MARRIED TO MY SISTER'S HUSBAND

The bridal dress hung on the entrance of my door to my room like a ghost. It was still warm from my sister's body and smelled like her.  It had been 'her' dress twenty-four hours ago. And now It somehow turns to be me.

I reached out to touch the silk, then pulled my hand back like it had burned me. The fabric still held the shape of Isabella's body, the curves I could never fill. My fingers trembled as I traced the air around it, not quite daring to make contact.

"Elena, what are you still doing? Please hurry up!" My mother's voice cracked through the door. "People are getting impatient." 

I looked at myself in the mirror, feeling like I was drowning in white silk that had been made for someone else.  Someone more daring.  Someone who didn't leave her husband on their wedding night.  The bodice gaped where Isabella's chest had fit it precisely.  The hemline flowed over my feet like spilt milk. It was too long and too everything.  I looked like a little girl who was playing dress-up in her mom's clothes. 

I was shaking as I tried to pin the extra fabric, and I accidentally pricked my finger with the safety pin.  A drop of blood appeared, brilliant crimson against the clean white.  How appropriate.  The clothing was even turning me down. 

"I can't do this," I said to the mirror. I could see my lips moving, but I could not recognise the pale, scared girl looking back at me. 

Without warning, the door flew open.  Mother looked like she was about to lose it, and her usually immaculate makeup was smudged at the corners.  I'd never seen her look that weak and fragile before. 

"You *will* do this."  Her fingers pressed into my shoulders, leaving scratches on the lace that were easy to see.  "The Castellanos name depends on it"

"But Adrian..." 

Before I could say anything, she cut me shut

"Adrian, what, huh?  He's already been embarrassed enough.  Do you want everyone in the city to talk about how useless Castellanos' daughters are? " I flinched at her words.

I could hear the soft voices of visitors who had quickly assembled in our yard through the thin walls.  The same people who came to Isabella's wedding yesterday.  The same guests who had whispered when she disappeared before daybreak. 

"He'll hate me," I muttered.

"He hates us already."  My mother's hands shook as she fixed my veil.  "At least this way, he'll have a wife." 

It felt like a shroud when I put on Isabella's veil. 

I could hear Father's loud voice trying to sound happy from below, but I could tell he was upset.  The Morettis were strong.  If we crossed them, our family business would fail. 

"Elena."  A deeper voice called my name.  I knew exactly who it was.

I caught my breath when Adrian stood in the doorway.  He was still devastating, even if his shirt was wrinkled and he had a day-old stubble.  Dark hair fell across his forehead, and his eyes were the colour of storm clouds.  I had been watching him from a distance for years, as my sister's boyfriend, then fiancé, and finally, husband.

He was now staring at me like I was a problem that needed to be fixed.  "Are you ready?"  His speech was perfectly bland, but I could see his jaw muscle jerk.

"Adrian, I..." 

"Just give me an answer."

Mom pinched my shoulder so firmly that it hurt.  "She's ready." 

He looked at me for a long time, moving his eyes from the bodice that was too loose to the hemline that was dragging on the floor.  "You look..."  He stopped and shook his head.  "Let's get this done." 

I saw something flash in his eyes as he turned away.  Not anger, but something worse.  Suffering.  It was raw and bleeding and so deep that my knees shook. 

This was the man who had carried Isabella over the threshold the day before.  Who spun her about in the yard while she laughed like a song. Who was meant to be making love to his wife right now, not marrying her sister in a ceremony that felt more like a funeral. 

When we went outside, the garden was too silent.  The quiet was heavy, like lead on my shoulders.  People I had known my whole life were forcing grins on their faces.  We exchanged nervous glances that flew between us like birds in a cage.  The flowers even looked like they were ashamed. 

Mrs. Rossi, who lives next door, was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.  Mr. Petroni kept looking at his watch as if he had something better to do.  The priest looked like he would rather be doing final rites. 

"Dearly beloved," he began, his voice sounding like an empty church. 

