Forgotten Mate

“I’m so sorry, dear.”

Evalina barely looked up. She was fed up with the pitying looks on people’s faces. She kept her eyes downcast while Mrs. Davis, their neighbor, murmured something to her sister. The black dress she had on was starting to itch; it was a loan from her older sister, Valentina. Valentina came back yesterday morning and had taken control of the funeral arrangements and all that goes with it. Evalina had never been more thankful to her sister than she was now.

She had never been close to Valentina before; being twelve years younger than her had created a barrier between the two sisters for as long as she could remember. All the efforts her parents took to make sure the sisters got along were in vain; Valentina hated Evalina.

Looking up at her sister, Evalina took a calming breath. She knew what was about to happen; she knew Valentina had been counting the days until she could take revenge for all the things she was forced to endure for Evalina.

“So, I’ll be moving back home, obviously,” Valentina said on the way home after the funeral. “I’ll take Mom and Dad’s room; my old one is too small for me anyway,” she said without glancing over at Evalina. Evalina did not say anything in reply. She knew it was futile to argue with her sister.

“When are you moving out?” she asked again.

“I’m not, at least not for a couple of years,” she replied. “I have three more months to graduate,” she said.

“Well, Marcus is going to move in next week. I don’t want you at the house when he comes. Figure something out,” Valentina said, looking directly at her.

Evalina shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have anywhere else to go; this is my home too.

In the past, she would normally give up whatever her sister wanted, but now she was desperate. She had no relatives living in the area, and besides, the house belonged to their parents, so she had a right to live there as well.

Valentina stepped on the brakes so suddenly that Eva would have been thrown out of her seat had she not worn her seat belt.

“This is my house, not yours,” Valentina said in such a venomous voice that Eva shrank back. “Get your shit and get out of the house this weekend, or I’m gonna throw you out myself.”

Eva could only nod; she knew her sister would do this, but she had hoped Valentina would at least tolerate her. It was just the two of them now, and she knew Eva had nowhere else to go.

By the time they reached home, she saw two moving trucks parked in front of the house. One was taking furniture and boxes out of the house while the other truck, filled to the brim, waited in the driveway.

Without a backward glance at Evalina, Valentina jogged towards the waiting truck and opened the driver’s side door. She saw Marcus bending down to kiss her sister. Valentina changed into a completely different person in his presence; gone was the angry, disgusted look as she looked adoringly at her boyfriend.

While they were talking, Eva slipped inside the house. Most of the furniture was already in the moving truck, and the house looked hollow and empty. For the first time since her parents’ death, she was engulfed with an utter sense of despair and loneliness. She stood frozen while the movers picked up her father’s favorite sofa, one that looked all beaten up and yet surprisingly comfortable. Evalina remembered how she and her mother used to tease her father about the chair, but her father would always laugh and tell them that he would never throw it away.

Evalina locked herself in her bedroom. She sat on her bed and went over her options. She could stay here. Despite what Valentina said and did, she could never throw her out. She might hate Eva with a passion, but she cared about her reputation. She knew she could never have any hope of living in Bayfront if she were to throw her own sister out. The folks over here cared more about family than other materialistic things.

Yet, she felt sick, all overthinking about what she would have to endure to live here. She poked her head out; the house already looked different. All of their old furniture had been replaced with Valentina’s black and white-themed furniture. The house looked so somber now; gone was the cheerful light setting. The warmth she felt whenever she entered the hallway was gone.

Evalina shut the door again and went out onto her small balcony overlooking their garden. Her mother had spent countless hours laboring over the flower beds. She loved roses, hence the presence of different-colored roses. Evalina loved to spend time over here just so she could smell the different fragrances.

“Marcus, how about we build the pool over here? Flowers have to go anyway. I can’t stand the smell of these wretched things,” Valentina said, covering the lower part of her face. Marcus picked up a yellow rose, the stems and all, smelled it, and threw it on the ground.

“Right, babe, whatever you want.” He went over and picked up a blood-red rose and playfully tried to put it in Valentina’s long blond hair. Valentina started to run through her mother’s carefully maintained garden, stepping over flower beds and vegetable patches.

“That’s it, I can’t stay here and wait till she destroys the house just like she destroyed their whole life. This needs to stop, or I need to get far away from here.”

She needed help; picking up her father’s phone, she quickly found the one she was looking for and dialed. While she waited patiently, she formulated her options at this point.

“Hello, Evalina.”

“Hello, Mr. Jacob, are you available now? I need some advice,” she said nervously, looking down at the garden to make sure her sister was still there.

“Let me guess, Valentina is back, and she is trying to throw you out?” he said with a bit of amusement in his voice. “Actually, it’s good that you called me. I was going to come over tomorrow; we have some things to settle. Why don’t I see you and your sister at about ten in the morning tomorrow?” Jimmy said.

“Oh, okay, I guess. I’ll let her know,” Eva said, not knowing what else to say. She wondered worryingly what Jimmy had to say to both of them.

“Don’t worry, my dear, just endure her for one more day. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, pumpkin,” Jimmy said warmly before hanging up.

After texting her sister about the family lawyer’s visit for tomorrow, Evalina crawled into her bed and fell asleep instantly.

Unknowingly to her, as the whole neighborhood was slumbering, a pair of faintly glowing dark eyes kept guard over the sleeping girl. The owner of the glowing eyes never entered the room, but the dark figure clad in a long dark overall kept his vigilant eyes on the sleeping girl.