Grief is never humble. It doesn’t care for timing or whether the victim is ready; it just kicks down the door and makes itself at home in the hollow depths of your chest. People imagine it's a harmless expression of emotions, like tears pooling on pillowcases or wilted flowers on a grave, but they’re wrong. Grief has teeth. Fangs that gnaw through life, prowling through the night like a thief, fattening on painful memories, while leaving marks on everything you loved. Grief is selfish and greedy.

The universe has a sick sense of humor, too. It’s a game that humanity has fallen victim to. You start off on easy mode, like you’re on top of the world and unshakeable. Your dreams are laid right in front of you, yet they feel just out of reach. It waits until you think you finally understand the rules, until life seems like it could go on forever, before it strikes, rearranging everything while the moon watches helplessly, like a silent prey. Unfortunately for me, I’ve always been the pawn in the universe’s cruelest games.

It started with small things. 

First, I failed my driving test twice. Not because I couldn’t parallel park, or forgot to shoulder check, I’m a skilled driver after all, but because the system crashed, right when I was about to pass. Then came the rejection letters, each driving a hole into my already fragile heart. How was this even possible? Even my scholarship application was submitted a minute past the deadline, because the Wi-Fi decided it was the best time to fluctuate. The universe threw punches in every direction of my life, laughing as I stumbled on my two feet. Hope grew to become a distant memory day by day.

On Tuesday, 17th November, the universe played a joke so brutal I couldn’t forgive it. It was like any other day, I returned home from school and began working on a History project. Nina came home early, slamming the door so hard that the picture frames jittered upon impact. She was furious. Nina didn’t get furious. She was the cool, prettier, and smarter older sister. She was everything I wasn’t.

“You told Mom about Marcus?” Nina said, her voice rising an octave.

I looked up from her homework, confused. “I didn’t tell her, Nina. I wouldn’t-”

"Right. Because you're so perfect, aren't you? Little Eva, who never breaks the rules, never disappoints anyone. You couldn't stand that I was actually living my life instead of hiding behind textbooks like you." Nina cuts off. I stared, bewildered at my older sister, sure we fought from time to time, but this time it felt real…like we were so close to our breaking point.

 I tried searching Nina’s eyes, pleading for forgiveness, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze.

"Fine," I whispered. "Go. Run back to Marcus. But don't come crying to me when it all falls apart.”

Nina nodded slowly, grabbing her keys from the counter, her hands shaking. "Don't worry. I won't." The door slammed once more, leaving me alone to recollect my thoughts. It was the last conversation we ever had.

That night, it started raining heavily, and the roads were deemed unsafe. At 4:12 a.m., my phone rang. The caller ID showed a number I didn't recognize, but something about the late hour made my stomach drop. The voice on the other end was clinical, detached, a police officer explaining that Nina's car had hydroplaned on Highway 12. That a drunk driver had run a red light. That they'd done everything they could. My world shattered into pieces so small they could never be put back together.

That's when grief moved in permanently. At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks. For weeks now, sixteen, to be exact, I've been waking up at that precise moment. Not 4:11. Not 4:13. Always 4:12, when the green numbers on my phone pierce the darkness like accusatory eyes, and my body jolts awake as if struck by lightning. It's like my internal clock broke the moment Nina's did, leaving me trapped in an endless loop of that terrible moment.

Guilt has a different appetite than grief. Where grief devours memories and leaves you hollow, guilt feeds on what-ifs and could-have-beens. It whispers poison in the spaces between heartbeats: If you hadn't fought. If you'd said you were sorry. If you'd made her stay. 

The house seems to feel it too. Our family home has become a museum of unspoken regrets, where every creak sounds like Nina's footsteps, every shadow resembles her silhouette. Mom moves through the rooms like a ghost, cleaning obsessively—scrubbing away fingerprints Nina left on door handles, washing sheets that still smell like her vanilla body spray. Dad works later and later, as if staying away long enough will make the empty chair at dinner disappear.

But Nina's absence fills every corner anyway. It lives in the way we avoid her name, in the silence that settles over us like dust, in the careful dance we do around the closed door of her bedroom.