I could barely hear the words.  When Adrian took my hand, all I could think about was how cold and stiff it was, like touching marble.  The same hand that had grasped Isabella's just yesterday, warm, soft, and full of hope.  It was like he was making himself touch something he didn't like. 

I was shaking so violently that I was convinced everyone could see it.  I tried to calm them down, but the shaking appeared to emanate from somewhere deeper than nerves.  Maybe from my bones.  From my soul. 

"Adrian Moretti, do you promise to love and honour Elena Castellanos as your wife?" 

A pause.  Long enough for my heart to stop beating and the universe to tilt off its axis.  Long enough for me to picture him saying no, turning around, walking away, and leaving me in my sister's outfit. 

"I do."  The words came out like gravel, as if they had been scraped bare from deep inside his chest. 

"And do you, Elena Castellanos, promise to love and honour Adrian Moretti as your husband?" 

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.  It seemed like someone was choking me with invisible hands, and my throat was completely constricted.  Everyone was gazing. Father's face was as red as a tomato, Mother's face looked like it was going to faint, and Adrian's jaw was ticking with barely controlled agitation. 

The silence was long and sticky, like chew.  I could hear someone's stomach growling.  A horn from a car far away.  My own heartbeat was pounding in my ears.  Adrian's grasp on my hand got tighter, not soft but urgent. 

"Elena."  Hearing my name on his lips sent a jolt through my whole body.  I looked him in the eye and saw something that made my stomach drop to my shoes.  Not hate—not yet.  But a coldness that hurt more than any fury could.  The kind of coldness that came from being so disappointed that it had frozen over. 

"I do."  The words came out of my mouth like stones into calm water.  I could feel the priest's relief in the air. 

"You can kiss the bride."  Adrian bent down, and for a second that seemed inconceivable, I thought,hoped,this may be real.  That he might be able to see me, Elena, instead of Isabella's pallid shadow. 

His lips barely touched mine, like the wings of a butterfly.  I could feel the tremble in his palms for less than a second.  It felt like he was pulling away from me because I had burned him, like touching me hurt him. 

It was the first time someone kissed me, and it felt like farewell. 

The crowd's applause came and went like rain on leaves, polite, necessary, and fading fast.  People walked by us like mourners at a wake, giving us awkward congratulations.  As the guests walked by us, giving fake well-wishes that no one believed, I heard bits of whispered talks that hurt like glass

"...can't believe Isabella would..." 

"...Poor Adrian..." 

"...at least Elena has always been the sensible one..." 

Sensible.  It tasted like ash in my mouth.  To them, I was sensible Elena, reliable Elena, the sister who cleaned up messes and never made a fuss.  The plan B.  The award for coming in second.  The girl who would take whatever life threw at her and be grateful. 

Adrian finally spoke after the last guest left like smoke. 

"I'll move your things to the house tonight."  His voice sounded cold and professional, distant like the moon.  "The blue room has good light if you want to keep painting." 

When someone casually brought up my painting, it hit me like a punch to the gut.  After three years of family meals and holiday get-togethers, he had seen what I did in my free time.  He had watched me closely enough to realise that I needed adequate light and that art was more than simply a hobby for me.  But hearing him admit it now, in this situation, seemed like a mean joke. 

"Adrian..." 

"Don't."  He raised his hand like he was stopping traffic, and I flinched at the sudden movement.  "Just don't.  Not today."

He walked away without looking back, his shoulders stiff from trying to keep himself together.  The garden seemed huge and desolate all of a sudden, like I was alone in a desert.  The wind had ripped flowers from their arrangements and left them on the ground, where they had wilted.  Even they couldn't survive this mockery of a celebration

I was married .  To the man I had loved in secret for years, the man who came to my dreams and made my pulse race whenever he smiled at my sister.  The man who would never view me as anything more than a pale, inadequate replacement for Isabella.  It felt like the wedding dress was made of lead instead of silk, and it was suddenly quite heavy.  I could feel Isabella's ghost in every fold, and I could almost hear her laughter ringing in the empty yard. 

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed shut.