Part 3Echoes of the River: Rewriting My Sister's Fate

I took the warm thermos of ginger tea back to our room.

My sister had already changed into clean pajamas and was drying her hair with a towel.

Hearing me come in, she immediately looked up and asked:

"Who was at the door? Was it Arthur?"

I paused for a moment before setting the thermos on the desk.

"Yeah. He brought this ginger tea. Said it’s to warm you up."

The corners of my sister's mouth unconsciously curved upward; she was clearly very happy.

She cupped the mug, taking small sips, the steam rising and softening her features.

I hesitated, but still asked softly, "Autumn, are you still going to reject him?"

The reason we had gone down to the river in the first place was because Arthur had asked her to meet him.

He had planned to confess his feelings to her.

But because my sister didn't like him—or so she claimed—she dragged me along.

Arthur probably didn't know that my sister had caught onto his feelings a long time ago.

When you like someone, you can't hide it in your eyes.

However, no one knew that I used to have a crush on Arthur, too.

He was handsome, smart, and gentle.

And because he liked my sister, he was especially nice to me by extension.

Every day after school, he would wait for us outside my classroom and help me with my homework.

When we were little, our parents were always busy and rarely had time to look after us.

Once my sister reached school age, they told her to take care of me.

I wasn't as pretty as she was, and I certainly wasn't as smart.

Whenever Arthur saw my grades, he would always laugh and call me dense.

"You can't even solve a simple problem like this, Summer. How are you ever going to get into college?"

I would get annoyed when he called me dense, but at the same time, I thought his smile was so gentle and handsome.

A teenage girl's crush is always hidden in those unspeakable, quiet moments.

But the one he liked was my sister.

So I buried those feelings deep, deep down inside.

I never imagined that we would end up getting married because of my sister's death.

I had imagined a thousand different futures with him.

But I never imagined it would be at the cost of my sister's life.

That was never the ending I wanted.

And it certainly wasn't the ending Arthur wanted.

With a lost life standing between us, our hearts could never get close.

Those hidden feelings never made a single ripple in the stagnant water of our decades-long marriage.

Maybe Arthur genuinely never noticed my feelings, or maybe he just pretended not to see them.

Until I realized that he had never, ever let go of my sister.

Back then, I often wished we could just go back to the past.

And now, we actually had.

We all had the chance to change our futures.