”

I looked at him, really looked. At the anger on his face, at the confusion, at the frustration. He didn’t look guilty. He looked insulted that I thought he might have entertained it.

I believed him.

Until two nights later.

A friend texted me a photo. No caption at first. Just the image.

My sister and Milo in the library. Sitting at the end of an aisle, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Both laughing at something on a screen I couldn’t see.

Then the follow-up message: You and your sister share everything, huh?

Cold flooded my body.

I confronted him that evening. Showed him the picture, hands shaking.

“She cornered me,” he said immediately. “I swear. She just sat down. I didn’t invite her. We were in a silent zone. I laughed because she said something ridiculous and I didn’t want to cause a scene. I have no interest in her, Celeste.”

And maybe a few months earlier, I would have taken that as truth on blind faith. But trust isn’t blind. Not after a lifetime of watching someone rewrite reality and walk away whistling.

So I stopped waiting for the next hit.

If Genevieve wanted to play games, I decided, I would play smarter.

I started observing. Counting. Measuring patterns.

Who she spoke to. When she appeared. What she said.

I knew her rhythms better than anyone. I’d grown up breathing them.

One afternoon, Milo came over to help me study for an exam. We sat at my desk, my laptop open, notes spread out. Ten minutes in, I excused myself to the bathroom.

Except I didn’t just leave.

I set my phone facedown on my dresser with the voice recorder running.

I closed the bathroom door almost all the way, then waited.

It took less than five minutes.

I heard the front door open. Her voice floated down the hallway, too sweet, too soft.

“Milo,” she whispered. “Good, you’re here.”

He sounded surprised. “Hey. Celeste isn’t—”

“I know,” she cut in. “I came to talk to you.”

My heart thudded.

“You’re only with her because she’s safe,” Genevieve said, dropping her tone. “You know that, right?”

“I’m with her because I want to be,” he replied, voice clipped.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” she murmured, footsteps closer. “You could feel something real. With me.”

There was a soft thud then, like a book hitting the floor. A chair scraping.

“Back off, Genevieve,” Milo said, louder now. “I’m not going to say it a third time.”

Silence. Then heels clicking to the door.

“This isn’t over,” she whispered before leaving.

I stayed in the half-dark bathroom, heart racing, until I heard the door shut behind her. Then I walked back out, pretending I’d just taken too long washing my face.

When Milo left that night, I listened to the whole recording from beginning to end, earbuds in, hands over my mouth.

He had pushed her away. He had said no. Loud and clear.

My chest ached with relief. But beneath that relief was something else. A realization that she wasn’t just chasing my boyfriend on impulse. She was playing a game with pieces I hadn’t even seen yet.

Because of what she said at the end.

This isn’t over.

For Genevieve, it was never about love. It was never about Milo, not really. It was about victory.

I showed him the recording the next day. He listened, jaw tight.

“I’m sorry,” he said when it ended. “I should have told you she was being pushy. I just didn’t want to stress you. I thought I could handle it.”

“She took your silence as permission,” I said quietly.

He didn’t argue.

For a few days, things were… fragile but intact. We studied. We went to practice. We had coffee.

Then she invited me to brunch.

“Rooftop place downtown,” she chirped over the phone. “Sunday. My treat. Just us. We’re sisters, Celeste. We should reconnect.”

I almost laughed. But I said yes.

The rooftop cafe overlooked the city skyline, American flag fluttering on a nearby building, the Pacific a hazy line far beyond the smog. She wore white this time—a soft dress, delicate necklace, minimal makeup. The “good girl” version she liked to pull out for parents and professors.

“How’s Milo?” she asked casually, stirring her latte.

“Great,” I said, smiling. “We’re stronger than ever.”

She watched my face carefully. “Just checking. You know people talk.”

“Let them,” I replied. “I have nothing to hide.”

She leaned in. “Neither do I.”

That was a lie.

The moment she went to the restroom, I opened her bag.

I knew her passwords, her habits, her lazy arrogance. She never locked her messages. She never thought she needed to. The world, in her mind, would always bend in her favor.

