annashay 
This story is by Fernanda Gassi and was part of our 2025 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
It was the day I buried my sister.
His wife.
The love of my life’s wife.
It’s messed up, isn’t it?
I always knew my feelings for him had to stay secret. Who’s the bitch who falls in love with her brother-in-law?
Well, I am.
Turns out, in burying my sister, I discovered something big. Something he hadn’t allowed the world to discover. Like me, he had a secret, and it was the same as mine.
As I bury you in the ground and say my last goodbye
I am unearthing someone else
Am I evil? Am I evil?
I kept my promise to you, kept my vows word for word
Until death do us part
Now, I bury you, I bury you
I exhume her, I exhume her
I’m sorry I wasn’t better. I’m sorry, I wasn’t always honest
Am I evil? Am I evil?
She’s like the road
She’s the long and winding road
It makes little sense to you
Am I evil? Am I evil?
Right there, there was no mistake. His words were obvious only to me.
He called me Abbey-like-the-road, an inside joke. Abbey like Abbey Road.
He called me Abbey-the-long-and-winding-road, and I teased him. “That’s not… that doesn’t… You see? One is an album; the other is a song. I need to give you a lesson about the Beatles.”
“Fuck off!” he’d said jokingly.
We were friends. The best of them. Inseparable, thick as thieves.
He’s always been a talented musician; it annoyed the hell out of me. How was he so naturally gifted? I had spent countless hours practising. Yet I would never be as good as him.
He knew that. But humble as he was, he would never admit it to me.
But the world, ah, the world knew. The world took him in the blink of an eye, and I watched from backstage.
“Fly free, blackbird,” I’d said. “You’re too good for this silly small town. You need to spread your wings and fly.”
And he did.
He started small, at sticky pubs and small wedding receptions.
I couldn’t be more envious—
—No, scratch that. Proud. I couldn’t be prouder of my best friend. But he wasn’t only my best friend, was he? He was the love of my life. He was the man I would give my life for, if only he had asked me to.
He took the world. Or I guess the correct thing to say is ‘the world took him.” And with that, I assumed it was time for me to find another love, because mine had flown away, the entire world knew him now, and I wasn’t that good at sharing.
Now, if you think that finding another love is easy, I’ll break this to you: it is not. It’s everything but.
Because no one was Elliot, no one smelled as good, looked as good. No one else’s smile melted every cell of my body. No one else’s blue eyes were as blue as his.
But I had to try. I had to let him go, so I found the next best thing. I made sure they looked nothing alike. Johnny’s eyes were dark. His hair was straight and blonde, as opposed to Elliot’s curly, brown.
Johnny wasn’t as tall, and his smile wasn’t as perfect and white.
Johnny wasn’t as funny or talented as Elliot, but he was a good man.
And he asked me to marry him.
Elliot heard the news from my sister Penny, who, like everyone else, had the hots for him. She told him Johnny had proposed, but she failed to mention I had said no.
That night, Elliot put a baby in Penny’s belly.
They weren’t even friends, he and my sister. And they were now having a baby together?
“But she said you were getting married!” He’d told me afterwards.
Why did it matter?
“He proposed,” I’d explained. “But I said no. I guess that minor detail didn’t get to your ears.”
I didn’t feel like explaining to Elliot why I had refused to marry Johnny, and Penny didn’t need to explain to me why she had agreed to marry Elliot.
I heard he was the perfect husband, the rock star, the celebrity—Hollywood life and all that. But had he been happy with her? He didn’t look happy.
When my sister died in a car accident, Elliot called me. It was the first time we had spoken in years.
I flew back home for the funeral. I wanted to be with my niece, too.
I was staying in the guest room—one of many spare rooms in their beautiful rock-star house.
I wasn’t digging for dirt; I promise. But I found gold. I found a notebook under the bed and then, yes—I did snoop.
It had lyrics on it, several of them. Some I recognised from Elliot’s albums, but not the last one. It was called Buried Truths.
I was his buried truth, wasn’t I? Abbey-like-the-road. The long and winding road. It was all me.
I was still trying to make sense of everything when he showed up at the bedroom door.
“Everything okay?” he asked. I guess I looked disturbed.
“Elliot,” I said, showing him what I had in my hand. “Is this what I think it is?”
“I can explain,” he said casually. “But I shouldn’t have to, you know, you sneaky you.”
Oops.
But he explained. It had always been me, he said. He had been in love with me for as long as he could remember.
“So why the hell did you fuck my sister?” I asked.
“I was heartbroken,” he’d said. “I had come to your house to tell you I couldn’t stand seeing you with Johnny anymore. I was going to tell you how I felt. And then Penny told me you were engaged. She said that you were going to marry him. I felt my heart break right there, into a thousand sharp pieces. I wanted to drown my sorrows. Like an idiot, I know. But I did. She insisted I stay for another drink, and another. It rained that night, do you remember?”
I remembered. I had stayed over at Johnny’s because of the storm. That night, I had gone to his place to end things with him, right after he proposed, and I said I had to think about it.
“Anyway,” Elliot continued. “We had a few drinks, and you know me; I rarely drink. The alcohol went to my head, and I started seeing you in front of me. Why did the two of you have to look so alike?”
So there it was. His confession. He had slept with her because he was drunk, heartbroken, and when he looked at her, he saw me.
“I’m sorry I never told you the truth,” he continued. “I should have ended things with her before they even started. But I didn’t want to be that guy, you know? It was the beginning of my career. It wouldn’t look good to get a woman pregnant and then tell the world I wanted nothing to do with her, that I was in love with her sister.”
It made sense when he put it like that.
“Elliot, I love you.” It was my turn to confess. “I always have, and I’m afraid I always will. But if we couldn’t be together then, we definitely can’t be together now.”
“Can’t we?” he asked. “Because you’re my sister-in-law? Because your niece would never understand? Because your sister died? Because I’m bloody famous?”
“To name a few reasons, yes,” I chuckled, despite myself.
He walked into the room and closed the door behind him, leaning his back against it. His curly hair fell over his eyes as he looked down. He looked remorseful, and I knew him well enough to tell he was, in fact.
“What if we keep it between us for now?” He looked up and glanced at me with the purest, most hopeful eyes I’d ever seen. “Until things settle, at least? No one will think much of me not dating; I’ve just lost my wife…” He let out a soft groan. “This is so fucked up. I need the world to believe I’m a grieving widower when all I wish is to lie in bed with you and make love to you every night until the day I die.”
Are we evil? I wondered, because more than anything, I wanted that, too.
I’d never seen myself as a selfish person; in fact, I always prioritised others’ interests above my own. But no one would remember my good deeds when they heard what Elliot and I had done. Our love story was destined to fail before it even started.
I heard the song on the radio this morning.
She’s like the road
She’s the long and winding road
It makes little sense to you
Am I evil? Am I evil?
His words were obvious only to me.
