Love Stories

"Save Serena first!" My fiancé, Cole, shouted over the burning car. "Cole, please!" I begged, grabbing his sleeve. "I'm trapped!" My adopted sister Serena let out a fragile gasp. "Cole... my heart..." He stared at my bleeding hand. Then, one by one, he peeled my fingers off his shirt. "Serena's heart is weak, Nadia," he said coldly. "You're strong. You can wait." I watched my husband carry her away, leaving me to the roaring flames. Then, everything went black. *** I woke up to a circle of doctors standing over me. Nobody was smiling. "Ms. Calloway." The one closest to me didn't sugarcoat it. "Your lungs sustained severe burn damage. You have a month. Maybe less." I let that land. Then I looked around the room. Empty. Not a single familiar face. "Does my family know I'm awake?" I asked. The doctor hesitated just long enough to tell me everything. "They're... in another patient's room." Silence swallowed the space between us. I nodded once. "Keep this between us." After they filed out, I pulled out my phone and called the funeral home. Scheduled everything for thirty days out. My voice didn't shake. My hands didn't either. I'd barely set the phone down when the door swung open. Cole Hartwell walked in. Same perfect jaw. Same careful eyes scanning me like he was checking off a box. "You're up," he said. "Good. How are you feeling?" I didn't answer that. "Nadia." He exhaled. "The wedding date is close. You know the Hartwell Group succession is tied to the heir being married." He clasped his hands in front of him. Like he was about to deliver a business proposal. "But given your current condition... you're not fit to be my wife." My chest tightened. Not from shock. Just from hearing him say it out loud, so cleanly, like it cost him nothing. "For the sake of both families," he continued, "we've decided Serena will marry me instead." "We?" My voice came out flat. "Your parents agreed. Derek too." I turned my head toward the doorway. They were already there. Mom, Dad, my brother Derek. Standing just past the threshold, watching through the gap like they were afraid to come in all the way. I turned back to Cole. "The only reason I'm in this bed," I started, "is because of—" His hand closed over mine. Firm. Practiced. "Don't do this, Nadia." His voice dropped. "Serena has a heart condition. You know that. Last time she rode a roller coaster she ended up in the ER." He paused. "It was a car accident. If I hadn't pulled her out, she would've died. You got burned, but you survived." I survived. Right. Thirty days, give or take. I pulled my hand back and stared at the ceiling. "Fine," I said. "Do whatever you want." Cole let out a slow breath, relief loosening his shoulders. He turned and waved the others in. Mom crossed the room toward Dad, wearing a little smile I hadn't seen her aim at me in years. "See? I told you she'd come around. She's not as difficult as she used to be." Derek laughed from the doorway. "Relax. Serena's easygoing. She won't even mind if Nadia ends up as Cole's mistress on the side." Cole's jaw went tight. "Enough. Once Nadia recovers, things go back to how they were." Their voices kept going. I stopped listening. I pulled the blanket up over my shoulders and closed my eyes. When you have thirty days left, a lot of things stop mattering. A fiance. A family. A future that was never really yours to begin with. If Serena Calloway wanted them, she could have all of it. I couldn't take any of it with me anyway. Over the next few days, I organized everything. Every account. Every asset. I put Serena's name on all of it. Ten million dollars. The money I'd made selling my paintings in secret, one canvas at a time, over years. Dead weight now. Paper with numbers on it. When Cole came to pick me up from Crestview Medical Center, Serena was already in the passenger seat. I handed her the transfer documents through the window before I even got in the car. She unfolded them. Went still. "Ten million dollars?" Her eyes went huge. "Nadia, how did you even—" She looked up. "And you're just... giving it to me?" "Consider it a wedding gift," I said. Cole's grip went white-knuckle on the steering wheel. "That's not—" "That's amazing!" Serena clutched the papers to her chest and beamed. "Thank you, Nadia, seriously." She held those documents the entire drive, smoothing them against her lap like they might disappear. Cole didn't say another word. The car stopped. I looked out the window. Not the estate. A bridal boutique. Of course. Today was the day they were picking out Serena's custom bridal gown. Serena hopped out, then turned back with a bright smile. "It won't take long, I promise." "Take all the time you need," I said. I wheeled myself through the front door ahead of them. Inside, while Serena was behind the fitting room curtain, Cole appeared at my side. "Are you doing this on purpose?" he asked, voice low. "To make me feel guilty? I've told you, Nadia. Once you're better, the title of Mrs. Hartwell—" "You're reading into it." I cut him off. "I'm just tired." He opened his mouth. "Cole." Serena's voice floated out from behind the curtain, carrying just enough of a pout. "I've tried on so many and none of them are right." I waved the manager over and told him quietly to bring out the gown from storage. My gown. The one I'd spent a month designing. Every bead placed by hand. Every seam chosen like it mattered, because back then, it had. The manager carried it out. Serena went completely still when she saw it. Then her whole face opened up. "I want that one," she breathed. "It's yours," I said. Cole stepped forward. "No." His voice came out