Inside her purse, her phone lit up. I scrolled quickly. Group chats, selfies, emojis. And then a thread with someone saved as “E.”

E: She’ll break eventually.
E: Keep him close. We’ll flip it soon.
Genevieve: She’s more stubborn than I thought.
E: The bet is still on.

A bet.

My fingers shook as I took photos of the thread, sending them to my email, to the cloud, anywhere I could store them. When she came back, I was complimenting a random girl’s shoes in my head just to keep my face neutral.

That night, I showed the screenshots to Milo.

He stared. “Who the hell is E?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But they’re playing with us. Both of us.”

It didn’t take long to figure out who he was.

In one of the older photos on Genevieve’s Instagram, she stood at a party, arm around a guy with curly dark hair and a smirk I recognized.

Ethan Lang. Business major. Asher’s cousin. Once Genevieve’s “nothing serious” fling.

He had always hated Milo.

It all clicked then: their tension on the court, the dirty plays in intramural games, the way Ethan had once “accidentally” tripped Milo during a pickup match and never really apologized.

Asher had never really cared about my sister. But Ethan? Ethan had always simmered on the edges, watching, plotting.

A revenge scheme disguised as a love triangle.

Or maybe a love square. I lost count.

What mattered was: I had proof.

I printed the texts. I saved backups. I stored them in three different places. Then, anonymously, I forwarded part of that thread to Ethan’s academic adviser.

Because their conversation wasn’t just about me and Milo. It mentioned exam “help,” sharing old test files, “fixing” grades, and bets about other students’ futures like it was all a game.

I didn’t have to tell the university what to do. I just had to let them see.

By Monday morning, the whisper mill was buzzing. Ethan had been called into a disciplinary hearing. Rumors flew faster than pigeons on the quad.

That afternoon, Genevieve cornered me outside a lecture hall.

“What did you do?” she hissed, eyes wild.

I raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Don’t play dumb, Celeste,” she snapped. “You ruined him.”

“No,” I said calmly. “He ruined himself. I just stopped covering for him.”

Her lips trembled with fury.

“You think this makes you better than me?” she spat.

“No,” I said. “It makes me free from you.”

She laughed, bitter and sharp. “You’ll never be free from me. Not as long as he’s yours.”

And that was when she did it.

In front of the library. Under the burning orange sky.

She grabbed him and kissed him like the cameras were already rolling.

He shoved her away, shouting, “Have you lost your mind?”

She turned, saw me standing a few yards away, watching. Her gaze flicked between us, wide and wild, then she slapped him hard across the face and ran.

Phones caught all of it.

By midnight, her perfect name—Genevieve Parker—was trending on the campus gossip accounts.

Department princess ambushes sister’s boyfriend. Gets rejected.

Kiss of desperation.

Not the headlines she was used to.

People started remembering things they’d swallowed before: the roommate who moved out after one semester in tears. The club presidency she’d won by “accidentally” miscounting votes. The scholarship she got after spreading rumors about the other finalist.

Her mask wasn’t just cracked—it was sliding off.

That night, my mom called.

“Your sister has been crying nonstop,” she said, panicked. “She says you’re spreading rumors, sabotaging her, trying to ruin her future.”

“Did she tell you about the kiss?” I asked.

“Kiss? What kiss?”

“The one she forced on Milo. In public. It’s online.”

Silence. Then a small voice. “Even so, she’s your sister.”

“No,” I said quietly. “She’s your daughter. I’m just the one you keep asking to forgive her.”

And I hung up.

It was the first time I’d chosen myself over the family script.

The next day, she filed a harassment complaint against Milo.

Emotional manipulation. Intimidation. Inappropriate conduct.

She turned herself from aggressor to victim in four paragraphs of carefully chosen words.

What she didn’t know was that I had already printed every screenshot, every thread, every audio clip. I was done playing defense.

We walked into the dean’s office together: me and Milo, side by side, in a building with glass walls and framed diplomas from American universities I’d only ever seen in movies.

