The Angel's Lie

Ten years ago, my twin sister, Lily, helped me get a date with the boy I was in love with. Then she started dating him herself.

Later, when she was dying of acute leukemia, I was her only perfect match for a bone marrow transplant.

The day the final test results came in, I calmly signed the official form to decline the donation.

My mother collapsed on the spot. She slapped me so hard the world spun.

“Chloe! Are you insane? That’s your sister!”

My father pointed a shaking finger in my face, his whole body trembling with rage.

“How did we raise a monster like you?”

And Ethan Archer, the man whose name filled every page of my high school diaries, asked me in anguish, “Chloe, why won’t you save her?”

Ten years later, on the Fourth of July, with the sky over the Washington Monument about to burst into a sea of fireworks, Ethan came back.

At the pinnacle of that national celebration, he held out a diamond ring.

“Chloe,” he said. “Marry me.”

1

The tips of my fingers were ice-cold.

Ethan was on one knee, surrounded by the roar of the crowd and the flash of a hundred cell phone cameras. He wore a tailored black coat that made him look solid and dependable, his features sharp and deep-set. A decade in the service had carved the boyishness from his face, leaving behind a man who was more handsome than I remembered.

But the eyes looking up at me held none of the love I had once dreamed of seeing there. There was only the silent, deep water of a calm ocean.

Isn’t it ironic?

Ten years ago, my twin sister, Lily, had squeezed my hand, her own eyes shining as she described this exact scene.

“Chloe, when Ethan gets back from his deployment, he’s going to propose to me right on the National Mall! Everyone will be there to celebrate with us!”

“You have to be my maid of honor, promise?”

Now, she was in the ground, and I was standing here, the reluctant star of her favorite fantasy.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from the hospital’s surgical unit. Urgent.

I steadied myself, pushing aside the hand that held the ring.

“I have an emergency surgery tonight.”

Ethan’s posture stiffened for a fraction of a second before he smoothed it over. He stood, taking my hand and forcing the ring into my palm. The metal, warm from his skin, dug painfully into my flesh.

“Chloe, don’t do this.”

His tone was flat. Not a request, but a statement. An order.

“We’re getting married. It was Lily’s last wish.”

There it was again. Lily. It was always, always about Lily.

I looked down at the diamond in my hand and let out a soft, bitter laugh.

“Fine.”

“I’ll marry you, Ethan.”

With that, I turned and pushed my way out of the crowd, leaving the sudden eruption of cheers and astonished murmurs behind me.

But the voices followed me, little ghosts nipping at my heels.

“Oh my God, isn’t that Major Ethan Archer? The war hero? He’s even hotter in person!”

“Wait, didn’t his fiancée die years ago? Who is that?”

“I think that’s her sister… Wow. Swooping in on your dead sister’s fiancé. Classy.”

It was three in the morning when I finally got home.

The surgery was a success, but I felt no joy, only a weariness that had settled deep into my bones. I pulled off my scrubs and stared at my pale reflection in the bathroom mirror before dialing my parents’ number.

“Mom, Dad.”

“Ethan and I are getting married.”

A long, dead silence stretched across the line.

Then, my mother’s hysterical scream.

“Chloe! Have you no soul? How dare you!”

2

When I arrived at my parents’ house, the living room was in shambles.

A collection of aunts and cousins were gathered, pointing at me the moment I walked in.

Ethan followed close behind me. My mother’s red-rimmed eyes locked onto him.

“Ethan! How could you do this to Lily’s memory? You promised you would take care of her for the rest of your life!”

My aunt immediately chimed in. “Exactly! Lily’s not even cold in her grave, and you two are getting married? What will people say? Think of this family’s reputation!”

Ethan looked at the floor, his voice steady.

“Ma’am, Mr. Hale… marrying Chloe is what Lily wanted. It was her last wish.”

“Before she passed, she said she hoped I could take her place, and take care of her sister for the rest of my life.”

And with that single sentence, he nailed me to the cross of selfishness all over again.

See? It wasn’t him who had a change of heart, nor was it me who stole him away.

It was me, the charity case, the broken thing that needed to be “taken care of,” stepping into the spot that rightfully belonged to my sister.

Everyone looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, as if I were some parasite, shamelessly living off the scraps of a dead girl’s legacy.

Crack.

The sound of the slap was sharp and clean.

My mother, trembling from head to toe, pointed at me. “Chloe! Your sister was thinking of you even as she was dying, and what about you? Do you deserve it? You’re a murderer!”

My cheek burned.

I licked the coppery taste of blood from the corner of my mouth and finally lifted my head, my gaze calm as I looked at the twisted faces of my “family.”

“She was a thief,” I said, my voice even and clear.

The room fell instantly silent.

My father shot to his feet, staring at me in disbelief. “What… what did you just say?”

“I said, Lily was a thief.”

I repeated the words, a smile spreading across my lips.

“She stole my diary, found out I was in love with Ethan, and then she put on the dress I bought, used the lines I practiced in the mirror, and went to tell him she was in love with him.”

“She stole the award certificate that should have been mine—first place in the National Science Scholar competition—and used my name and my work to get into the early admissions program at Johns Hopkins.”

“She stole my life. She stole everything from me. Did you know that?”

I turned to my parents.

“Did you know that the research paper she submitted—every data point, every single equation—was the result of dozens of sleepless nights I spent in the lab?”

“All you knew was how proud you were when she won, how you could boast about her to all our relatives.”

“Did you know I was dragged into the dean’s office and accused of plagiarism? That I was nearly expelled?”

“You didn’t know.”

I looked at their stunned, speechless faces, and I laughed until tears streamed down my cheeks.

“All you ever knew was your precious younger daughter. So innocent, so kind, so fragile. A perfect little angel.”

“And me? I was born healthier, stronger. So I deserved to be ignored. I deserved to be her stepping stone. I deserved to give up everything for her. Even… my life.”

Ten years.

This was the first time I had ever said the words out loud.

Everyone was frozen, including Ethan. His brow was furrowed, and for the first time, a flicker of confusion crossed his face.

My mother, after the initial shock, turned deathly pale. She looked like she was remembering something, her lips trembling as she failed to form a single word.

I took a deep breath and looked directly at Ethan.

“Why do you think, even on her deathbed, she was so obsessed with you ‘taking care’ of me?”

“Because she was guilty.”

“She was afraid I would tell you the truth. She was terrified that after she was gone, you would find out from someone, anyone, what kind of person the girl you loved for all those years truly was.”

In the silent living room, only my cold voice remained.

That, and the sound of my mother’s choked, breaking sobs.

I suddenly remembered that last afternoon in the hospital, just before Lily died.

Everyone else was gone. It was just the two of us in the sterile room.

She had gripped my hand, her voice as thin as thread.

“Chloe, don’t save me.”

“I’m begging you. Don’t donate your marrow.”

Ethan was silent for a long time.

Finally, he spoke, his voice raspy. “Lily… she wouldn’t lie to me.”

The answer I expected.

“The wedding is in three days,” I announced to the room.

“Come or don’t. I don’t care.”

I turned and walked out, not sparing any of them a final glance.

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