harder than I expected. "You spent a month on that. Every detail—" "She likes it," I said simply. Serena pressed a hand to her heart and arranged her face into something soft and pained. "I couldn't. It's your dress, Nadia. I'm only marrying Cole because you can't right now. It wouldn't feel right." I reached out and patted her hand. "It fits you better than it ever would've fit me," I said. "Wear it." She kept the performance going for another few seconds. Then she smiled. "I'll have it dry-cleaned and back to you the day after the wedding," she promised. "Next Friday." I glanced at the calendar on the wall. Next Friday. The last day of my life. I almost laughed. What a perfect coincidence. I just had to hold on until then. Long enough to watch everything I'd set in motion play out. Long enough to see the curtain drop. I used to call Serena out every time she pulled something like this. Used to fight for people to see what she really was. Nobody ever believed me. They'd look at her soft eyes and her careful words, and then they'd look at me, and decide I was jealous. Bitter. Difficult. So I stopped fighting. Because soon, I wouldn't have to. Soon, they would all see it for themselves. And in the quiet hours, when the truth finally settled in, they would replay every moment. Every choice they made. Every time they picked her over me. And I would already be gone. That was the plan. ### Chapter 2 Nadia's POV The second we got home, Serena dropped the act. She shoved my bedroom door open so hard it bounced off the wall. Then she kicked my wheelchair straight out from under me. I hit the floor hard. Pain shot up through both knees like fire. I pressed my back against the wall and pushed myself upright, one slow inch at a time. Serena looked down at me. "What are you plotting now?" "Nothing." My voice came out steady. "I'm dying. What would be the point?" She studied me for a long moment, head tilted, like she was trying to find the trap. "I don't buy it," she said finally. "Prove it. Give me the paintings." That was always what this came back to. Growing up, I painted. It was the one thing that was mine. Serena watched, copied, traced over my work with her own name. But talent isn't something you can steal stroke by stroke, and hers never came. So she stopped pretending to be inspired and started just taking. She took so many that I put the brushes down for years. Let my family assume I was done. They did. "Well?" Serena crossed her arms. "Can't let go?" "Take them," I said. "All of them." The disbelief on her face was almost worth the floor. She didn't move until I laid them out in front of her. Then she laughed. Not a pretty laugh. The kind that twists a face wrong. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and leaned down close. "You idiot. Without these, even if you somehow survived, you'd have nothing. You know that, right?" Her grip tightened. "Did you think things were just going to go back to normal?" A smile curled across her mouth. "I am going to be Cole's wife. I worked for that. I am not giving it up." She paused. "I'll make sure I'm pregnant before the wedding night is over. Every last bit of hope you're holding onto? Gone." From downstairs, Diane's voice floated up. "Girls, dinner!" Serena let go of my hair like it was nothing. Smoothed her expression back into something soft and lovely. Walked out like none of it had happened. At the table, she pulled one of my canvases from behind her chair and set it against the wall. My parents' forks stopped moving. My father Russell's mouth fell open. "Serena, you painted this?" Diane pressed both hands over her heart. "When did you get so talented?" Derek leaned in, eyes already calculating. "That piece would go for serious money." That night, Derek posted it on an online auction platform. By morning, a collector had paid a number that made Derek bounce on his heels. By the next day, Serena's name was everywhere. Major online forums. Art blogs. Trending feeds. I watched them celebrate from the edge of the room. I felt nothing. I had maybe a few days left before my heart stopped for good. I wondered if their smiles would still look like that when I was gone. I had a feeling they wouldn't. Serena's rise hit fast and loud. Reporters camped outside the estate for days, all of them desperate to interview the prodigy artist who'd appeared out of nowhere. Diane cried on camera. Actually cried. "Thank God it wasn't Serena who got hurt in that accident," she told a reporter, one hand pressed to her chest. "We would've lost a true genius." Then, right there in front of everyone, she unclasped Grandma's necklace from around her own neck and fastened it around Serena's. That necklace was supposed to be mine. I looked away. A reporter called out, asking about the inspiration behind the painting. Serena tilted her head like she was thinking. A small, pretty blush. "My fiance," she said softly. The crowd lit up. "Who's your fiance? Is he in the art world too?" Russell didn't even let her answer. He stepped forward and grabbed the microphone. "Her fiance," he announced, his voice full of pride I had never once heard him use for me, "is the heir to Hartwell Group. Cole Hartwell." The interview exploded online within the hour. High-society bride. Prodigy artist. The kind of headline that writes itself. Grant Hartwell showed up in person to confirm it. Confirmed Serena as the Hartwell family's future daughter-in-law, right there on the record. Serena found me afterward. She looked at me the way you look at something you've already won. "Nadia. You really went too far this time, didn't you? There's no road