“I’m here to respond to false allegations,” Milo said, voice steady. “And to submit a counter report with documentation.”

I handed over everything. The texts between Genevieve and Ethan. The audio of her trying to convince him he was only with me because I was “safe.” The video of the library kiss from three different angles.

The dean listened, took notes, asked questions. He turned to me.

“Do you confirm this?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’m willing to testify.”

By the time we walked back into the California sunlight, Milo looked like someone had lifted a weight off his chest.

“Thank you,” he said roughly.

“For what?” I asked.

“For standing with me when it would’ve been easier to walk away,” he replied.

“We’re not playing her game anymore,” I said. “We’re ending it.”

Genevieve didn’t take silence well.

She spiraled.

Messy texts. Voice messages at 3 a.m. Long paragraphs about betrayal, about how I’d “stolen her life,” about how I “always wanted what she had.”

I blocked her.

Our mother showed up at my apartment a few days later, hair pulled back, eyes red.

“She’s not eating,” Mom said. “She barely speaks. Celeste, this can’t be worth it.”

“You mean she’s not worth it,” I corrected softly. “She’s your daughter. I’m just the one you expected to absorb all the damage.”

Mom flinched. “Please,” she whispered. “Just call her.”

“No,” I said.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“I stopped apologizing for other people’s choices,” I replied. “Maybe you should try it.”

She left without another word.

A week later, the university issued a notice: Genevieve Parker under investigation for academic misconduct and false reporting.

She disappeared from campus the next day.

Some said she withdrew. Others said she left the state. I didn’t chase the story for once. It felt like closing a book halfway through a sentence and realizing you didn’t need to know how it ended to move on.

Life went on.

I got a letter from the honors board inviting me to join a research program. Milo texted, “Meet me at the court. Sunset.”

He was waiting there with a small box.

“Before you freak out, it’s not a ring,” he said, grinning nervously.

Inside was a delicate silver bracelet with a tiny lock charm.

“You don’t need rescuing,” he said. “You never did. I just wanted you to have something that says you’re safe now. With me. With yourself. With everything.”

My throat tightened.

“I’m not broken anymore,” I whispered.

He kissed my forehead. “You never were.”

Weeks passed. Then months.

A plain white envelope slid under my apartment door one afternoon. No return address. No name.

Inside was a handwritten letter.

You win, it began. Maybe that’s all you ever needed. Maybe that’s all I ever feared.

You were always better than me, Celeste. Not prettier. Not smarter. Just… cleaner. Untouched. I ruined everything. I won’t ask for forgiveness. I don’t deserve it.

I just wanted to matter.

I’m leaving. Don’t look for me.

– G

I read it twice. Tried to decide whether I felt satisfaction, relief, sorrow, or nothing.

In the end, I felt… distance.

She was still trying to frame it as a competition. You win. You were better. Two sides of a scale, and her side finally dropped.

For the first time, I realized I didn’t care who “won.” I cared who I was becoming.

I folded the letter and put it in a drawer. Not to keep. Just to move it out of sight until I was ready to throw it away.

Finals came. Commencement arrived on a clear June morning with American flags, folding chairs on the lawn, parents waving from the bleachers. I walked across the stage in my gown and cap, my name echoing across the quad where I’d once fake-dated someone to protect his ego.

Milo waited by the fountain afterward with a single sunflower and a smile that reached his eyes.

“You did it,” he said.

“We did it,” I replied.

We posed for a photo in front of the campus fountain. No filters. No audience script. Just us.

Later, packing my apartment to move to a new city for my first real job, I found a small box of old things: friendship bracelets Genevieve had made me when we were kids, notes she’d slipped under our shared bedroom door, doodles of two stick-figure sisters holding hands.

I held it in my hands.

Then I dropped it into the trash.

Not out of hate. Out of self-preservation.

You can’t grow new roots if you keep watering the soil that poisoned you.

That summer, Milo and I moved to a different city for internships, not too far, still on the West Coast, still in the U.S., but far enough that the old campus drama felt like another lifetime.