I haven't looked in a mirror since the funeral. Can't stand to see my own face, the one that's still here while hers isn't. Every reflective surface in the house accuses me: the bathroom mirror, the black TV screen, even the surface of my untouched coffee mug. They all show the same truth: I'm alive, and she's not, and it's my fault.

Tonight, at 4:12, something different happens.

I wake to the sound of music drifting from downstairs—Nina's favourite song, the one she used to hum while doing homework. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" floats through the house like a ghost, and my breath catches in my throat.

The antique music box on the mantle, Mom's prized possession that hasn't worked in years, sits spinning its tiny ballerina in the dim light. But it's not plugged in. It doesn't have batteries.

Yet there it is, playing Nina's song at 4:12 in the morning.

My bare feet are silent on the stairs as I approach it, heart hammering against my ribs. When I lift the lid, the music stops abruptly, leaving behind a silence so complete it feels like the house is holding its breath.

That's when I hear it: the soft click of a door opening upstairs.

Nina's door.

I've been avoiding that hallway for weeks, unable to face the space where her laughter used to echo. But now, drawn by something I can't name, I climb the stairs again. The door stands ajar, just enough to reveal a slice of her room beyond.

Everything is exactly as she left it. The unmade bed with its tangle of purple sheets—her favourite colour. The desk where she used to write in that journal she never let me read. The posters of bands I pretended not to like because she loved them.

And there, on her pillow, is an envelope with my name written in her familiar handwriting.

My hands shake as I tear it open, afraid of what I might find. But Nina's words, written in blue ink on lined paper, aren't angry at all.

Eva,

If you're reading this, it means I finally worked up the courage to apologize. I was horrible to you today, and I'm sorry. I know you didn't tell Mom about Marcus. I was just scared because things are getting serious with him, and I didn't know how to handle it. I took it out on you because I knew you'd forgive me. That's the kind of person you are.

You think you're living in my shadow, but you're wrong. You've always been the stronger one. You just hide it behind all that responsibility you think you have to carry.

I love you, even when we're being terrible sisters, especially when we're being terrible sisters.

Nina

P.S. There's something else I need to tell you. Check the music box, I hid something there for your birthday next month.

The tears come then, hot and fast and overdue. Nina had written this the night she died, after our fight. She'd been planning to apologize, to make things right between us. Downstairs, I find a tiny silver key taped to the bottom of the music box. It fits into a lock I'd never noticed before, hidden in the side. Inside the secret compartment is another note, shorter this time:

You don't have to carry me with you everywhere. But don't forget me either. I love you more than all the stars in the sky. 

—N

I sink onto the couch, clutching both letters to my chest. For the first time in weeks, the weight on my shoulders feels lighter. The guilt that's been gnawing at me like a living thing finally loosens its grip. Nina forgave me before she even knew she needed to. She loved me even when we were fighting. She wanted me to be happy, to be free of the burden I've been carrying.

I place the music box on the coffee table and wind it up properly this time. The ballerina spins, and Nina's song fills the house one more time. But now it doesn't sound like a haunting; it sounds like a goodbye.

When I finally go back to bed, I don't set an alarm. For the first time in sixteen weeks, I trust that I'll wake up when I'm supposed to, not when grief and guilt demand it. The next morning, sunlight streams through my bedroom window. My phone reads 7:32 a.m. in steady, normal numbers. I've slept through the night, past 4:12, into a new day.

At my desk, I open my laptop to check my email one last time. There's a message from Coastline State College. The last application I submitted before everything fell apart. My finger hovers over the mouse. The universe has played so many cruel jokes on me that I'm almost afraid to hope. But Nina's words echo in my mind: You've always been the stronger one.

I click.

Dear Eva,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Coastline State College with a full academic scholarship...

I read the line three times before it sinks in. Accepted. Full ride. Everything I'd worked for, everything I'd lost hope of achieving. Maybe the universe does have a sick sense of humor. But maybe sometimes, if you survive its cruelest jokes long enough, it remembers how to surprise you with kindness instead.

I look up at Nina's framed photo on my desk, the one where she's laughing, caught mid-joke, completely alive. "Thank you," I whisper to her smile.

For the first time since that terrible Tuesday in November, I'm excited to see what comes next. The universe may be cruel, but I'm still playing its game.

And this time, I might actually win.