back for you now. You know that." I smiled. "I'm not looking for one. I hope you're happy. I mean that." "You—" Her hand came up. Then she saw Cole in the doorway. Her whole body shifted. "Cole, you're here." She moved to take his arm. He stepped back, gentle but deliberate, and reached up to ruffle her hair. "Give us a minute," he said quietly. "I need to talk to Nadia." Serena left. Slowly. She glanced back at me once from the door. I smiled at her. Cole crossed the room and took my hand. His grip was tight. "Don't read into any of this wrong. Dad pushed for it. He thinks Serena's visibility is good for the company's image. That's all this is." I pulled my hand back. "You don't owe me an explanation," I said. "The engagement is real. You didn't do anything wrong." I paused. "And I've known for a while anyway." His brow pulled together. "Known what?" "The jasmine perfume. It never fully washes out of your shirts." I kept my voice even. "The lipstick I found in your car twice. The way your eyes track her whenever she walks into a room." I looked at him. "I've known all of it." "Stop." The word came out sharp. His face went tight with something between anger and shame. He left without another word, footsteps hard on the floor. I turned back to the canvas. Serena had been threatening me since her first painting sold. New work every three days, or she'd cut off my medication and make sure I never got better. What she didn't know was that I'd stopped needing the medication. I agreed anyway. I only had two paintings left to finish before I died. Two more pieces. That was all. They wouldn't carry her forever. I was genuinely curious what would happen to her name once I wasn't around to fill it anymore. Derek walked in on me painting one afternoon. He stood in the doorway and laughed. "Seriously?" He shook his head. "You paint for ten years, drop it the second Serena gets famous, and now you're back at it? What, trying to copy her now?" I didn't answer. "Give it up," he said. "You will never catch up to her. Not in this lifetime." He left. I set the brush down and stared at the wall. I thought about the day our family brought Serena home from the group home. Derek had stood in front of me, all twelve years old and serious, and told her: "If you ever bully my sister, I'll send you right back." He'd meant it then. I believed him then. But Serena figured out early that a heart condition could do more for her than talent ever could. She'd come in last at every competition, then grab her chest and sink to the floor. Every time she woke up in a hospital bed, she'd look around at our family with red-rimmed eyes and say, her voice barely a whisper: "I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you all." It worked every single time. Our family folded around her like she was the center of something fragile. And I got pushed to the edges until I was barely visible. I sat in the art studio for a long time after Derek left. Then I picked up my phone. "Do you have results from the accident investigation?" The P.I. went quiet for a second. When he spoke, his voice came out heavy and careful. "Ms. Calloway, the crash was not an accident." My stomach dropped. "The rear door latch had been tampered with beforehand. It was jammed completely. We pulled the traffic footage." He paused. "The vehicle that hit you adjusted its angle on purpose. The impact was aimed directly at your door." My knuckles went white around the phone. "Once the car flipped, the driver could get out fast. The passenger seat was pinned, but the pressure on that side was significantly lower than yours. Whoever was sitting there was easy to pull out." Another pause. "Ms. Calloway, this was planned. Do you have someone in mind?" I didn't answer. But I remembered. The end of the birthday party. The parking lot. Serena grabbing my arm before we got in, complaining about carsickness, insisting she needed the front seat. That was why. That was why she needed the front. I told the P.I. to compile everything and send it to my email. Then I set the phone down on the windowsill. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs until they stopped. ### Chapter 3 Nadia's POV The days before the wedding blurred together. The Calloways got busy. The ceremony. Serena's upcoming award gala. Their smiles got bigger with every passing day. Mine got smaller. By the night before the wedding, I couldn't even get food down. I sat at the table and watched everyone else eat. Diane set down her fork and looked at me. "Nadia, you should stay home tomorrow. You can barely move. Once things get hectic, no one's going to have time to watch over you." Russell nodded along. "I found a specialist. Flew him in from overseas. You can see him tomorrow instead." I opened my mouth. Serena slammed her palm on the table. "Mom. Dad." Her voice went sharp. "Stop it. Nadia is my sister." She looked at me, eyes soft and perfect. "You have to be there. I need you there." I smiled at her. "Of course I'm going," I said. "My little sister's getting married. Nothing could keep me away." Diane shot me a look that could've curdled milk. I ignored it. "I'll stay in the corner the whole time," I added. "I won't be in anyone's way." Derek snorted from across the table. "You'd better. Try anything stupid and I will not be nice about it." I didn't answer him. The next morning, I was downstairs before anyone else. Serena came down the stairs and found me already waiting. Her mouth curved. "You're so eager. Anyone would think you were the one getting married." "I had to start early," I said. "Takes a while to wrap all these bandages." Something