After I Died, My Brother Cried Until His Eyes Turned Red

Tristan had spent seven relentless days near the mountain, where the landslide had turned the once-familiar landscape into a graveyard of mud and rubble. At first, his expression was still full of hope, but as days passed by, the hope of finding me alive had long since faded. Despite that, Tristan didn’t want to stop—not until he found me, even if it meant recovering only my cold, lifeless body.

Every time his hands plunged into the mud, uncovering another body caked in dirt and suffocated by the weight of the earth, I could see the pain etched deeper in his expression. His mind tormented him with the thought of how I might have suffered, trapped beneath the suffocating ground, fighting for every breath until there was none left.

"Stop, Tristan. Please stop... I'm already dead..." My voice trembled, though I knew he couldn’t hear me. I reached out, trying to touch him, to soothe him, but my hand passed right through him. A bitter smile formed on my lips—how foolish of me to forget I was just a ghost now, unable to touch the living or stop Tristan from tearing himself apart in his desperate search.

Hours passed, and Tristan’s hands remained covered in dirt, his face streaked with a mixture of sweat, mud, and despair. Just when it seemed like his body would give out, his phone rang. He hesitated for a moment before accepting the call.

"Tristan, Maddy wants to see you. Can you come over?" Adrian’s voice was cold and indifferent on the other end of the line.

The moment I heard his words, I couldn’t help but clench my fists. Even now, with me buried somewhere beneath this rubble, Adrian's only concern was Madilyn.

If I hadn’t returned to the Monticello family, Tristan would have broken off his engagement with Madilyn. The Blake and Monticello families had always been close, and their engagement was an unspoken agreement arranged by their parents. Tristan, who excelled at everything, had no time to grow close to Maddy, despite their childhood friendship.

When Tristan first learned of the engagement, he had gone to the Monticello family to break it off. It was the same day I had returned home for the first time. The moment he saw me, he recognized me—not as his fiancée’s sister, but as the girl who had excelled in the city’s middle school exams. When he found out I was the rightful daughter of the Monticellos, he thought the engagement would naturally shift to me.

But I was wrong to believe my return would mean anything. Yes, I was their daughter by blood, but I was never truly one of them. They didn’t even consider changing my last name.

I remembered how, the day after I came home, Lauren had promised to take me to legally change my name. But when Madilyn fell ill with a fever, crying hysterically for her mother, Lauren abandoned our plans without hesitation. I stood in the living room, feeling small and insignificant, while Adrian passed by with a sneer.

"Serves you right," he spat. "Do you really think you deserve the Monticello name?"

Those words hadn’t hurt as much as they could have. After all, it was just a surname. I had survived worse. Life with the Smith family had been brutal—I was nothing more than a servant to them. I had barely escaped being married off to an old bachelor to pay for their son’s education. The Monticellos had saved me from that fate, and for a time, I had been grateful, even to Adrian, despite how he treated me.

But I soon realized he was as cruel as those who had raised me. The only person who had ever shown me kindness was Tristan. He visited the Monticello mansion not for Maddy, but for me. He brought me books, asked about my interests, and treated me like I mattered.

Of course, Adrian noticed. His hostility toward me grew with each visit. Unable to confront Tristan directly, he aimed all his anger at me.

"Aliyah, what are you trying to do with Tristan?" he once asked, his voice dripping with venom. "You know he’s going to marry Maddy, don’t you?"

That was the moment I learned Tristan and Maddy were engaged. At first, I had only seen him as a friend, but over time, I had fallen for him—the only person who made me feel seen. And now, I felt ashamed, like a thief, for harboring feelings for someone who wasn’t mine to love.

I tried to distance myself, but Tristan found me in the library a few days later. That was when he told me the truth—the engagement had been arranged, but not specifically for Maddy. It was just an understanding between the families, and now, with my return, everything had changed.

As Tristan’s call with Adrian ended abruptly, I heard Madilyn’s soft, tearful voice in the background. “Tristan, I don’t feel well. Can you come see me?”

“Maddy, calm down,” Adrian murmured, his voice full of the same gentle coaxing he always used with her.

And there it was again—that familiar, icy numbness spreading through me. I had been missing for days, buried beneath the earth, but Adrian’s only concern was for Madilyn, the daughter they had raised in my place.

I let out a bitter laugh as I watched Tristan shut off his phone without a word. Even now, he stayed by my side. Even when everyone else had moved on.