We rented a small apartment with thin walls and ugly carpet and the best morning light I’d ever seen. He found a court near the river where he could play pick-up games. I found a coffee shop with good Wi-Fi and quiet corners where I could work on my portfolio.

We didn’t talk about my sister much.

Until one day, a postcard arrived from New Mexico. Desert sunset. No return address. Two words on the back, in handwriting I knew like my own.

Still breathing.

I stared at it for a long time. Then slid it into a book on my nightstand.

I didn’t want her back in my life. But I didn’t want her erased from the planet either.

People say you can’t heal in the same place that hurt you. Maybe that’s why she left. Maybe that’s why I stayed—to prove I could rebuild on the same ground and still stand taller.

Fall came. Leaves turned burnt orange on unfamiliar streets. Milo applied to grad school in another city, another state. He stood in our tiny kitchen one night, holding his acceptance letter.

“It’s a few states away,” he said, watching my face. “Big program. Full ride. I want it. I also want you. Both things can be true. So… what do we do?”

“What makes you happy?” I asked.

“Playing,” he said without hesitation. “Learning more. Coaching someday. Being with you.”

“Then go,” I said. “I’ll visit. I’ll call. I’ll meet you in the middle when we’re ready. We’re not tied to a zip code, Milo. We’re tied to the truth. And we’ve already lived through more than most couples do in ten years.”

He laughed softly, eyes wet. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I said. “This time, if I follow anyone, it’ll be because I choose to. Not because I’m running from her.”

He kissed me long and slow. A week later, he left with one suitcase and a key on a small silver ring.

“I’m not going anywhere you can’t follow,” he whispered at the door.

“I know,” I said.

For the first time in my life, being alone didn’t feel like being abandoned. It felt like space.

Months later, as snow dusted the city and the heating clicked on and off in my apartment, an email notification flashed on my screen.

Subject: A name from the past

It was from her.

My heart didn’t race. My hands didn’t shake. I just opened it.

Celeste,

I don’t expect you to reply. I just wanted to say thank you. For not destroying me when you could have. For letting the truth speak instead of burning everything down.

I was cruel. You were calm. I tried to shatter you, and all you did was become more solid.

I envy that.

I don’t know who I am yet. I’m trying to find out.

I hope you’re okay.

– G

I stared at the words. At the small admission hiding between the lines.

Then, without overthinking it, I wrote back.

Trying is enough.

Be well.

And I hit send. Not for her. For me.

Six months after that, Milo came back for a long weekend. We met under a cherry tree in a city park, petals drifting around us like slow pink snow.

He handed me a coffee and a small key.

“To my new place,” he said. “No pressure. You don’t have to move in. I just want you to know the door’s open if you ever want it.”

I turned the key between my fingers, watching it catch the light.

“I’m not ready to move in,” I said honestly.

“I didn’t ask you to,” he replied. “I just wanted you to have the choice.”

We sat in silence, listening to kids playing on the playground, cars in the distance, the murmur of an ordinary American afternoon.

For so long, my life had been about choices other people made for me: my sister taking, my parents excusing, boys using, teachers overlooking.

Now, I had choices of my own.

To stay. To go. To love. To let go. To forgive. To never forget.

To choose myself, over and over again.

I slipped the key into my pocket.

“Maybe not today,” I said. “But someday.”

He smiled. Not the triumphant kind. The peaceful kind.

As the petals fell and the sun slid lower in the sky, I realized something simple and huge.

My sister had stolen boyfriends, hijacked friendships, and tried to shatter my sense of worth for years.

But despite all of that, she had never taken me.

Because I had never belonged to her war to begin with. I had only been standing on the battlefield by habit.

It took one kiss under a burning California sky and a long, messy fight for the truth to realize I could step off the field altogether.

I was not the quiet sister anymore.

Not the backup plan. Not the stepping stone.

I was Celeste. Flawed. Forged. Free.

And when I woke up the next morning, and the morning after that, and the one after that, I made the same decision again:

Today, I choose myself.

And tomorrow, I’ll do it again.