flickered in her eyes. Satisfaction, bright and ugly. She came the rest of the way down and clipped a name tag to my chest like she was tagging luggage. When the housekeeper wheeled me into the reception hall, every head turned. Whispers started immediately. "Serena has an older sister? I've never heard her mother mention her." "Look at the gap between them. That explains it." A few guests who knew about me and Cole just stared with that particular kind of pity that made my skin crawl. I wheeled myself into the corner I'd promised to occupy and stayed there. Cole found me first. He walked over with his wine glass, swirling it slow. "You insisted on coming. So why do you look like you can't handle it?" I let out a short laugh. Didn't bother explaining. I picked up my champagne and tapped it against his glass. "Happy wedding, Cole." His jaw went tight. He knocked my drink over. The glass hit the floor and shattered. Heads turned. "How long are you going to keep this up?" His chest heaved. "I've told you—once things settle, I'll marry you. Why won't you just believe me?" He actually looked wounded. Like he was the one who'd been wronged. "If you keep acting like this," he said, voice dropping, "I might just make this real." Then Serena appeared at his elbow. Her hand wrapped around his arm. "Darling." Her voice was velvet. "The ceremony's starting." He turned away from me without another word. I sat in my corner and watched the ceremony begin. Cole stood at the front and looked at Serena like she hung the sky. "Serena," he said. "I will love you forever." She kissed him. "Me too." From the front row, Diane was crying. Actually sobbing, shoulders shaking, hands pressed to her face. Derek put his arm around her. His eyes went red. "Mom, what are you talking about? Serena is your daughter. She's all of our pride." Pride. I laughed once, soft and quiet, and turned my wheelchair toward the door. "Nadia." Serena's voice, bright and carrying, cut across the entire hall. Every face in the room swung toward me. I stopped. Pressed the brake. Turned around slow. She stood at the front with Cole's arm around her, both of them looking like something cut out of a magazine. She smiled at me. "Aren't you going to say something?" The room went still. I looked at them. "I hope you two stay happy," I said. "Forever." The silence that followed had weight to it. I don't know if it was the stiffness in my voice or the way I looked—pale and wrapped in bandages and sitting in a chair—but the room stayed quiet a beat too long. It didn't go over well. After the guests cleared out, Mom and Dad cornered me near the exit. "Was that the best you could do?" Diane's voice had an edge like broken glass. "You embarrassed us in front of everyone. What else do you even do besides make us look bad?" Derek stepped in front of me. He shoved my shoulder. I went sideways and hit the floor. My palms scraped the tile. Pain shot up through both wrists. Derek froze. He reached out instinctively, hand half-extended, then pulled it back. He couldn't do it. Instead, he just righted my wheelchair and stepped away. Nobody else moved. I got myself up. One inch at a time, I dragged myself back into that chair. My arms shook the whole way. There was nothing to say. In their eyes I had never been enough. My congratulations weren't enough. My face wasn't right. My existence wasn't right. I was less than Serena in every way that had ever mattered to them. I pushed myself toward the exit. Near the door, Cole was standing with his wine glass. Our eyes met. He looked at me for exactly one second. Then he turned and walked away. That was the last thing I needed from him. That one second, then nothing. Whatever had been holding me together quietly snapped. I moved through the streets slow, like something that had already stopped. When I tilted my head back, the sky above the city was full of drones, their lights weaving and blinking, slowly forming a name. Serena. I almost laughed out loud. That idea had been mine. I'd sketched it out on a napkin two years ago, talking to Cole about what I wanted our wedding to look like. I'd imagined my own name written up there. I never pictured hers. My phone buzzed. I answered it without thinking. Serena's voice came through, bright and pleased. "Couldn't hold it together? Already ran off?" I didn't say anything. "Don't worry," she said. "The wedding was just the opening act. There's still the award gala." A pause, savoring it. "Nadia Calloway, you will never stand in the same room as Cole again. Not for the rest of your life." The phone slipped from my fingers. It hit the pavement and I didn't have the strength to lean down for it. Serena's voice kept going from down there, tinny and far away. "Are you there? Why aren't you saying anything? Answer me or I'm cutting off your doctor. Everyone listens to me now. You understand that? Everyone." A beat of silence. She hung up. The street was empty. The drones kept writing her name in the sky over and over. Then the door beside me opened. A man in a black suit crouched down and helped me up. His movements were careful and quiet. "Ms. Calloway?" he said. "I'm Jay Mercer. You scheduled the final arrangements service." I nodded. I pointed to the cardboard box sitting against the wall nearby. My arm felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. "When I'm gone," I said, "play everything in that box. At the funeral." My arm dropped back to my side. I heard him exhale beside me. Slow and quiet, like someone who understood. "Ms. Calloway." His voice was low. "You've carried a lot in this life." He paused. "Leave the rest to me."