Courage (Lams Soulmate Au) ✔

8

Peggy POV

Maria and I partied hard on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

What? We're engaged! We can do whatever the heck we want!

So Maria was sleeping and I was sitting on the couch with my feet up, scrolling through Instagram. It's my guilty hobby. I spend way too much time on social media and Maria tells me so every day. But what am I supposed to do when I don't have my fiancée to occupy my time, huh?

I was staring at a particularly puzzling mind game when my confuzzlement was interrupted by a call from Kings Hospital. I answered the call and held it up to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Ms. Margarita Schuyler?"

"Peggy," I corrected automatically. "Sorry. It's a habit."

"Not a problem, Ms. Schuyler. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you." The cool female voice spoke with just a hint of regret.

My stomach clenched. When a hospital called you out of the blue and told you they had bad news, it was not good.

"Y-yes?" I said, my voice faltering slightly.

"You're the sister of Ms. Elizabeth Schuyler, correct?"

"Yes," I repeated, my insides beginning to feel all shaky.

"I regret to inform you that Ms. Schuyler and her fiancé, Mr. Alexander Hamilton, were involved in a car crash yesterday. Mr. Hamilton survived the crash with several broken bones, slight head trauma, and a punctured kidney. However, Ms. Schuyler had more serious injuries, and this morning she passed away in emergency surgery."

Everything was frozen. My chest wouldn't let me breathe. Finally I managed to inhale a gasp of air and choke out, "E-Eliza? P-passed away?"

"Yes, Ms. Schuyler. I'm terribly sorry and we send our condolences for your loss."

Maria must have heard my frantic gasping and the plop of never-ending tears dropping on the couch, because she emerged from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.

"Pegs?" she yawned. "What's happening?"

I hung up the phone and rushed into her arms. "E-Eliza," I sobbed.

"Oh no. What's wrong with Eliza?"

"Sh-she's gone." And I burst into tears that had no end, and I cried until there was nothing left but blankness, and I felt numb. Eliza, my sweet sister, the one who had kissed my forehead every night from the time I was a baby, the one who came after me when I ran away when I was thirteen, the one who rocked me to sleep after our mother died, was gone.

I almost would have been happy to deny it, to believe that Eliza, with her beautiful brown eyes and laughing face and sweet mouth would walk in the door any minute and whisper some inside joke to me. I just wanted her to call me sister one more time.

One last time.

Angelica POV

"Thomas?" I called.

"Yeah?" he called back from his office where he worked as a CEO of some finance company. I didn't inquire, and he didn't offer answers.