“Who…?”
She stopped.]
Morning light filtered in, casting jagged shadows across the bed. The sheets were wrinkled. There were two people. Or at least that’s what it seemed at first. Clara didn’t really know what she was seeing. Not right away.
Something wasn’t right.
She took another step.
The silence was no longer silence. It was something else. Denser. Heavier.
“Who’s there…?”
No one answered.
Then, a detail. Small. Insignificant. But enough.
Clara felt her hands tremble. She took another step, almost without realizing it. Suddenly, she found it hard to breathe.
And in that moment, she understood what she was about to discover…
It was my sister Eva.
I didn’t understand it from his face at first. I understood it from the mole next to his collarbone, from the small notch in his incisor, and from the way he hid his hand when he saw that I had recognized the ring.
Eva pulled the sheet up to her neck. Daniel sat up abruptly. Leo stopped breathing behind me. Tasha appeared in the frame and said one thing, firmly, without raising her voice: “Don’t touch her, Daniel.”
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I dropped my shoes on the floor and they sounded hollow, almost ridiculous, amidst all of that.
